Hitting Pause
I recently used ChatGPT to estimate how much time I've spent on social media. The answer: I've given Facebook approximately 5 months, 9 days, and 14 hours* of my life.
Considering that includes both sleeping and waking hours, it probably works out to more than 10 months of actual waking time.
I am horrified and more than a little embarrassed about this, even though we all know that algorithms are stacked against us when it comes to limiting our time on social media.
Imagine being told you had 12 months left on this planet. Would you spend more than the best part of that scrolling your Facebook feed? I know, rhetorical question, right?
So I am hitting the pause button.
I have already deleted the apps from my mobile device and have experimented wiht plugins that to limit my time online in general. I am interested to push things further though and work towards deactivating at least one of the social platforms (I chose Facebook).
Maybe my that sounds a bit "all or nothing," but there you have it.
It's not all bad
To be clear, I'm not going all preachy on you here because, let's be honest, there are some positive aspects to social media and this is what makes it so challenging for me to step away.
I like seeing what my friends around the world are up to and my interest groups are generally lovely communities to be engaged with.
Used purely for those types of benefits, it really can be great. If the algorithms weren't so darn effective in luring me astray, things would be sweet.
Anyway, let's see how this experiment works out. I'll be sharing what I discover along the way - here, instead of there.
* My calculation is based on the fact that the average Facebook user in their fifties spends approximately 40 minutes per day scrolling their feed (I've had my account since April 2010).
