The following is my personal testimony containing valuable information presented in a humorous light….just for you.
On January 11th, 2015, I joined a campaign for a 99 day journey away from all social media. Since I only use Facebook, I figured it wouldn't be too difficult. The idea was not mine but rather was birthed by a website of the same name. Its implementation was both liberating and intimidating. Liberating in that I got a lot of uninterrupted free time back. Intimidating in that I didn't know if I could go the distance. Can you even comprehend someone thinking this? What had I become? That little voice inside my head likes to remind me of all the people I will no longer keeping up to date with. But I remind that voice I can simply call or email them instead. Zero ads for 99 days! That alone would be worth it.
Fortunately for you I did not list each day in succession. That would be too arduous, repetitive and intensely boring. Instead, I wanted to highlight the effects and benefits that occurred at various intervals within this egregiously delayed endeavor. There are reasons why I cannot take my absence from Facebook too lightly. Oh, it's not that my presence is vitally important. Hardly. In fact, I would argue that Facebook has become more of an advertising venue than that of its originally intended social playground. And it is pretty amazing to think that anyone can use it to find family and friends from all over the world. No, the reason I originally hesitated was due to the fact that I belong to several private groups, one of which is a ministry extension of our church. The other is a private photo and communication sanctuary for our immediate family. After some thought, I reasoned that I was making excuses to avoid potential inconvenience and yes, even loneliness. How sad!
Had my life become over dependent on an elaborate social media program which I would have little hope of ever escaping? That question right there, was the impetus for my participation. Like many things in life, social media has its benefits as well as its drawbacks. There is the ever present non-offensive family photo dispersed amidst an occasional plea for your immediate attention to either a partisan news item or an unnerving social rant. Many folks use it cursorily and others use it moment by moment. The later seem to be held hostage by their smart phones, always at the beckon call of the next instant message. What is life?
If I was to participate in this event, I knew that I would have to get my social media ducks in a row, so to speak. I have to admit, the timing was perfect once I became aware of and thought through a few logistics. The holidays were behind me and I was not engaged in any particular ongoing conversation which I could not easily extricate myself from. I sent a few private messages out to selected close friends and family to inform them of my intentions and how to contact me should they desperately need me. Hopefully they would, if only to say hello. They did!
The following evening I was ready to pull the trigger. I pointed my browser to 99daysoffreedom.com and followed the simple instructions. I initiated the countdown and committed myself and my Facebook page to a 99 day journey into the unknown. It felt good, really good for the first few minutes. I got up and went to grab a drink from the fridge. The seltzer water soothed my throat as I gulped half a can to relieve my thirst. I then returned to my computer where the reality of what I had just done kicked in. I was now cut off from my modest social media empire. No messages to check. No updates to read. Nothing. It was rather unsettling at first and not exactly what I expected.
Suddenly that preverbal light at the end of the tunnel shone brightly. I unknowingly rediscovered something which had escaped me for several years now. Time. Not only time but privacy also. The burden to share selected waking thoughts for the world to see could no longer be met in a fashion which I had become accustomed. This was a good thing. I found myself with time to think and dwell on thoughts rather than simply entertain them for a few moments. It's called imagination. This was a discipline which lay dormant, put into a deep sleep by the convenience and ever attuned ear of my Facebook neighborhood. Things were about to change, one way of another, for better or for worse, for richer and poorer.
After a few days I experienced ample time to marinate in (the absence of) my social media new normal. As I expected, it had triggered an uncomfortable sense of isolation and loneliness. The goings on and whereabouts of friends all over the world remain locked up behind a password I promised not to violate. I suspected very soon I would be making strategic phone calls in order to catch up with events that were unfolding in the lives of my friends and family before I had "cut the cord".
There is a certain inconvenience to making phone calls. First, you have to remember the number. Next, you have to select an appropriate time to call. Since more and more people tend towards texting, a actual phone call might prove to be a nuisance. People are generally busy and the art of conversation has been dulled by the pleasures of instant messaging. To hear the timbre of another voice, the subtleties in their vocal expression, these are impossible to achieve with mere fragments of text scrolling unceasingly in a stream of digitized random thoughts.
The written word can easily be misunderstood and taken out of context. So also can the spoken word. Granted, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The difference between the two is that of preparation and spontaneity. The written word usually, but not always, consists of thoughts which have been processed and self corrected, to a certain extent. The spoken word can be unpredictable and is usually wildly unabridged. Once spoken, there is no re-edit. There is only further explanation....or an apology.
Finally the 99th day had arrived and I had successfully endured to the end. I logged back into my account as though it had been the first time. Frankly I was expecting a ton of missed messaged but there really weren’t that many. Perhaps they had expired? I dunno.
What follows is how I used part of my time in addition to a plethora of outdoor activities. This was originally posted to Facebook in 2015. It's a short story conceived by me entitled '24 Hours To Live' posted here: https://open.substack.com/pub/jrichardson/p/24-hours-to-live?r=1oao9o&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
You can also view the promo video here:
Thanks for reading!
Jim