This is a beautiful beautiful article! I'm very glad you've written this and I'm very glad the experiment is going well.
I have lived for so many years without any social media and had no problem. I have twitter now, but, to be honest, I'm thinking about leaving that too.
I encourage you to to campaign for information in uni to be circulated over email. There is so much official information being shared through instagram, facebook etc and in my opinion, it doesn't really belong there. Everybody has an email account, that is not the case with these social media platforms.
I don't have a mobile phone either and I don't use twitter for my friends, so I when friends take the time to write emails to me and stay in contact even though it's not as immediate as social media, I know they really care about me and support my choices.
💓 Am impressed by anyone not having a mobile phone! Esp for maps/banking etc as it seems like such a necessity (am keeping mine for sure as it's a useful tool for living abroad without all the distractions added)
It's definitely more complicated to do some things, but I have most of what I need on my computer and I know if I had a mobile phone my tendency to inconstancy would grow exponentially. I do understand, however, that it can be a great tool when used consciously.
I think we're tricked into concluding that social media is *the* place for cultural discovery though, when that isn't necessarily the case! There are lots of intimate forums, personal blogs, independent websites etc. still floating around on the web where you can get those insights without invasive notifications and ads or infinite scroll - personally still use rateyourmusic for (lol) music recs, and it's a nice Web 1.0-style environment. Also cannot underestimate the power of nonfiction reading for discovering new things and making new connections (never predicted a Madonna biography would lead me on a quest to learn about esoteric Jewish thought and Anne Sexton... once I got into current reading habit I found that a lot of SM 'infotainment' content was actually v shallow and tenuous)
I do often think about people I knew from Tumblr but don't miss having an account, was also there for nearly a decade (had been deleting/remaking for ages and wrestling with it before I finally left though). It is freeing to leave but keep in contact w mutuals and take things one step at a time 💞
In my Xmas lull I made a last minute reading detour to Terry Castle as per your recommendation, and got so into it that I just managed to work out who 'The Professor' actually was! So nice to find kindred readers/writers and would like to thank you for this amazing comment 💜
This is a beautiful beautiful article! I'm very glad you've written this and I'm very glad the experiment is going well.
I have lived for so many years without any social media and had no problem. I have twitter now, but, to be honest, I'm thinking about leaving that too.
I encourage you to to campaign for information in uni to be circulated over email. There is so much official information being shared through instagram, facebook etc and in my opinion, it doesn't really belong there. Everybody has an email account, that is not the case with these social media platforms.
I don't have a mobile phone either and I don't use twitter for my friends, so I when friends take the time to write emails to me and stay in contact even though it's not as immediate as social media, I know they really care about me and support my choices.
Thanks again for your article!
💓 Am impressed by anyone not having a mobile phone! Esp for maps/banking etc as it seems like such a necessity (am keeping mine for sure as it's a useful tool for living abroad without all the distractions added)
It's definitely more complicated to do some things, but I have most of what I need on my computer and I know if I had a mobile phone my tendency to inconstancy would grow exponentially. I do understand, however, that it can be a great tool when used consciously.
I think we're tricked into concluding that social media is *the* place for cultural discovery though, when that isn't necessarily the case! There are lots of intimate forums, personal blogs, independent websites etc. still floating around on the web where you can get those insights without invasive notifications and ads or infinite scroll - personally still use rateyourmusic for (lol) music recs, and it's a nice Web 1.0-style environment. Also cannot underestimate the power of nonfiction reading for discovering new things and making new connections (never predicted a Madonna biography would lead me on a quest to learn about esoteric Jewish thought and Anne Sexton... once I got into current reading habit I found that a lot of SM 'infotainment' content was actually v shallow and tenuous)
I do often think about people I knew from Tumblr but don't miss having an account, was also there for nearly a decade (had been deleting/remaking for ages and wrestling with it before I finally left though). It is freeing to leave but keep in contact w mutuals and take things one step at a time 💞
In my Xmas lull I made a last minute reading detour to Terry Castle as per your recommendation, and got so into it that I just managed to work out who 'The Professor' actually was! So nice to find kindred readers/writers and would like to thank you for this amazing comment 💜