So what did you do for 6 hours?
6 hours of no Social Media. Fun? No? Life-changing? Mental health break? What did you make of it?
I didn’t realize it was happening until I read a news snippet that mentioned Facebook and the rest of the apps that we’re so addicted to, had gone down. That is after nearly (read, nearly) smacking my Internet router to death. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. I usually post, scroll through my Instagram and text friends on Whatsapp after my workday and then suddenly I was handicapped. And I realized — Woah, I have all this free time now, let me get some shit done. And I did just that.
I had artwork in progress, so that got some action. There was a personal project that my mother and I started, so I gave that a go. I made a list of things that needed to be done the next day. There was a TV show I was eyeing on Netflix, so I put that on while I was painting. I brainstormed a few ideas for articles that I could post here on Medium. Caught up on some email that I had to send to folks. And went to bed in peace.
Do you realize the things you can accomplish when you are not distracted by social media? I read articles where people finished their long-pending assignments, while some got a mini social media detox from the doomscrolling. Of course, some people solely depend on these platforms to get their business done, to talk to prospective clients, sell their products etc — and I feel their pain when such things happen. It sucks when you’re not able to get anything done.
Social media has its pros and cons. Let's agree to that. For some, it’s a way to get in touch with clients, make money, and get their job done. While for some, it’s just casual browsing (which turns to neverending scrolling), catching up with friends and family or a way to get inspiration. The outage came as a rude interruption for some of us, and a welcome break for the other few. And with that also came a few lessons that hopefully we can put to action even if there is no outage (yeah?).
Lesson number 1 — When there are no distractions, we can get things done. Without those constant notification pings, the need to get a post up, the neverending scrolling — you can focus on yourself and do whatever that has been long pending on your list, go out for a walk, work on that course you have been procrastinating on doing or just relax and get a good night’s sleep.
Lesson number 2 — These outages can happen again. Who knows? So instead of being dependent on them, maybe spread your business to other platforms? Yes, again, everything is delicate, but if your work is spread out across multiple platforms, you will always have something, if any one of them fails. Use Pinterest to showcase your work if you are a creative — artist, designer, painter, baker etc. Use LinkedIn to maintain your professional contacts, build your website/use Dribbble as a portfolio if you are in the digital design space, use MailChimp or any other marketing platform to make and send newsletters to your followers etc … As you can see, there are multiple places on the Internet where you can make stuff happen. Do it today. So you’ll always be prepared no matter what.
But we’re already back at it, right? The endless scrolling and the constant need to check our phone when there is a notification. Sigh. And this outage will be long forgotten. Until the next one comes.
So what will be your plans for the next 6-hour outage?
