26 Sep Isn’t it time to just have Facebook friends who interest you?
How would you feel if we asked you to attend a football match between two teams you don’t want to see and worse than that you don’t even like the sport?
To add to that, what if we made you do it every day and each time the result was 0-0?
Can you imagine anything equal to such a frustrating waste of time?
Well there is one – it’s called Social Media!
According to the GlobalWebIndex’s latest report, the average time people spend on social media a day equates to 1hr 40 minutes, which is roughly the length of a football match.
Added up over time it’s a hell of a lot of time to waste over your lifetime. In a five day working week, it’s the equivalent of another day’s work. More scarily, is that in total, it works out at over 25 days a year—which is most people’s annual leave entitlement.
Facebook, of course is the worst culprit for this waste of time. Whilst Twitter, Instagram etc all plays a part – they are dwarfed in usage by the F-word.
According to a recent article by The Guardian newspaper, who questioned their young readers about whether they’d quit social media and why, overwhelmingly they reported feeling happier for ditching Facebook and it’s easy to understand why.
After all, if you’ve got 300 Facebook friends and it’s a wet Monday in November, and you’ve just missed the bus, seeing a number of these contacts posting photos of glamorous holidays, eating at swanky restaurants, and boasting that little Jenny has won a dancing competition, is bound to make you feel not so great about your lot.
Being PR experts, we have more of an insight into social media trends, as well as handling many a client’s social media accounts, so we see first-hand how social media habits are changing.
The masses are weary of the bragging, as well as the bitching and moaning and many are thinking of giving it all up, but it’s a bit like smoking – whether they can is another matter.
However, this mass quitting probably isn’t necessary. It’s just takes a bit of time to be a little more discerning about what you allow into your headspace.
Get rid of the bores and be more measured when posting yourself. Try not to talk to 300 people as if they’re all your close friends – after all, most of us only really have a few close friends. Really ask yourself, how many people are interested in that information you’re about to ping into cyberspace and instead deliver it only to those likely to be interested. It’s pretty much the same in our personal life as it is in our business life – be targeted and be effective.
You can use more intimate private platforms like WhatsApp, or maybe Snapchat or set up a Facebook group with the ones you want to contact at that moment with that message. Even go back to texting!
Also have a mass cull of those you really aren’t bothered about, and if unfriending them seems a bit harsh, then find out how to block people on Facebook.
After a short while, you will have a feed like ours where you appreciate what the interesting folk are sharing.
Social Media then becomes a pleasure, something that aids, uplifts and educates you, rather than a frustrating but compulsive addiction, and it also takes a lot less time.
So, let’s clear up social media and appreciate that Facebook, social media etc isn’t all bad news. It can keep people in touch, and nurture friendships. For instance, one of our team met a close childhood friend now living in Germany who he hadn’t seen for well over 20 years thanks to Facebook, so we still love it!
Remember like everything in life, social media can be a force for good as much as it can be a force for the not so good.
Social Media is here to stay, but ultimately it’s up to us all to start being a little cleverer about how to use it. Done correctly you might find you are happier, free up time to pursue other interests and who knows, even actually make time to talk to people face to face like we used to do in the good old days!
