Earlier this month, I undertook an experiment. It involved:
a. Not signing into Facebook
b. Not using my smartphone as a smartphone, i.e., using it simply as a barebones phone
for a few weeks.
Motivation
I have wondered about the impact of social media and the whole technology around interconnectedness quite a bit, specifically on the mental and the sociological aspects. My experiment was particularly focussed on these aspects, but I was also open to analyzing anything else that seemed compelling.
With the constant interconnectedness, one has to wonder how our attention span and memory is affected. Attention span because, in this e-age (yes I made up that word), our attention constantly shifts from thing to thing. We volunteer ourselves into being bombarded with information, whether or not it has any value. The tweet-a-minute mantra as I like to refer to it, brings us a constant flow of chatter. Sometimes you need to tune out of chatter. My goal was that and to assess the impact of the chatter on attention span; let me be specific: on my attention span. This is something that is bound to vary from person to person. And I also said memory, because from a purely machine perspective, our brains have got to have a finite storage capacity. If the fraction of it we use on social media and storing inconsequential day-to-day activities of people is too large, that necessarily and obviously means there is lesser space left for other (possibly more important) stuff. Unfortunately, this is a more long term type thing, so my experiment could not (and I didn't expect it to) point towards any reasonable conclusions on this.
The other motivation came from some thoughts revolving around my conversations with my husband, who has an FB account, god knows why, cause he hardly ever signs in. :) Our conversations started getting funny with me asking him "Did you see my FB update?" and "I have already shared this on FB, do you really want me to repeat it?" He used to say that he wants to define his terms with FB, use it the way and to the extent that he wanted. This motivated me further because I wanted to see what his world without the chatter was like.
With regard to not using the smartphone, it is the same thing that I said earlier- about attention span and the ability to focus. People these days are constantly playing with their phones, be it in meetings, or waiting for a bus or anything. Plus with constant sync with emails and FB, it is like you're on the grid virtually every waking moment of your life. I wanted to get off the grid a bit and see what happened. Of course, I did cold turkey, and said I will use it only as a phone, which means I won't take pictures, won't use maps, won't browse the internet, no games, no nothing.
The Subject, aka me
While I do not have a Twitter account, I do have a Facebook account, and before I proceed, I think I should define the type of user I was. I was generally quite active on Facebook. The reason I own an account is because I do like to be connected with people. I am thankful for the technology revolution that's helping me keep in touch with people that live at different corners of the globe, some friends and some family, like my cousins et al...
As for my activity, while I do not update my status to announce every detail of my daily life, I do share my life's happenings every so often. In particular, I like to share things when:
(a) they are funny
(b) I have something to say with regard to a current event or technology or my work
(c) something significant (to me) happens, like if I read a book I was blown away by or if I sold a painting, or even if I had a breakthrough at work after a few frustrating days.
I do not update my status when I am traveling and I do not 'checkin' at places. I generally like to be completely absorbed in a time/place, especially when I'm out somewhere, and this is just a personal preference.
Other than this, I do post many pictures, when I am back from traveling. I do post pictures of my paintings, and I do post lots of links to stuff like TED talks, etc. whenever I see something that is too compelling to not share.
Other than this, I do post many pictures, when I am back from traveling. I do post pictures of my paintings, and I do post lots of links to stuff like TED talks, etc. whenever I see something that is too compelling to not share.
When I was relatively new and hadn't quite defined my interface with FB yet, I used to play quizzes just to beguile myself, but now that is long gone.
Execution & Experience
I set out with the plan of being off the hook for a month's time. Initially, I debated this with myself. A month? Really? A month, without FB, without my phone camera? But I was serious about my experiment, and in the course of one's lifetime, a month spent experimenting on something was a very short time, and also completely worth it. So I decided on a month.
Who knew about the experiment? Well, I made sure that I was accessible through alternate means to people I am close to (chat/email/phone), but didn't really announce the experiment. But three people knew about it besides me- my husband, my sister and a close friend I happened to be heavily in touch with at that timeframe.
