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| Take a slow walk and watch the scenery around you. |
Inspired by
this month's FastCompany article by one of the world most connected man, Baratunde Thurston. #Unplug. Basically getting yourself off internet.
I might be less than 10% as connected or as "successful" as he is but I see a lot of similarities between us, especially how unhappy and how grouchy I am getting and I blame this on how "socially" connected I am.
Not as cool as he is but my official biography, such as it is, might reads as follows: “Smith Leong is the writer of
Smthankyou.com and CEO and cofounder of once awesome Waddup Events, a creative events company. Currently working at one of Singapore's up and coming boutique social media agency One9ninety as a Social Media Manager.” I’m a blogger, consultant, life coach, and cross-platform opiner on the digital life. My friends say I’m the most connected man in their social circle. And in the last few years, I lived like a man trying to make friend with the whole of Singapore just by using digital/social media.
The NEED to #UNPLUGI was talking to my friends that my life is now a big distraction to my own life. I used to remember each conversation I have with people I meet, their faces, their names and even pointless details of TV shows, lyrics and strangers that stays around my estate. I multitask so much these days from all the notification I am getting online and everything seems to be just a breeze of my life. I watch TV while commenting about it on Twitter and at the same time looking at my Facebook timeline updates. No way this is healthy. I refuse to stay still. I've lost the meaning of appreciating details.
I am obsessed with "trends".I feel the need to know what is happening on the social space globally and locally. My excuse to myself is that I need this to come out with interesting editorials for my clients. I need these information to write a new article for the sites I am contributing to and I need to know which blogger is having issues with who so I can avoid inviting them to the same event to avoid the awkwardness but how much of the above are true?
I am pretty sure I can still do my job very well without being obsessed.
I shared too much. Nobody cares how my workout is contributing to my biceps or any other smallest weirdest thoughts in my head. But every time when I have something funny or happening around me I felt like there is a need to share it on the platforms. And everyone I bump into has a comment or two along the line that do I have a real job.
I am addicted to myself. You don't need to be an ego management doctor to diagnose how psychologically unstable I am when it comes to ego. "Our digital social tools feed right into that ego trap, since pretty much my every piece of self-expression is accompanied by performance indicators. I can measure how many "likes" an idea has. If my tweet was not retweeted, did I even tweet it? Never before have we had the ability to microgauge our own rhetorical value to the world. I was judging my oversharing of uninhabited experiences." - Baratude. He got that right.
I am jaded by work. (again).It's definitely not the 1st time I am complaining about this and this ain't going to be the last time.
After a few individual incident. It made me realize once again that social media/blogging scene in Singapore is really missing the real fun. People are selling courses on "how to win awards" with blogging. "how to earn money" with a blog. Passing comments like "I will only do this when my blog gets famous.". Spending money on media buy and creating fake fan pages or even own fan pages and putting it as "Public Figure." just to make oneself look famous. The crave for fame is getting stronger. I am not saying any of these actions are wrong, call me a hipster but I find that we are missing the very original fun of such platforms. The joy of sharing, the fun of writing and the very organic formula of word of mouth. The focus, the core is moving away. It's getting glittery and shiny - Showbiz. Like Hollywood. Scandal, gossips and making use of people to be famous. I feel the emptiness in me every time I see people doing these. I question myself. Is it me or is it them. Is it that hard to enjoy something without actually getting some return. I am no saint myself being a digital PR/Advertising person. We need people like these (or some sort) to help and "sell" our clients' product but I guess some of these moves are simply crossing my lines and breaking some of my limits. Not like something have changed and not like something is going to change but I hope at the very least, it makes me feel better.
Things I have no clue. I
am not sure if I will feel better or happy. I have no idea if I can survive through the #unplug but I am going to try it slowly but surely. I don't know how long I am going to do it or how long I can do it. It might be a good time since I am going overseas soon.
The Rules. I am going to remove the notification of my FB, Twitter, Instagram. I will not post anything on these platforms. I might will write on this blog not so much of getting connected but more of updating the progress slowly. Due to work commitment,(might be an excuse) I will see be reading Facebook bu
t mainly only on my client's pages that I manage.
Mr.Smith, #UNPLUG
