Staying Connected or Disconnecting?

There's been so much talk lately about turning off, or at the very least, reducing our time on social media that it's got me thinking about the time I spend online, or on-phone; what I'm doing and what I cold be doing if I wasn't online.

This one has been doing the rounds on Facebook. It's emotionally brilliant, pulling at our heart strings, making us wonder what are we missing out on? Do we care? What did we do with out technological support every minute of every day?

“This media we call social is anything but, when we open our computers and it’s our doors we shut”… Click here and find out what we're talking about. 

It suggests that because we have our noses in our phones or laptops ALL THE TIME we are missing out on what's going on right in front of us. Maybe that's true. Maybe I've been guilty of it at times but are we as bad as the video makes out? Is it an age thing?

I genuinely believe I use social media to my full advantage. I love having an app on my phone for maps (means finding my way around a new city easy), or dining out, or music. One thing to replace the job of several.

On Facebook, I participate in several groups ranging from a book group, to a photo club, Ikebana groups and the IWCD. Some are public groups where anyone can join and share, while others are closed which means they are invitational only. It's a brilliant, easy way to stay connected with friends who share your interests, or make new ones you'll probably never meet but their passion inspires you.

I tried Pinterest but found it too hard going, while others love it to bits.

LOVE my blogging buddies! A whole new world has opened up for me as an individual and a blogger. How I yearn for thousands of followers worldwide, with numerous comments attached to each blog.

The worst thing I did was add Skype, Facebook and emails to my iPhone. It meant I was always contactable. I didn't like it at first, but like most things, I have no idea how I ever managed without it before. A few friends still live without a mobile (how do they manage?), and MrsP admitted to using her phone as that, a phone. No FB, Skype or emails will be received by her unless she is online - and she's self employed! So what the hell am I doing?????????????????

The first thing I do in the morning is check to see what everyone's been up to while I've been asleep. You see, living in Ireland, with friends in Australia and S E Asia, our time zones aren't conducive to real time conversations, so this is the next best thing. But I'm starting to think, do I have to start my mornings in this way? What would happen if I waited til 9am or even later to find out?

Last year, I consciously decided to leave my phone next to my bed in the morning and not have it with me while making breakfast and school lunches. It was also left in my bag between the time MissM came home from school and the end of homework, so I could focus on her.

Having Skype on my phone is brilliant as MissM and I can call her cousins in Sydney while we drive to school and know we've a good chance of catching them. It's a quick call, a simple HELLO, what's new kinda newsy conversation and is good for the soul. If we waited for the right window of time to benefit everyone, someone has to stay up very late!

Like all technology, emails, texts, voice messages etc can be ignored .... and are, sometimes.

G often referred to FB as Divorce Book until a few months ago, when desperate for more lives on Candy Crush he joined FB and has become an expert in posting comments and threads, LIKING pages, and posting pics of 'stuff'.

I play SCRAMBLE and WORDS WITH FRIENDS with friends in Sydney, Winchester, Tokyo and more recently G, who's either at work, or next to me on the couch.

It's time consuming, and does take me away from where I'm at, but I'm WITH friends, they just aren't with me! When the time zones work in our favor, and we are online at the same time, we chat via messages which is great fun.

Am I ignoring the people I am with? Yes, but not for long. It's no different to taking a phone call, or going out for a few hours, is it?

Another emotive suggestion going around social media is this one

G and I always have our phones with us - I've no idea why I do as I'm not on-call; and with his new role, he's not anymore. Obviously, if MissM's home with a sitter, we have them with us, but do we really need them on the table when the 3 of us are together?

We went for dinner on Saturday night and for 'fun', we didn't pull out our phones. We still chatted as usual, had quiet moments when no one spoke, ate and had a nice night out. We actually don't play games on our phones when we're out'n'about. But they are present.

We've lived thru periods of time when G's phone has rung and he's answered it, interrupting dinner, a movie, he even missed touring the Book of Kells due to a business call he HAD to take.

His role has changed, and this doesn't happen (as often) anymore.

My phone is always with me - in my bag, or in my back pocket, in my hand, or next to me. It's always charged, ready to go  ............... why????????????????

I think my fear is of being uncontactable by family in Sydney if anything happens and we need to be contacted. Imagine, if there's an accident, or worse and they can't contact me/us for hours? They are stressed, we are unknowing.

I guess living in Japan for three years, with earthquakes being a constant threat also meant you needed to be immediately contactable (which in hindsight is silly as all communication stops in natural disasters).

