Hello everyone. We almost reach the third week of January 2019, but please allow me to say happy new year to all of you, dear readers!

It’s been years I stop making resolutions at the beginning of every new year, because I know at the end I will not fulfill them. However, I set goals for my academic life. That’s my top priority at the moment.

As the title implies, it’s true I’m trying to do a social media “detox”. It’s not really a 2019 resolution, but it’s my continous life project. I have started it since, I think, two years ago.  I feel much better about myself now and I hope it will get better as time goes by.

I must admit that internet and social media are very useful in our lives, as long as we know how to use it well. In this modern era, they support every aspect of our lives.

It was all started with my old Twitter account. I made that account in 2009 when I was a college student in my early twenties. I used to rambling around and exposing my personal matters there. You know that age stage when you tried to find your life direction. Years later I realised that I shared way too much in Twitter. I decided to delete my account in 2015. At that moment, I also in the middle of my PhD scholarship selection process. A friend of mine reminded me that there is a possiblity for the selection committee to track our activities in the cyber world. After I left Twitter, I found it hard for me to get news update. Whenever I wanted to update myself on the current news, I should go to the specific news portal website. Such a waste of time. Later on, I signed up again for a Twitter account and I use it mostly only for updating myself on current issues. I find it useful, especially since I am currently living outside Indonesia.

The second one is Facebook. Probably I am among those people who started using Facebook since its early year. I remember Facebook used to be that cool. In these past few years, people use this social media to spread hate campaign and to provocate others in bad ways. Most of the (normal) people in my generation has left Facebook nowadays. I still choose to actively use my account, though. This is the only social media that connects me with my family back home, especially the elderly people. Come on, they don”t know (yet?) about Instagram. 😀

Last but not least, the third one, is Instagram. With its Instagram stories feature, people tend to expose their private lives to public. When they have problems with other people, instead of trying to solve the problems, they share them on Instagram stories. Other people (who are actually outsiders) start to make speculations. And the drama begins. Some people also like to share their holiday pictures on this social media. There is nothing wrong with this, but nowadays people prefer to visit those so-called “Instagrammable” destinations just for the sake of their social media feeds. I’m mostly “hanging around” in Instagram, because in my opinion it is still the most fun social media platform to date.

When you think that you expose your private life way too much on social media, perhaps you can ask this question to yourself : “I’m not a public figure, then what’s the point of me sharing about my life to public?”

In conclusion, my 2019 resolution is to do a social media “detox” which include :

• Sharing only positive vibes and useful information on my social media platforms
• Trying to be totally “present” outside social media, spending times with those people who love me and I love
• When I’m traveling, I will enjoy it to the fullest without much thinking whether those places are “Instagrammable”
• Reading more non-academic books or books outside my field of expertise (this is quite difficult, though. considering my work loads, but I’ll try my best)

Happy new year once again!

 

Essen, January 12th 2019