spend your time like you spend your money

On a whim, I tried an experiment, I stopped checking my social media, Mastodon, for about 13 days. Why? The better question is why not?

So, how was it?

It was great. I already use social media far less than other people in my estimation. I don’t even use an app for it, so I have zero notifications for it already.

I didn’t miss it. Sometimes, I would have the itch to take a quick look and see what’s happening but I didn’t succumb. I changed that habit into checking some news using my RSS reader.

What did I do the past 13 days?

• Installed Leed (RSS reader) on Yunohost; now I can keep up to date on all my HK and Taiwan news very efficiently.
• Unfollowed all those HK/Taiwan news sources on FB so remove impetus to check that for news
• Setup NES/SNES emulator on my media server
• Fiddled with my FriendlyElec Nano Pi R1
• Read a lot more
• Blogged a lot more
• Reflected on how much time I ‘wasted’ on social media
• Was more present in my interactions with family; I never had posts I read on my mind or wondered if people had responded to me
• Lots of other little things I can’t remember…

Now I wonder, do I really even ’need’ social media?

No. I’ll still keep it around as a news source, but I certainly don’t need it in my day-to-day life.

Challenge!

• Could you go cold-turkey on social media for 10+ days?
• How did it go?
• What did you learn?