Escaping In Noisy World

Life is beautiful and also it’s wonderful, the world that we belong comes with many surprises, expectedly and unexpectedly. Day by day, we do things that’s makes us happy or to reach the place we want to. We stumble across different variables in daily basis and some of it affect our mood, some we like it and others, we don’t.

Day by day, we want to amuse our self. Who don’t want to? To meet our desire for happiness we hold onto, what we called entertainment. One word, but greatly change our mood, even our actions and also the way of our life.

There are many form of entertainment out there, but in this story, I solely focus in one world, that most of us have around always. One thing, but it’s coverage of entertainment is very wide, this the world of smartphone, easy to carry, some are affordable, some are not. This world of smartphone contains unlimited entertainment.

Let me rephrase this, “The World Of Smartphone” into “Smartphone Galaxy” that contains different worlds of entertainment. The possibility is endless, and also the ecstasy you will feel is boundless. The question is for how long it will last the happiness you feel through this world?

Do you know what are these world of entertainment? These are some of it that is best known, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, there are many out there waiting to be downloaded in your smartphone.

This Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and the like contains various forms of entertainment that will make you happiness and pleasure to watch, listed and read to it, it comes with endless entertainment and become too noisy, Facebook there, TikTok here, entertainment are everywhere. By the ring of notification, to pop up message from notification drawer, in just one click, then you will be teleported to the place where it come from as long you do have an internet connection, using various platform, your smartphone become a commandant to you.

You may or not believe it, the ring of the notification train you unconsciously, without your notice. In the first place, it just a simple action, no need to think too much about it, “WHEN THE NOTIFICATION SOUND RING, YOU WILL HEAR IT, THEN YOU WILL CLICK IT, THEN YOU’RE NOW IN THAT PLACE”. This cycle keep repeating, unconsciously you will do it without thinking to much about it.

You become a soldier, who follow orders without knowing who commanded you. When the notification sound ring, its like this, “Attention Soldier”, you will read the notification message like “X reacted heart in your post”, it could be interpreted to “Soldier, did you hear that sound? Check on it and beware of ambush”. Now let’s complete the sentence, “Attention Soldier! Did you hear that sound? Check on it and beware of ambush “. And now you set foot in the trap.

This cycle keep repeating and become distraction and if not manage, you may feel hatred about it, but you cant’ escape from it easily. You are bound by it for a long time and hard to withdraw from it because of the happiness it can give.

There are many negative effects on it, these may vary to everyone, some listed below that may apply to everyone.

1. You will do later, What You Can Do Right Now

• There are many things, some things to be done but because of this entertainment platform, the ecstasy it give while using it , you will forgot how much time pass, and you not notice your surroundings because of the pleasure you encounter and it propagate in your mind and cover what you should do and become cloudy what it is.

2. You will do tomorrow, What will you do later

• The happiness is endless, videos, meme, music, there so many that fit in your preferences. You enjoy the content, you laugh and wow to the things you see, with endless scrolling features, content with no end, surely you can’t help yourself to consume it. MORE AND MORE, then you forgot that you have something to do.

3. Unexpected Mood Swings

• It’s entertainment you consume, are there content that is disgustful? yes, of course but this may subjective in individual preferences what are these. Creators have different styles and also the consumers have different taste. Some enjoy exotic content, that is opposite from normally category, like comedy, romance, etc. There are many factors that affect your mood and some give bad taste. This may vary to everyone, let’s take this for an example. As if you are a fan of a certain celeb and there’s some issues regarding to your idol, because of your feelings towards to your idol, you fight back to the haters, now you are in fight mode. Another also, you see the person that you’ve hate, posted something, because of attitudes, surely it may affect your mood. This entertainment not just give enjoyment but also variety of emotions.
  That are some negative effects and the rest, is just within your imagination, if you think of it, you will know surely some of it and look at yourself as an example.

I my self, comparison to my old self, I can see progress on reducing usage of social media and use it as much possible use it that can generate returns not just enjoyment but also accompany me towards my goal. In order to reduce of usage or use it solely use it that generates return, you must tame it. This platform should be utilize to help you to reach the destination you want, not a shackle that restraint to move forward and trap you in endless loop of never ending entertainment that the returns it give is instant and fade like blink of an eye.

Tips to reduce social media usage

This are tips to help you to reduce the usage of this entertainment platforms, I use this tips and apply to myself also.

1. Know What’s The Purpose Of Why You Use It

I use this “app name” because of ” “. This could be many, for business, for education or for personal. If you know why, then you can think what should to, then you can look up how to do it and apply it. Knowing what is the purpose , is the first. It’s an awareness, becoming aware is the key. If it’s for education, then it should be. If its for business, then it should be. And then for personal, a broad area, that contains all your why’s.

That’s the first tip and the rest will apply what will be your purpose in anyway.

2. Un-follow And Unfriends The People You Don’t Even Know

One specialty of this platform is that it can connect you with any people globally. This become a factor that led yourself in endless entertainment. Ask yourself, is this person a trigger that will make me binge watch content? If yes, remove it. Is this person helpful to me? No? Remove it. Is this person I know personally? No? Remove it. Remove all the triggers and useless pieces, it time to clean up your social media account. Unfollow all the celebs, unfollow all the creators who only do purely entertainment content that is useless and can’t give value to yourself. Remove all the triggers, you are the only one know what it is, discover it.

