4 Cold turkey

Since my last writing here, I've been thinking deeply about the apps and services I use; particularly photography/camera apps (I do not use too many editing apps) and social networks.

Over time, I’ve observed that although I use most of these social networks, I don't have to use them. Im an introvert and the reason I got into most networks was for my weblog and photography. Let's say this was about six years ago, approximately. I’ve quit Facebook by then and it didn't matter, I was on Google+ but I'm hardly active these days (but you can just read all this on my last post).

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III

The point is, I had said I would cut down my social network usage dramatically in the coming months, but then I realised as I woke up from my power nap today (sleeping over things really does help) that taking a slow exit is both useless and ineffective. Here's a life lesson: the longer you take to quit something, the more time you give that thing to pull you right back.

Time to quit

So you've got to quit cold turkey. In this regard, I've decided to cut down all of my social networks except the following: Twitter, Flickr, and Instagram. And I'll have my website, of course.

Why all this? Besides realising the utter uselessness of most virtual networking (by which I mean networks where pseudo identities exist, not real personal blogs/websites), I've been having a couple of thoughts which I'll briefly outline below.

Firstly, the effort it takes to push your work through social networks is not returned. If you don't take my word for it, read Derek Thomson's piece in The Atlantic from earlier this year.

Secondly, the time it takes away from your offline life isn't worth it. This is why I picked Twitter, not only because it is the fastest to update and interact on, but because the ratio of number of useful interactions/new networking opportunities I've had on Twitter to the of time spent updating is clearly higher than other networks. Of course your mileage may vary, but the point remains, you too have a social network where you notice a higher such ratio than you do on other networks.

Thirdly, and this personal opinion, but the only reason I found Google+ interactive (in its early days, not now) is because I was into photography and a lot of photographers flocked to that network especially from Flickr and Facebook. I was attached to that network, but logic ought to take precedence. My photography thrives on Flickr (it's just better and easier to manage photographs there, in my opinion) and my mobile photographs are shared on Instagram where I draw inspiration from — all original art stems from inspiration. (I'll eventually be setting up a new Flickr account for my iphoneography, separate from my dSLR, but that's fodder for another article.)

Apps, culled

Social network apps will also be kicked out, except the trio named above, and (this one is purely experimental and I may revert) I'll be saying goodbye to manual camera apps as well in an effort to rely on the excellent, fast and capable stock app.

Let's see how things go. A (somewhat) more minimal lifestyle — but certainly one that's more offline than on — and a fall in FOMO is, to me, synonymous with a productive, enjoyable and more meaningful life where you have time for things that truly matter. And for yourself.