My first 1-2 days were funny. I was worried I'd forget about my experiment! For e.g., whenever I took a break at work I'd sign into Facebook. What if this was kinda like an automatic thing? And definitely the muscle memory is there, and very effective too- alt-tab to switch from Visual Studio to my browser, ctrl-t to open a new tab, type "fa" and facebook is in the dropdown, and then I'm signed in! But luckily this didn't happen. I managed to remind myself. :-)
After spending the initial 1-2 days that way, with the excitement of trying something, I wondered whether I'd start missing it all badly.... But to my surprise, I found that whenever I was gamefully employed, I didn't care at all, but when I was looking for things to do and was blocked on something at work, for instance, it was hard to occupy myself. Now that I had that time to myself, I wondered what a useful way to spend it would be. I ended up writing, reading other blogs, thinking, reading the news etc. And a very surprising thing happened- I started to feel a sudden tranquility. Yes, it's tranquility. Tranquility is different from peace. It is possible to live peacefully in the midst of chatter, but harder to live with tranquility and chatter at the same time (kinda like an oxymoron). Thankfully, it crushed all my anxiety about attention span issues.
I also realized that a lot of times, we use services just because they are there, readily available. May be monetizing them would change things; I mean, I bet it would. What I mean by using them just because they are there is this- there are a lot of people I really care about. But you don't get to know about their most important life-changing events first through Facebook anyway, if they are people close enough to you. To that end, you don't use these services to make sure the people you care about are ok, but rather, to share your life and entertain yourself, to share in others' lives just to be connected, and a lot of times you use it (I'll say it again), just because it is there. Also, what is strange is that these tools fuel people's curiosity about each other. In today's world of instant gratification, there is instant gratification not just for comforts, needs and wants, but also for curiosty.
While the tranquility was almost addictive, in a few days' time I started to wonder whether this would affect my relationships- what if someone posted something really important and I didn't acknowledge it? Would they be mad at me? Would they be hurt? And all those kinda socially sensitive questions worried me a bit, but I told myself that they would eventually get to know about the experiment and then understand...
Luckily, I didn't get any posts on my wall or any messages, or anything else that would notify me by email, or it would have probably been harder. I had decided that if this happened, I would respond immediately only if it was something super important, and otherwise respond after a month's time. The fact that I got no such notifications was something interesting and important to note. I realized that in general, every actor initiates a ripple of activity around them. Remove the actor, and there is no ripple in that actor's space, or very few ripples. Well, I guess if it's really long, people tend to message you/write on your wall. It's happened in the past with Orkut, but this was only a matter of a few days...
I was quite convinced about my conclusions after 11 days, and on the 12th day, I was discussing my findings with my husband and then I decided that it was conclusive enough to stop the experiment, which he agreed with. Now why did I end it in 11 days when there was tranquility and no need to get back on the hook when I had earlier decided on doing it for a month? There were obviously reasons:
1. I seemed to be satisfied with the conclusions I could draw and going on for another two weeks wouldn't really make a difference.
2. I heard about the news of one of my cousins, a young woman, with two young children, passing away and it hurt me very deeply. I spent many nights with disturbed sleep and many days kinda reclusive and sad. This happened around the same time I had heard of other sad news, and all in all, it was a hard phase. After about 3-4 days of that, I couldn't take the silence any longer. I simply had to intervene to lighten myself up. So I decided to sign into Facebook, hoping to distract myself. I realize that some of you are going to find this unconvincing or 'weak', but heck, it was my experiment, and I was quite set on the conclusions. The goal was not to see if I could do it for a month but to see what came out of tuning out.
3. Another reason was what I mentioned above- what if I didn't react to something? I realized that likening the experiment to not having a FB account at all was flawed, because in the latter case your friends would know that you're not on FB.
4. I submitted my travelogue to a contest. It's not as if I was hell bent on winning it or anything (I still don't think I stand a tremendous chance, and won't be greatly disappointed if I don't win), but I really wanted to share it with people, and I thought why not do it during the contest period. That way it might count - I say 'might' because the rules aren't clear. :-) I am generally quite unabashed about the fact that I want to share thought, art, and anything creative. I realize that this can be viewed as hunger for approval, but in my book, the only right thing to do is to share these things, because these are the reason the human spirit lives, and shines. One does not have to imagine that they are Salman Rushdie or Picasso. In fact, it is imperative to understand exactly where one stands, but that should not preclude sharing, I think, because it is a great way to enjoy the experience, and also get better.
