Kait’s
In truth, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what social recess has meant to me. After beginning with anxiety, sustaining with apathy, and ending in disappointment, the roller coaster has not ceased to throw me for a few loops. However, through all of the animosity that has been social deprivation, one feeling has really remained; ease. A very confusing emotion to weave itself into my plethora of emotions in the last few weeks, considering the negative feelings that have seemed so apparently pervasive. However, I think this ease really just stems from the ability to break from a habit that I feel most Millennials in the US are so obviously addicted to; social connection platforms. Mostly, Facebook. I still can’t quite pinpoint why — although it’s probably my favorite platform to use if you were to ask me off-the-cuff — I felt/feel such an obvious sense of relief in disconnecting from the most outwardly influential social platform in my repertoire. However, the platforms I use more prominently for social utility (YouTube, primarily) were the platforms I neglected to consider I would miss in the beginning, and they proved to be the most missed in the end. To draw a line in the sand saying that giving up social recess was a good or bad thing for me ultimately is therefore quite difficult to distinguish, but it is so obviously apparent in a dualistic light; I would gladly give up my social sharing and connecting, but perhaps not social utility platforms, again.
Kelly
Overall, I’m very happy I went through a Social Recess. I never thought the project would have had as much of an impact on me as it did. Being back on social media, I have noticed a positive change in my use of social media. Before this project, I shamefully spent a lot of meaningless time on social media. Now, I feel a majority of my social media use is meaningful and productive. I realized the breadth of information I access via social media and gained a new respect for the power of social media.
Additionally, I never realized the size of the beast that is social media and just how much can be done with it. It has made me wonder whether it will continue to grow as fast as it has been or if it has hit a plateau.
Michelle
I’m back on social media, but I’m not back on the connectivity culture train. During my Social Recess, I gained a healthy respect for the value of social tools. Gone are the distractions of news feed-scrolling and neurotic pinning. I’ve said hello to a new appreciation for the utility of social media and a revised usage patter that takes advantage of the many ways it simplifies my life, without falling into a pattern of misuse.
Things I appreciate more deeply, now:
- o Being able to shoot a casual note to a friend when it occurs to me — without hunting down a phone number or email address.
- o Personalized news and recommendations based on what certain sites know about me.
What I don’t miss and haven’t gone back to:
- o Killing time on the train with Facebook & Twitter (Haven’t downloaded the apps back to my phone, reading Arcadia by Lauren Groff instead.)
- o Pinterest. We already have enough weird hang-ups about the way we/our homes/our nails/our clothes look. I don’t need Pinterest to continue pointing it out
Social Recess 