Life without Facebook: Jamia teacher shares his 30-day experience
Life without smartphone and Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and other social media platforms is unthinkable in the digital age. From kids to elderly all are hooked to social media and smartphone, unwillingly spend long hours on the virtual world, cut-off from the real world.
But there are people who have tried to stay away from social media and smartphone. A Jamia Millia Islamia did this for one month. The OT spoke with him to get first-hand experience of how life is without social media.
Syed Md Kazim, who teaches Social Science in Jamia school, said after being restricted by the social media giant, Facebook, he willingly stayed away from it only to return and use the platform after 30 days.
In the beginning five days it was extremely difficult to adjust myself to the changed routine and was under stress for being unable to interact with my friends through Facebook, said 50-year-old Kazim, adding that I felt miserable but things started improving and I really enjoyed life.
“After five days things start settling down. I realised that I had enough time at hands to spend with my family members and friends, study books and enjoy nature, something that I missed while being obsessed with the social media.
“It was a good experience. I was away from my smartphone. I spend my time in education and positive development. I spend more time reading. Earlier I used to get irritated but not anymore. And the reason was: Getting involved into debate and argument in the virtual world.
“Usually I used to sleep at 12 pm and used to get involved in long and unending debate with many unknown people in the virtual world. So I started sleeping early at 11 or 10.30 pm. I usually used to spend four hours daily on Facebook. Now, after hitting it again, I am more disciplined and spend only 2 hours on Facebook. Earlier, I was obsessed with the social media which I realised was not a good thing. One should take break from the virtual world and should not be on social media for more than 30 minutes a day.”
There were other platforms like YouTube, Twitter and WhatsApp which I used but very little, he said.