Anyway, once I signed in and got back on the grid, I found that indeed there was one post (someone's pictures from an event) that I would have liked to view, and share in the joy of their occassion, but other than this, I realized I hadn't missed anything so great that I'd regret later.
As for my phone, actually the only thing I probably missed was taking pictures. I'd have missed mapping if I'd needed it but the need never arose. As for FB and email sync, I still don't use my phone that often for FB. I found that not looking down at my phone a lot helped my neck (no kidding)! And my email sync is still turned off, except occassionally when I turn it on, on an as-needed basis.
Conclusions
1. And the most important: Tuning out of chatter can have a tremendously tranquilizing effect. It's good when you know where your comfort point is and balance your activity based on that, instead of using tools of technology just because they're there.
2. That said, social media are great to share useful information, creative work, or to market yourself; i.e., your company, your skills, etc. and it is good to make use of them because today they are the most effective medium whenever it comes to reaching out to a broad range of people.
3. Generally, when you unhook an actor from the grid, the ripples around the actor's space wane away. The upshot of this is that once you are accepted as a very infrequent user, there is no social problem with people's expectations about connectedness, and neither do you lose out on something absolutely important in the lives of those close to you. What you lose out on is perhaps some useful information whenever people share something, or fun at times, just because you're absent from conversations. Again, the idea is to balance this based on your comfort point.
4. Staying connected can sometimes lighten you up when you're going through something hard. I'd not risk being a recluse.
While the tranquility was almost addictive, in a few days' time I started to wonder whether this would affect my relationships- what if someone posted something really important and I didn't acknowledge it? Would they be mad at me? Would they be hurt? And all those kinda socially sensitive questions worried me a bit, but I told myself that they would eventually get to know about the experiment and then understand...
Luckily, I didn't get any posts on my wall or any messages, or anything else that would notify me by email, or it would have probably been harder. I had decided that if this happened, I would respond immediately only if it was something super important, and otherwise respond after a month's time. The fact that I got no such notifications was something interesting and important to note. I realized that in general, every actor initiates a ripple of activity around them. Remove the actor, and there is no ripple in that actor's space, or very few ripples. Well, I guess if it's really long, people tend to message you/write on your wall. It's happened in the past with Orkut, but this was only a matter of a few days...
I was quite convinced about my conclusions after 11 days, and on the 12th day, I was discussing my findings with my husband and then I decided that it was conclusive enough to stop the experiment, which he agreed with. Now why did I end it in 11 days when there was tranquility and no need to get back on the hook when I had earlier decided on doing it for a month? There were obviously reasons:
1. I seemed to be satisfied with the conclusions I could draw and going on for another two weeks wouldn't really make a difference.
2. I heard about the news of one of my cousins, a young woman, with two young children, passing away and it hurt me very deeply. I spent many nights with disturbed sleep and many days kinda reclusive and sad. This happened around the same time I had heard of other sad news, and all in all, it was a hard phase. After about 3-4 days of that, I couldn't take the silence any longer. I simply had to intervene to lighten myself up. So I decided to sign into Facebook, hoping to distract myself. I realize that some of you are going to find this unconvincing or 'weak', but heck, it was my experiment, and I was quite set on the conclusions. The goal was not to see if I could do it for a month but to see what came out of tuning out.
3. Another reason was what I mentioned above- what if I didn't react to something? I realized that likening the experiment to not having a FB account at all was flawed, because in the latter case your friends would know that you're not on FB.
4. I submitted my travelogue to a contest. It's not as if I was hell bent on winning it or anything (I still don't think I stand a tremendous chance, and won't be greatly disappointed if I don't win), but I really wanted to share it with people, and I thought why not do it during the contest period. That way it might count - I say 'might' because the rules aren't clear. :-) I am generally quite unabashed about the fact that I want to share thought, art, and anything creative. I realize that this can be viewed as hunger for approval, but in my book, the only right thing to do is to share these things, because these are the reason the human spirit lives, and shines. One does not have to imagine that they are Salman Rushdie or Picasso. In fact, it is imperative to understand exactly where one stands, but that should not preclude sharing, I think, because it is a great way to enjoy the experience, and also get better.
