I am writing this blog post, sitting on my sofa at home. On my lap I have my laptop, next to me lays my phone and in the background the TV is playing a random show on Netflix. Since half an hour or so I haven’t written anything new for this post, because I am not completely focused on anything. While I scroll through my Instagram, not really paying attention to the pictures on there but just to get rid of the annoying circles around the Instagram stories, I listen to the sounds of the TV but everything just goes in one ear and out the other. I am constantly exposed to the digital.
I feel like we spend every minute of our days in the digital world, voluntarily or involuntarily, it doesn’t matter. We are surrounded and influenced by digital technologies in almost every sector of society, so I was asking myself: What would a world look like without any digital technologies or devices?
Where does the digital influence us?
Everywhere.
Digital technologies surrounds us every second in our days, even there where we cannot see them. They can be found in for example the health sector as AI-enabled frontier technologies are helping to save lives, diagnose diseases and extend life expectancy or in education in form of virtual learning environments and distance learning. Also in public services digital technologies help these services becoming more accessible and accountable through blockchain-powered systems, and less bureaucratically burdensome as a result of AI assistance. Big data can also support more responsive and accurate policies and programmes. And all of this is most likely not even a tenth of what is influenced and developed through digital technologies.
Originally, this was supposed to be a post about life without any digital devices at all. However, as we all can agree I think, this is more a type of topic for going over the 1000 word count limit. Hence, I will focus on how social media influences our daily lives and what it might look like if all of a sudden the social media world would disappear.
A lifetime on social media
This morning I got the ‘screen time’ notification from my phone and I was quite shocked when I saw how much time I spend on it. It really didn’t feel like I spend so much time on my phone but when I look back at it it’s true. I catch myself looking on my screen at least every 15 minutes and all this added up during the whole day leads to this immense screen time: 4 hours and 24 minutes a day. WHAT? 4 HOURS AND 24 MINUTES A DAY!!!
This is not okay.
4 hours and 24 minutes per day is 135h a month, 1.620h a year. Let’s say I started using my phone around the age of 13, then my screen time would theoretically be 76.140h when I turn 70. With 4h24min a day this results in 3172.5 days or 8.69178082 years (if I calculated it correctly of course).
And this is only on my phone. Mostly social media.
According to the WHO, the average person will spend about 6 years and 8 months on social media in their lifetime based on the projections for social media use in 2020. This is of course not exactly true, since some people start using social media later than others and this statistic was calculated, assuming the average person will have a lifespan of 72 years.
When breaking down these numbers, a persons individual social media use could look like this:
What would happen if the internet and social media disappeared?
Imagine, from tomorrow on there would be no more social media. Nowhere, and it also won’t ever come back. What would happen?
Naturally, everyone would start wondering why Facebook, Instagram and all the other big players disappeared and what to do when they can’t access their favorite apps and websites. Remember when Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp were down? We were is a state of confusion, frustration and helplessness when these Meta technologies weren’t accessible for less that a day. Now, if we take away all the other social networks, we would be flooded with world wide complaints, panic, chaos, maybe also aggression. Besides this wave of frustration, without social media, people would call each other more often since messenger apps would not exist anymore. This ultimately results in growing interactions in general as people start talking more with each other instead of just texting a quick message or writing an email. Who knows, maybe we would write letters again? Eventually they start meeting up with each other in person, going outside, having fun in real life and not only online. In addition to this, we would gain more interpersonal skills again, probably read more books and generally spend more time in our environment which can result in the increase of our physical and mental health. Old fashioned things and activities would be more prominent again as well.
On the other hand, everything becomes slower and less accessible. For instance, online classes would not be possible anymore. And specifically in this time we are dependent on reliable internet connection and online studying. Without social media or the internet, no online research and online communication at all would be possible. This loss of communication is fatal in todays society. Also, many jobs connected to the internet and social media would fall away, leaving millions of people unemployed. Think of all the people who make money being youtubers or influencers or the social media managers of big firms.
There are definitely way more changes that would happen once social media and the internet disappeared and this is just a sort of brainstorming from my side, thinking about how much digital equipment I rely on each day.
Your screen time
I know it is not possible to go without digital technologies anymore today, but it might be nice to cut down on some unnecessary technological inventions that you personally really don’t need. Maybe think for yourself, if the internet was gone now, what would you miss? How much time do you spend online and what do you really do when you’re online? What would affect you immediately and what could you technically leave behind? Maybe living a little less online isn’t even that bad, right?
Sources:
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/can-we-live-without-digital-technology-20070521-gdq6kr.html
https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/can-you-imagine-how-a-world-without-social-media-would-be/
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/a-world-without-internet/476907/
When I was twelve years old, I heard that the average person spends half a year of their life sitting on the toilet. I was pretty shocked because I realised that sleeping, for example, takes up much more time than a visit to the loo, so I deduced that half a life is probably spent sleeping. I started adding up the various times needed to perform necessary activites or chores (just as you have in your blog) only to realise that we “live” (minus all the chores, necessities and similar) for such a short time. Precisely because of that, I admit that I’m on the fence about this iPhone feature which indicates to you how much time you pass staring at the screen during a week. I do not want to be reminded of how much time I waste. So, approximately two weeks ago, I decided to take break from Instagram and Facebook and I observed a change which aligns exactly with your assumptions: I have started reading more books, I am more keen on going outside and my concentration has improved drastically.
Nonetheless, do not forget that in your 4 hours of screen time also a lot of productive activities are included: listening to music, reading the news, following a recipe, Facetiming with your family who lives abroad etc. However, I see your point – it is hard to detach yourself for a while, social media is very addictive. I feel like I am missing out on a lot of events or thoughts my friends are going to or having and sharing online. But I hope that once I’m back, I’ll be disciplined enough to cut my time down. Have you every gotten a little break from Instagram and the sorts? How did you like it, what changed when you got back?
I personally feel like I have been more and more In control of the time I spend on social media. I used to do it for hours and hours a day, not feeling any guilt or so. Though, even if I could decrease my screen time over the years, am I addicted to social media? It is a good question to ask myself. To be honest, I realized that lately, I have been getting bored of social media. The content became super repetitive, and I do not find the humor to entertain me anymore. But at the same time, it is still my escape space. If I’m waiting somewhere, I look at my phone to not to have anxiety. Another point of view is that I have friends all over the world, and social media is one of the ways I can keep in contact with them and be updated about their lives even though we don’t text daily. I have had a lot of thoughts of doing an experiment and using a Nokia 3310 for a week or more, but the idea of not being able to keep in contact with them has held me back. Eventually, I am still putting effort in being more and more independent from social media. I turned off the notifications of certain apps, and I put screen time. Even though I don’t stay in the time limit, the fact that it warns me every 15 minutes helps me to understand the amount of time I have spent there.