Hi Sebastian,
I've just come back from a no-social-media prison camp, or at least I got such impression when we were ruthlessly denied access to our phones, laptops or tablets on the first day after arrival. Everyone had to deposit their beloved gadgets in a box that looked very hostile at first sight. We were experimental subjects in a two-week experiment of living without access to social media. Some were getting hysterics and spasms, crying with anger that they couldn't find out who had just added a photo or who had written a comment that they had left home. Others were ruminating that they wouldn't be able to see all the photos their friends were adding. I personally exhibited symptoms of both of these groups. So I couldn't pull myself together and find any meaningful activity. Conversations with friends were reduced to longing sighs and short sentences like "I wonder what my friend has added now" or what pictures I have missed. We looked like a group of lifelong convicts, with cloudy eyes and a hopeless emptiness in our souls. This image must have filled us with pain and suffering, but our tutors showed no human compassion and were unmoved by our excessive suffering.
Sitting and remaining silent, communicating in monosyllables, staring into the void, we learned that social media is an invaluable asset, the deprivation of which is a threat to health and perhaps even life.
Let me know what you think of such experiments and whether you have ever taken part in one.
Harry