3. Train The Algorithm Not Show More Entertainment Content

Did you know that, every react you made, every content you you watch, the topic you spend the most is recorded in background. There are background workers that profiles you , what is your preferences, and then, this preferences about you will be use to give the most relevant as much possible about you’re preferred content. Because of this, you will have endless content that you’ll like it. Social media have this, called algorithms, that works in background that collects your preferences and feed you the content that want to eat. The tip #2 , is one way to train the algorithm.

4. Clean Up Your Messenger

If you do have many contacts, this could also be a trigger to you. As you can see, today’s age, instant messaging is everywhere, but the question is, is it really have a valued connection? Yes, but this may not apply to everyone. If you do have multiple chatmates, you may bombarded with instant messages, that seemingly the reason of the message on the other side, could be to seek pleasure, and if your into it also, you’ll spend time to it also. Is it really connect you with that person? Is it regular messages or just occasionally? Filter out all your contacts and remove those people who you don’t know or just a passers or a trigger only. If you the tip #2, its way but if you do have conversation history to that person, even you do the tip #2, it still within your inbox, now it’s time to do some cleaning.

a. Archive The Message

By doing this , it will remove the conversation in the homepage of the messenger and it will put in the Archive Messages section

b. Delete Conversation

This is better that the archiving the messages , this will deleted the conversation of that person, by doing this, this can’t be seen in archive message section, gone, the history of convo can’t be seen.

c. Hide Suggested Contact

The suggested contacts is based on the interaction history of your contacts, this suggestion, can be found in the upper section in messenger, with a green dot and it line horizontally. Some with a note, some have a blue border which means they post a story and this is a trigger.

d. Mute Story In Facebook And Messenger

Most people, including me are interested in others life, what’s going on to them, we want a glimpse on it. To show case someone parts of their life, Add Story feature is one way to do it, this could be a videos, images, music. Short form content, that can give pleasure and meet the desire to know them partly. This is another trigger , you see their story, unconsciously/consciously you check their profile, scroll a bit to know what’s going on, these cycle will repeat itself over and over again, so mute their story.

4. Uninstall All The Social Media App That’s No Use (30 Days Challenge)

This idea come from the book of Carl Newport, Digital Minimalism, this blog is the result when reading the book and accepted the challenge, It’s been 2 Months, approximately, I done the challenged, it a challenge that not to use social media or other entertainment platform, for 30 Days , just don’t remove the one you really use, like messenger, if you have a job or a student, by removing this this may affect your education or job, just remove the app that give you pleasure. And then after 30 Days, see the result of yours, test your self to install it, see if the pleasure you get is the same before and after you done the challenge. If you past the test, then decide what to keep and what to let go.

There many tips out there, the above tip pointed out, should be applied, some tip may be applicable to the other platforms, learn the how and apply it.

Boredom Is Real

The rip I’ve mention above and if you apply it, your life start to feel boredom because you just remove the some pleasures in your life and it seem really different, there will be fight in your mind, looking back or looking forward, this can be hard, today I still feel it but you know, I don’t want to go back in that place again, while I am alone, spending time in scrolling and watching content endlessly. This could be hard if you are doing this for the first time. To combat this warfare, you need to find alternatives for enjoyment, where to spend your time , some are listed below.

1. Do want you want physically

There are things that you want and you want to do it, then do it, make it involves physical interaction, this could be any activity, cooking, playing with your kids, brothers and sisters, help your parents, there are may things out there, make your body unleash some sweat, do it.

2. If you want to talk, Do it personally or call that person

There is a big difference between talking with that person physically and chatting through social media. One thing that differentiate is the emotion. Talking with the person physically gives different vibes, unlike chatting where words and emojis where talking, it may connect you to each other but it differ to talk with her/him personally. If long distance, prefer audio call or video call. Do you believe that voice of a person gives happiness, relaxation, as well as longing to be his/her side. A voice of a certain person, have something that will penetrates to your emotion.

3. Go To Your Friends

If you want to connect deeply with your friends, go to their house, play with them, do things with them that gives enjoyment without social media interference. You can do somethings, helping them, cook with them, there are many things to be done, it’s up you what it is.

There are many things that give you enjoyment by doing it physically, it’s time for you to discover, for me for example, writing this blog, I finish this by spending hours in scrolling and watching much content.

YOU ARE NOT AT FAULT 100% WHY YOU SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME IN SOCIAL MEDIA

I want to remind you that, not 100% you are faulty why you spent time too much in entertainment platforms. You see the platforms is really beautiful , the design, the interface is great and it’s functionality. There are features that’s really pull you back, one of it, is the reaction system, where individual have the ability to react to every post. If you are someone who post regularly, if there is someone nicely to your post, comment something, it gives you pleasure, I could say acceptance. Why should you stop from doing it? Right? There are many reasons why you are not 100% faulty at all. I want you to remind you also that, you may not 100% fault at all but you the user is 99% faulty, that percentage hypothetically elaborate, what I men is that you are more at fault than the creator of the app or app itself. In the first place , the app do not speak, it did not whisper to you, “download me”. If you fall to the advertisement, or by peers to use it, t’s natural but again, you have the power to decide, to dictate your action, make decision, it’s within your grasp either continue spending time to it or not. You are the one who is controller because you fell to the pleasure it gives, now you’re the one become dictated by it. You are the one who has control in the first place, so don’t give it and take it back. It’s time for you control how the way you use it, rather than to be controlled. This journey could be thorny but if you continue to walk on it, it will be fruitful.

Thanks for reading.