Without Social Media

Without Social Media

As the growth of technology, people spend much time on social media (e.g., Wechat, Weibo, RenRen) and mobile media devices, including smartphone and ipad. A 2011 survey by Jeff Bullas, who is a blogger, author, strategist and speaker work with digital and social media, found that 91% of American adults who are online use social media and nearly a quarter of the total time spent online is on social networks. On September 16th, I conducted an experiment of experiencing one day without all social media.

To conduct this experiment, I have to give up the use of social media and mobile media devices. Actually, I’m a heavy user of social media – I have different accounts of different social media platform, I even checked my accounts several times in an hour, such as Wechat, to see if there are some information related to me.

On 16th September, 0 am to 7 am was for sleeping. After I woke up, the first thing I wanted to do is to see the news on my smart phone. However, to obey the rules, I bought a piece of newspaper in a convenient store near where I live that day instead. Then, I read my study reading materials and newspaper in that morning. At noon, I ate with my roommates in the restaurant. We communicated rather than merely staring at smartphone’s screen. In afternoon, I made some phones call to my friends and kept doing reading. In evening, actually I couldn’t help noticing the pushing information of my handset’s screen, so I finished the experiment earlier than I expected. I saw that there are 4 Weibo messages, 8 Wechat messages, 2 emails and 2 short messages in my smartphone.

After finishing the experiment, I found that I really cannot live without social media as it is an significant tool for us. We can do whatever we want via social media and the smart device, such as listening to music, watching movies, playing games, etc. As defined: “A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called...