We Are Exposing Ourselves to be Openly Exploited

I have uninstalled Facebook on my Phone. I am normally not a person spending too much time on Facebook. Or that is what I used to think. I mainly used to scroll over some posting that are from my Facebook friends. If there are nothing interesting, which is the case most of the time, I move to do something else. One day I was calculating the time that I might have spent on Facebook in a week, it amazed me. If I spend 5 minutes in an hour, it is at least one hour and 20 minutes in a day (assuming 16 hours in a day excluding 8 hours of sleeping time) . It is more than 9 hours in a week. Which means at least 4 working days in a month and more than 52  working days in a year. One more stat, it is 14% of my yearly working days. I think I am not very heavy user and still spending more than 52 days in a year in social media, specially Facebook. This should be concern to everyone. I have not seen anybody made fortune spending time on Facebook. I have not seen or heard anybody making family/kids happy by being 52 days away from them.

I am not too old to hate social media. I am still young. I am on my Thirties. But when I see how much time we are spending on this thing, it makes me sad. I can spend that time with my kids in helping them to do their homework, taking them to swimming pool, or taking them to game practices. You might say, I do those things too but also have time to scroll on my social media posts to see what's going on out there with my friends. There is nothing wrong with being stay up to date on your family events and news. I just think, we are taking quality times away from ourselves and from our loved ones.

The distinction here is, I have not deactivated my Facebook account altogether. If I have to go to computer browser and open my Facebook account, I might spend less time on it or only see while I am in front of computer. I might be less addicted to my phone and give some relief to my finger, neck and eyes. I am not against of staying connected with your family members. I am actually big fan of building relationship and keeping it functional. I might not consider social media 'Likes' as being connected. We might have better ways to continue our friendship. We have phone which might be more personal and secure than posting our feelings in social media. We can meet in person. We can face-time. I think these ones are more social than those social medias.

 If we limit our activities in social media, we might also be less vulnerable to modern days security risks such as hacking or kidnapping or any other number of internet related crimes. The more time we spend on these medias, companies who build these platform will make more money. No offense to their business model. But this business model is bringing disturbances to our social life, our family life and our humanitarian heart. We are being microscopically targeted. We are being studied. They target adds, news and views based on our post trends and likes. We are deprived from reading news that is neutral and based on fact. Political parties target us based on our social media activities. We are exposing ourselves to be openly exploited. We are inviting thieves into our house. We are making ourselves vulnerable.

We complain these social medias for not protecting our privacy. We complain them for making money out of our habits. We complain these companies for not being socially responsible. If we take one step back and think about who is contributing for all these, that would be nobody other than 'us'. This is all dependent on our habits and our ignorance. The day we exploit technology in our benefit rather than technology exploiting us, we would benefit from it. We will be happier. We will bond better with our loved ones. Let's decrease one minute per hour and two minutes and three minutes. Slowly, let's limit these social activities where it doesn't become our burden but keeps us connected just enough.