So what dangerous potentially life threatening habit am I addicted to? Am I in therapy? NO! I like many others am addicted to social media. Ok maybe not addicted, but definitely a habitual user who could use some digital detox strategies!
Moment of Clarity
Look around you…yes lift your head from the screens and see what others are doing. Is there conversation flowing? Are people interacting with one another? Unlikely, most people are glued to their mobile devices. Sat on transport, checking through social media. Watching TV whilst being on social media. At home with the family, ignoring each other while everyone plays with their electronic devices. I noticed myself doing all these things. My little one was playing with his toys and instead of observing him, I had my head in my phone. Sat down in the evening with my partner, no conversation…both of us sat there on our phones whilst the TV plays idly in the background.
What does this have to do with PR and communications?
Advertising is a key communication tool, with more money now being spent on digital advertising rather then TV advertising. This can easily be linked to the connected world. The generations that skip adverts on TV shows as they are able to binge watch episodes on platforms such as Netflix.
According to Avocado Social, nearly 50% of the worlds population use Facebook, that is a massive market to advertise your product/service to. That is nearly 3.5 billion people to have interactions with. That is 3.5 billion chances to chat to and sell your product or just to show how your company cares about the environment, CSR issues, etc. However, an interesting statistic from AdWeek claims that humans attention span on social media is 1.7 seconds on a mobile compared to 2.5 seconds on desktop. Increasing worrying, is the statistic from 2013 in My Tutor which claims the average human attention span is now less than that of a goldfish and is further decreasing with the rise in social media. Now communications experts HAVE to provide relevant content to get their message across, to reach a very small percentage of the saturated market.
Time To Change
So today I proposed a radical idea to my partner: no social media for 2 weeks (maybe 3 which he re-coiled about). We both have commitments such as football training and University so we are allowed to use Messenger/WhatsApp. Banned are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I am interested in what the results will produce; although apprehensive…being a nosy character, how will I keep up with the gossip? How will I get to see what my friends are up to? And more importantly, I wonder what “friends” I will actually talk to in the next 2 weeks.
What I think I will gain and lose being off social media
Gains:
- More quality conversation with my loved ones
- Less of a need to purchase products
- Less anger – from reading a lot of posts I view as “stupid”
- More privacy
- More time with those people I hold dear to me.
Losses:
- I will miss social media!
- Not keeping up to date with information regarding topics of interest to me.
- Boredom – in a connected world, not having distractions I fear I will become more boring
- Fear of missing out (FOMO).
So before I sign off my social media accounts for a few weeks, I implore you to watch this video. It highlights a lot of what I have written today…even if I am too old to be classed as a millennial!!!
And yes…I will be blogging updates regarding my social media usage, mainly to see if there is a change in my personality and also because I need to blog to get a good grade off my lecturer!!! Please also leave me a comment on this topic.
Sian Jones PR Marketing Blog 