How to Get Off of Facebook- And Stay Off

Complete- Drop #47: Wean Myself from Social Media

  
      Let me just say this: if you are one of the 175 Million People who log in to Facebook at least once a day, there is no weaning yourself. It's similar to a drug. How many cigarette smokers are addicted and yet choose to only have one cigarette each week? Not many. Sure, it happens, but the reality is that very few individuals are able to control the urge to check their accounts, especially when it's just a mouse click or finger-tap away.

     Sure, Facebook has its benefits. I can now easily connect with people from all different periods in my life. I can easily organize an event, check up on my favorite product, an announcement easily reaches an important target audience- people I know.
     Bored? How easy it is to fulfill my desire for instant satisfaction and a relief to my boredom! It is this underlying concept that makes social sites such as Facebook so addicting. Instant connections, instant boredom relief!

     Facebook has its drawbacks as well. If you are a daily user, the site is bound to cumulatively take up a good amount of time out of your day. Much of this time is spent wandering aimlessly around the site, 'FB stalking' others profiles, etc. It's only human nature to be curious, but never before has there been such a tool that has catered to that curiosity.

Drop #47- Conduct a Life Interview with a Family Member

     I would like to talk about this one a little bit.

     Life interviewing is something that I heard of only recently. The concept was developed by psychologist Robert Atkinson from the University of Southern Maine. Basically the concept is to sit down with someone for one or more sessions of however much time you need and record the individual's whole life from birth until present. It can be a stranger or someone that you know well, or maybe someone in your family you don't know well but wish you did. Although it was developed by a psychologist, it isn't a type of therapy. Yeah, it's good practice if you want to work with people, but the goal is to help the person record an account of thier life.

     I would love to do this with a lot of people in my family. I think it's a great opportunity to learn some things about them and my family history that I could have never known otherwise. Most of all, however, I think I would like to do this with my Nana. I really don't know much about her and her life other than who she is today. I would love to learn who she was, and what she did that brought her to this moment in life.

     To learn more about life interviewing, you can visit the Univerity of Maine's website by clicking right here. The website will describe what life interviewing is, some sample questions, and even some life stories that were conducted. There was a book published too that you can get on Amazon if you are seriously considering conducting a life interview.

    On a related note, if you are interested in life stories in general there is a great project by StoryCorps. Booths are set up at various locations in the United States, as well as a traveling booth that goes to various locations. Anybody can interview anybody else about whatever topic they choose, and it gets archived in the Library of Congress. A great way to become familiar with this is to watch some of the animated shorts that StoryCorps has made out of a few of the interviews. Watch some of them here:



StoryCorps Animated Shorts