Anyway, once I signed in and got back on the grid, I found that indeed there was one post (someone's pictures from an event) that I would have liked to view, and share in the joy of their occassion, but other than this, I realized I hadn't missed anything so great that I'd regret later.
As for my phone, actually the only thing I probably missed was taking pictures. I'd have missed mapping if I'd needed it but the need never arose. As for FB and email sync, I still don't use my phone that often for FB. I found that not looking down at my phone a lot helped my neck (no kidding)! And my email sync is still turned off, except occassionally when I turn it on, on an as-needed basis.
Conclusions
1. And the most important: Tuning out of chatter can have a tremendously tranquilizing effect. It's good when you know where your comfort point is and balance your activity based on that, instead of using tools of technology just because they're there.
2. That said, social media are great to share useful information, creative work, or to market yourself; i.e., your company, your skills, etc. and it is good to make use of them because today they are the most effective medium whenever it comes to reaching out to a broad range of people.
3. Generally, when you unhook an actor from the grid, the ripples around the actor's space wane away. The upshot of this is that once you are accepted as a very infrequent user, there is no social problem with people's expectations about connectedness, and neither do you lose out on something absolutely important in the lives of those close to you. What you lose out on is perhaps some useful information whenever people share something, or fun at times, just because you're absent from conversations. Again, the idea is to balance this based on your comfort point.
4. Staying connected can sometimes lighten you up when you're going through something hard. I'd not risk being a recluse.
10 comments:
Awesome that you performed this experiment and shared the details so meticulously! This kind of experiment marches right up my field of study so I appreciate it more! :)
I agree with your conclusions, except on the last one. In my personal opinion, being connected over chatter, gossip/curiosity makes me more annoyed and overwhelmed than lighthearted. It seriously is a waste of time and energy, and like you, I find more tranquility and other creative means of expression if I don't indulge in them too much. Besides I find ways to keep in touch with people who matter. I prefer media such as blogs or a discussion forum that keep me entertained, connected, creative and analytic at the same time. They also provide a sense of "fruitfulness". But again, it revolves around one's point of comfort as you pointed out.
I've wondered about the attention-span too - in the sense that I suspect people are SO used to information bombardment that they become fidgety without "too much" happening. Multitasking is starting to become a core trait that has started dominating even other areas devoid of much technology - such as in the kitchen. Nobody can be a serial processor anymore, because we are so used to dividing our attention between multiple things/thoughts/tasks!:). Or even at social-settings - a party is boring if there isn't too many things going on at the same time :). It makes me wonder if we are heading towards breadth more than depth.
And regarding memory, *technically* we are supposed to have the ability to commit "infinite" amounts of information to our Long term memory (LTM). Since we have evolved to always parse through zillions of data points from the environment and process only the *important* or *needed* ones, such as identifying a crouching tiger, I think we're not facing too much of a threat in terms of memory. The other reason is, scanning through light-hearted chatter is not the same as consciously trying to *store* info in LTM. But in an academic/professional setting, our need to stay on top of things is so high, and the volume of information that constantly needs to be updated, revised, and stored within short periods of time is definitely a challenge on our semantic networks. And no wonder people are absent-minded in their early years now!
PS: And very sorry about your cousin!
hey Neeraja, thank you...
Wrt memory: I should've qualified it. I was in fact referring to short term memory, the kinda memoryou you use day to day for your work, running errands, etc.What I meant by its effects being palpable only in the long term is- just by experimenting for a month, there is a very slight chance that I will notice that I am suddenly forgetting fewer things like buying milk on the way back home... You put it as 'absent-mindedness' and that is perhaps more apt. I don't know if it is an issue of short term memory or just absent-mindedness, but that's the kinda thing I was referring to...