Maybe I'll disconnect just a little bit, it'll probably do me the world of good.

Staying connected is very important, does it really matter HOW we do it?

With friendship
x

And One More Thing While We're on the Subject ..........

How many social media accounts do you have?

How many do you interact with regularly?

I'm on Facebook, dabble with Linkedin (tho I'm not sure why as my corporate days are long behind me). Tried PinInterest but lost interest, occasionally check out Twitter but can't be bothered tweeting (but never say never), I might have an account on Google + (not sure) and of course follow blogs, and write this.

As Facebook is my chosen vice, and e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e is on FB, I often LIKE pages so I can be up-to-date with what's going on, plus friends share and like all manner of pages which feed onto my page, so I get to see what their interests are, and more often than not, I also click LIKE so i can follow the pages independently.

PHEW!

You probably do the same, right?

I just looked at my profile page on FB and was shocked to see I've 323 LIKES attached to my FB profile page. When I'm done here, I'm going to go thru them all and reduce it.


My feed currently includes in the MEDIA Category:
CNN, Huffington Post, International Herald Tribune, Irish Times, The Guardian, Channel 9 (Sydney),

SPECIAL INTEREST Category:
Special Needs Parents Association Ireland (my dear friend MrsD is the Chairperson); Peter Walsh, Bam's Kitchen, Ikebana Friends, Ikebana Passion and and and and


My favourite blogs are listed to the right of here, so you can easily click on the links and see if you like them too.

Being a sticky beak, having time on my hands, and a need to assimilate into our new city quickly, all these links are very important to me. However, the quality coming out of some of them is non existent.

The interesting thing that's happened over the months is that when you follow something/someone, you feel required to have an opinion. After all, information IN results in a change, be it positive or negative, but a change none the less of what we originally thought.

We've fed our brain and our emotions 'something' and they respond.

The way to respond on social media is to comment.

WOW does that often open a mine field!

I've been abused by people I don't know and will never know; I've had total strangers agree with me; I've written stuff, then deleted it not wanting to 'get involved' I've even had one friend A FRIEND of 30 years accuse me, in an email that i was a 'bored housewife' in relation to a comment I made.

Here I am blogging, desperate for feedback from you, my lovely chatters, and while a few of you prefer to email me, and one or two do comment below, it's just nice to be able to share stuff.

Matt Walsh is a new blogger I found thru a friend on FB. He pulls no punches, and receives his fare share of comments from all types of people. Some people are down right rude - I wonder if they are that angry and rude in real life, or do they hide behind their keyboards? Don't worry, Matt definitely gives as good as he gets.

On Sunday last, Brendan O'Connor wrote it the Sunday Independent about The Week We Overdosed on Outrage. 

It got me thinking, am I suffering from this?

Does everything have to have an opinion?
Can we not read something and move on?
Does the media only focus on bad news stories deliberately?

Most of us are appalled and embarrassed with several environmental decisions the Australian Government have made in relation to dredging on the Great Barrier Reef, the annual dolphin cull by Japan has the world up in arms, the mistreatment of women the world over, millionaires going on safari in Africa and hunting animals because they can; the fallout from Fukishima the list goes on......

We read about them, we talk about them, we write about them on Social Media and subconsciously wait for the next round.

We've seen people power change things; paradigms shift; we learn from mistakes.

I've gone from hitting the LIKE button on FB a few too many times, having my home page overflow with news items I'm not really interested in (if it was in traditional newspaper form, the headline wouldn't grab me) to commenting on all sorts of things I never knew I had an opinion about to now - feeling completely overwhelmed.

The result of this apparent apoplexy is that people will stop feeling, stop caring. They will burn out, and with that, change will come slower in areas it's needed to be sped up; we'll become number to the horrid images of war, apparently a male suicide bomber isn't nearly as shocking anymore as a female one.

The madness of 24/7 media, and the (sad) drop in journalist integrity and professionalism is at the heart of our combined exhaustion. There's no point looking at things thru rose coloured glasses, but there is so many incredibly magnificent, creative, clever, funny, thoughtful, resourceful, entrepreneurial, caring, intelligent people doing amazing things why aren't these reported with the same gusto?

People power is vitally important as we know from history it can change things.

We mustn't stop commenting and having opinions, but what must stop is the rudeness.

And I must reduce the number of feeds I get on my FB page, along with the need to add One More Thing While We're On the Subject.

With friendship
x