For this week’s Online Participation I wanted to do an experiment with my own online social networking behavior. I don’t know if I would consider myself a social media addict, but I definitely check social media several times through the day. It’s the first thing I do when I wake up. The platforms I mostly use are Facebook and Instagram. I feel like I use it to see updates from friends and sometimes find some interesting articles to read via the Huffington Post or different Facebook pages I follow. I post something myself about once every two months, mostly the occasional holiday picture or some kind of post about a new event I joined. When I look through my Facebook activity I actually saw that the thing I use Facebook for mostly is congratulating people on their birthday. I wasn’t even really aware of this behavior, but I do this at least 3 times per month. On Instagram, my posts are more regular: at least once a week. These are mostly photos of my surroundings, views over Rotterdam or other places and the occasional foodporn photo.

I decided to stop using social media for 24 hours, to see if I would miss it at all in this short amount of time and what else I could find out about my social networking behavior. I didn’t expect to miss it too much, since I am very busy studying, working and seeing friends so I shouldn’t even have the time to check social media or care about this.

What did I find out?

- It was very weird to wake up and not check any social medium. I guess I just had to get out of bed instead of laying there for 15 minutes reading through posts which would eventually lead to a hasty breakfast and rushing to university or work. Now, I actually had time to slowly start my day.

- Through the day I noticed that sometimes I just automatically tapped the Facebook or Instagram app on my phone. Right after doing that I noticed that it was “no social media day” and quit the app immediately. Apparently it has become a habit to check these platforms. I don’t even notice doing it anymore.

- When the 24 hours were over and I checked Facebook again I noticed I had missed 3 study related messages and 2 work related messages. Facebook is no longer a social medium I use to follow my friends and spend my leisure time on, no. It has become a platform that is also used for any study-related and work-related messages.

- When I checked Facebook after the 24 hours, I didn’t even really feel like I missed out on anything (except for the work- and studyrelated messages). It wasn’t like I was checking Facebook and Instagram and thinking wow I wish I would have seen this sooner. Apparently I do not even find it that interesting, but I do spend 1-2 hours per day looking at these platforms.

- In these 24 hours I might not have really been more productive, since even without social media there are enough distractions. However, when I came home after a long day of studying and working and was lying on the couch for a moment, I noticed that I didn’t know what to do now, since normally that’s when I start checking social media. How to spend time when you’re just tired and bored and don’t really want to actively do anything, but also don’t want to stare at the ceiling? I think it’s a good thing to push myself to be more creative in my activities and not just start checking social media for 30 minutes because it’s the only thing I can think of.

Since I read the Boyd (2014) chapter after I already did the experiment, I did not have any expectations related to the article. I am actually glad I didn’t, because while the experiment I didn’t really focus on any specific things I might miss, so I really just let the no-social-media-day come over me and surprise me. Boyd (2014) says that teens use social media mostly to hang out with friends and be recognized by their peers. They want to be in public and/or public, to see and/or be seen. Even though I might not be a teen anymore, I still want to compare myself with that kind of social media use. I guess I am not the person who wants to be seen all the time, since I don’t post something on Facebook that often. I do however want to follow my friends and mostly like their posts. Also, when I do something with friends “in real life” it’s very likely that a photo of that activity is posted on Facebook, so I can’t say I am not trying to be seen at all. I like sharing the fun activities I do with people I like. Boyd (2014) also says whether the platform is seen as an intimate platform to share stuff with friends, or as a more public platform to share stuff with the whole world totally depends on the use of the platform within the network. For me, Facebook is like sharing things with the whole world, since on that platform I have over 600 ‘friends’. Instagram is more intimate, since only some close friends or acquaintances use this platform. As far as the political engagement goes: before I read the Boyd (2014) chapter I wouldn’t have thought of myself as politically engaged. I am not a fan of any big party in the Netherlands. I do however support some other organizations that are politically engaged. For example “Wakker Dier” that fights for more animal rights in the food industry, Green Peace and Collective Evolution. I never thought of these things as political engagement, but more as organizations I can identify with or movements I like. I guess, according to Boyd (2014) this does express my (political) opinions and I show this via social media.

I found this experiment a lot more interesting than I would have expected beforehand. It gave me more insights in my online social networking behavior and also made me rethink this behavior. I would like to extend the experiment and not use social media for a longer amount of time, but I can only imagine the problems it would give me at work and while studying. Unfortunately, this social medium has become more than just a platform to spend my leisure time on.

Literature

Boyd, D. (2014). Searching for a Public of Their Own. In It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens (pp. 199–213). New Haven: Yale University Press.