This is so familiar!! Love the thoughtful and detailed analysis. :) I have tried similar experiments in the past and felt the same tranquility and clarity of thought you mention. And at the same time, I think it helps to lighten moods and stay 'connected', to a certain extent.
As a fairly introverted person who likes communication and technology, I have mixed feelings about social media. It takes a conscious effort for me to use FB and Twitter at all, but at the same time they are becoming integrated with our lives to the extent that it can be quite challenging maintaining some relationships without them. I think social media can mean many different things to different people :)
@SecondSight: True (about social media redefining things). I do hope though, that relationships don't depend solely on social media to sustain themselves. Human bonding ought to be stronger than that... Or perhaps that happens to such relationships which wouldn't exist anyway in the absence of social media...
thanks for stopping by :)
@Neeraja: BTW, What is your field of study, if you don't mind my asking? Sociological impact of technology or something?
Or cognitive science and computation? :)
Sumi, I was referring to more professional relationships. I like the convenience of LinkedIn and befriending acquaintances from work/ work-related social events, without the tedium of composing polite emails ;). I tend to use these websites as organizers to keep contact information conveniently on hand ;)
ah I see, gotcha...
Sumi, you got close ;). It is Cognitive Engineering/Human Factors, but my current focus is on HCI.
Regarding memory, I see what you're saying. Short-term memory is also known as "working memory" and it is definitely limited (we can store only 7+-2 chunks of info :)). Working memory and attention are also quite interconnected, so if we fail to "attend" to something, we end up losing that info from our brain's working space, resulting in absent-mindedness or car accidents!
Very interesting. The first thing I thought was: I wish I had the conviction to do this even for a day- for no particular reason, just for the heck of it- to see if I'm capable. I must admit I'm a kind of addicted to the "chatter" as you call it, and thanks to which my attention span has indeed gone to dogs- that's something that terribly needs to be fixed. I should probably try doing what you did to see if it has gives me the feeling of "tranquility" too- which makes the experiment seem worth it.
Anyway, your 2nd and 4th conclusions seem very agreeable, but I'm not too sure about the 1st and 3rd.
While I can't comment much on the "tranquility" part without trying, I think a LOT of technology is used today "just because it's there", but this fact doesn't necessarily belittle the service/ product. Over time, what was originally used "just because it was there" becomes a kind of a necessity. To me, FB has become like that. Let me explain: you say life-changing events don't reach you through FB anyway- I don't agree entirely. I don't see the idea of "life-changing" as binary- as something that either applies to an event or doesn't apply: I can imagine varying degrees of it. And the extent to which something is life-changing really depends on the user. (You probably were talking of just yourself, but at least that part, it seemed like you were generalizing) Hypothetically, if I'm subscribed to a network/ organization's page (i.e. I "like" them and therefore get their news feed) and they make an announcement about some big event (say a conference) of which I'd really, really like to be a part. I'd be missing out a great deal if I didn't come to know of it! (On a related note: you only seem to have considered the "friends" part of being on FB and not other aspects such as "liking" "pages"- nevertheless, what I said could apply to friends too- may be some friend posts this important announcement... it needn't always be the case that they take the pains to write you a personal email about it) I think this is one aspect with respect to which FB scores over mailing lists/ any email communication: the reach is much wider. A lot of people use FB for important professional communication (usually non-academic; and the one I'm most familiar is music since I have a bunch of professional musicians on my friends list).
On a different but probably related note, personally, while sometimes I post stuff for a general, wide consumption, at other times I post stuff which I'd really like some specific people to see. I would be a little unhappy if they didn't acknowledge it. And for this very reason, I wish some of my friends (with whom I'm also not in touch through other means) who're not on FB were on FB! But like you say, if we "accept" them as infrequent users, it's easier, but with certain people it's hard to develop that acceptance.
Anyway, bottom line as you say is to achieve that balance, so probably much of what I've said above is redundant. But I guess I just meant to say that I probably see more value and merit in using FB than you do.
All that said, I was very tempted to post on your wall during your experiment (probably something provocative/ naughty, just to grab your attention :P) so you'd get an email update and be tempted to log in ;) But all the respect I had for your experiment prevented me from doing that :) But may be you should know that I did "miss" you.
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