Facebook Anonymous

There is this joke, about re-habitation centers which will cure you of Facebook addiction. Now, I do not know if such a center exists. However, the possibility of the need of something similar cannot be ruled out. One of my friends calls it a time-waste experience. There are some people who try and estimate how much time is the world wasting on a platform which offers nothing constructive. If you agree even partially to any of the above thoughts or have similar views on Social Networking, and wish to seriously help yourself or some one you know, this is the list of steps you can take to initially limit and finally give up Facebook from the wonderful phenomenon of Life. 

• First things First - Uninstall the phone application. Period. Yes, No more Facebook as a means to escape the situation of being in the elevator, or in a traffic situation. A phone is a phone is a phone - and not a Facebook device.

• Allot a set amount of time for Social Networking  - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter included. One hour over the weekend may be. 
  
• Zero down how many REAL friends you have on your network and inform them of your goal so that you can be in touch by alternate means.
  
• Follow the Newspaper religiously to know about happenings and events which you otherwise would know via Facebook.

• Appreciate the power of Now and be Present in whatever you are doing to reduce the urge to constantly inform everyone you know.

• Be content with your Life without constantly feeling the need to show off to the World.

Connect without Facebook and Twitter

A friend last week mentioned she wishes to join Facebook Anonymous. She mocks herself that the site is open on her laptop, and its related apps too are active on all her iDevices and their cousins. She, as is easy to guess, is not the only one. Many others (myself included), are in the same boat, where we feel that the pie called social networking is getting too big to bite. That we need to connect lesser number of times, with lesser people. Let life happen in reality rather than virtually. Take in the moment actually, and not think about clicking it and sharing it first. 

I myself have taken a social networking sabbatical back in 2010 for a successful ten months (Yayy, to that!), and even after I went back, set some strict discipline for the online world. (But that my friends is another post altogether!) . Today's post is an extract of my personal experiences, on how I remained connected during my sabbatical from the social media scene - 

• Remember the good old alphabetically ordered telephone directory our parents maintained in the landlines era? A similar master contact list of friends and knowns is a good to have. Make it exhaustive, list people from all the places you studied and worked with. Include relatives and distant cousins too.

• Send in your new year greetings and wishes for other festivities in an email - it seems a lot more personal than wishing them in a general status update.

• Take a note of important events (such as birthdays, anniversaries) for the people who mean to you, and wish them over the email. They will be happily surprised.

• Changes can happen in your life too - let your contacts know of significant events in your own life (like getting married, becoming parents, moving cities). This will keep people informed on the happenings of your life. 

• Backup your phone once every fortnight to avoid loosing connections as a result of a crashed or a stolen phone. This advice comes 'direct, dil se', straight from the heart in English.

• You love random phone calls which last more than expected. Everyone else loves them too. Call your friends once in a while to connect on a one to one basis.

Get most out of your LinkedIn account

Update your profile regularly with your experience and skills. Once a month is good, twice even better

• Connect with everyone you know, have known or are likely to know soon. While the debate on how correct is it to add a coworker on Facebook continues, you can be sure Not to go wrong when adding any remotely related person on LinkedIn 

• Follow your P(prospective, present and past) employers. LinkedIn will come up with suggestions to follow companies in similar arena and competitors. You may choose to follow those too 

• Join groups of your expertise - this is a easy practice to keep up to date with the latest happenings, meet new people in same field and get tracked by recruiters 

• Make your profile public and searchable, else the whole purpose of being on a professional networking site would fail

•  Subscribe to the network updates' weekly newsletter if you are like me and do not like logging in to see what is happening around. This email would update you on who moved where, and who connected to whom, along with new groups and associations. 

Happy Professional Networking, Y'all!

P.S. - This is not a sponsored post, just giving back my love for LinkedIn. :)