Approaching a New Year is like turning the pages of a book. As we read the last chapter, we approach the next year as though we’re about to arrive knowing that it will present new and different ways to address our already technically enhanced lives. Are we prepared or will we find more negativity imbuing our realm from other technical facets yet to become rapidly available?
Many of us are looking forward to the inevitable changes we’ll be presented with, and some of them won’t be so subtle. We’ve already seen how technology has solved some of the biggest challenges we’ve ever imagined we would face. And now, as we condition ourselves to accept the world that is connected by invisible dots as everything within its atmosphere computes, is automated and is presented to make life easier for us, we’re becoming complacent as we approach the next Occupational Revolution. There are suggestions that 65 percent of children entering primary school today will end up in jobs that don’t yet exist. Right this minute as we write this article, there are jobs available for drone pilots. Imagine working along side a robotic humanoid. Properly programmed, it won’t be influenced by social media and its worn out replication of negativity.
Social Media – We Need It Don’t We?
Be it Twitter or Facebook, social media has been the stirrup on which we’ve given ourselves a leg up. Digital marketing has enjoyed a very successful outcome, but there are people out there who are prepared to quit social media for good. Yet while it is the life blood of many businesses who market through its avenues, the negativity infiltrating those avenues have people running for the hills damning the fact that social media assists in putting food on the table. Then they begin to wonder how they’ll survive without it.
Negativity is insidious as it works to reduce productivity. With peer group pressure, which will never go away, a negative Facebook post or tweet on Twitter has the power to reduce a strong man to a jibbering, inconsolable wreck. As they swear they’re going to quit social media, they’re running around like headless lunatics the moment they learn their business has faced a serious setback. But what if there were ways we could have ‘me’ time and rejuvenate ourselves for the onslaught of the new year’s technologies. What if we could at the same time, release polarised opinions back to the ether so that they no longer affect us.
There are:
- Taking a hiatus from social media doesn’t mean you have to delete your accounts. Just limit your time spent on them.
- Allot work time on work related tasks on these platforms and once completed, leave.
- Realise also that social media platforms are becoming counterproductive.
- You have the choice to either fall prey to social media opinions or to abandon them altogether.
Any time away from Social Media is like clicking the refresh button. It gives you an opportunity to reconnect with real people in your realm. Unless you’re a workaholic who needs to be in touch with clients 24/7, it’s time to give yourself me time in between the screen and lift beyond the ether.
It’s All About Me
Understand that a lot of the posts on either platform are wired to satisfy the needs of the person posting them. Feeding the ego is as close to the truth as you’ll get. Having been inundated with the rise and fall of the political arena while Trump and Clinton were campaigning for the presidency, there were parts of the States that were allowing themselves to be torn apart. When one took time out from these platforms, they would return a few days later only to discover nothing had changed. They found themselves better off checking emails, writing newsletters and tweaking their websites for better performance. They were gainfully rewarded with a sense of achievement that resounded in the form of prospects and conversions. And that’s not all they achieved.
Frustration – Feast to Famine
Imagine less frustration. Leaving social media means leaving behind poorly researched pockets of news that are cleverly headlined to take a tenacious grip of your curiosity. Facebook is littered with them. People are gullible, stumbling around, pouring out their opinions before checking the facts. When one can walk away knowing they’re not going to miss out on anything, then frustration takes a back seat.
Focus Equates to Productivity
Many of us were not created to sit idly and watch while paint peeled from walls thus losing valuable time to produce success. This is what many are doing while their eyes are scanning the latest posts on Twitter that express thorough exasperation at the actions of someone they don’t even know. If only they stopped to ask themselves if this particular action is going to matter in two years. Laying down your own law means less idle time and more production.
The Internet vs Social Media
There is so much out there and a plethora of education awaits in so many different facets it is enough to make you dizzy. But learning is the life of a business. Learning to improve routines, learning to make a customer’s experience more memorable. Passions for what you do trigger the learning and between social media and the internet, you’ll find the internet very diverse.
Clicking on stuff like Quora, Kickstarter, Medium and Flipboard gives you a well-earned opportunity to learn new techniques while tending less to the polarised opinions. Although they do exist here as well, they seem to be less prominent. Focused as you become as you’re steered toward that which interests you with further lend inspiration to produce more positive and less of the negative.
Ditch the Pressure
There are easily two major emotions the mind deals with when faced with criticism and deadlines. On Social Media, if you’re sadly the target of criticism due to an opinion you expressed, you’re going to find a flight or fight tendency. Flight is perfect as it sends you off the platform in hopefully more constructive pursuits. The fight has your great, great Aunt Muriel spinning in her grave as you release an uncharacteristic cascade of blasphemous language that isn’t even in the dictionary. Further, you’ve forgotten that on a platform such as Facebook or Twitter with a population that has multiplied one billion fold in a matter of a few short years your online customers can read every word.
Your Future Self
If Social Media is who you are, remind yourself that what you think about you bring about. It is the algorithms that provide more of what you’re attracted to. Algorithms cannot decipher what makes you, you, but they will continue to feed to you what you’re clicking on. You may find that your mindset changes; yearning for positive posts and happy videos that make you laugh. You might also find that as you slowly degenerate from the negativity of those who are feeding their egos, which your own business acumen begins to show a more positive characteristic. When people find you on social media, and they will because that’s what the curious human being does, ensure that while you’re there sharing an opinion, that you’re sharing something positive and light hearted.
Social Media is here to stay. It has proven itself in more ways that it’s been given credit. Using it wisely will eventually turn the world of workaholics and marketers, social chatters and egotists into a race where the calm resides. It will become a platform where life matters and opinions can take a running leap.