It's been a great disappointment...

I had assumed that staying off social media would be really difficult for me; it simply has not. Earlier in the week I had the complaint that the one thing I was missing was the collation of interesting articles from the Guardian that Facebook gave me. Turns out I can get a daily email from the Guardian that does the same thing. Problem solved.

So I don't feel that this is burdensome, or difficult. Not really a lot to say about it on the blog, so I don't think I'll bother giving you updates unless something interesting happens. What might be interesting is how I react when it turns February and the doors of Facebook are once more opened up to me. I'll let you know!

Day Three and a normal schedule returns

I’ve now been back at work for a couple of days, and that means I have much less ‘free’ time – time for hanging around when having a look at Twitter seems a good idea.

I’ve found I’ve been out of bed quicker the last couple of days – simply because I don’t have ten minutes of social media to do. Can’t say I’ve really found a great way to use that time yet though. I listen to Radio 4 and drink tea, but rather than rushing for the train I’ve found myself with plenty of time.

On the journeys to and from work I’ve been catching up with the podcasts I didn’t listen to over Christmas, and picking up the German Courses am doing on Memrise. It’s free and is definitely working, although as with all distance learning the lack of a place to practice is what is missing.

I’ve tried a few of the language learning Apps. I actually prefer DuoLingo but Memrise has so much more material and quantity has won out over quality this time. I can’t use the app while walking, but still manage to do between 30 and 50 minutes most days.

In the office we do of course have an IT policy but incidental personal use is OK, so checking FB at lunchtime would be fine – plenty of people seem to anyway. But the temptation just isn’t there – if I have ten minutes there is plenty of proper news (or just look at Wikipedia and follow the interesting links) without needing to reach for Twitter.

I am looking at less news – I’m getting the headlines but not digging into more peripheral things that I would see because someone had shared them on my timeline. This is what I had hoped – because much of that will be ‘bubble’ stories – ones I am likely to agree with or be interested in, because I have selected the people whose posts I see in the first place. It leaves me worried about what I am missing though – is there really so little happening (ex Trump’s latest Tweets*) in the world? It’s the first few days of the year when everything is full of review and resolutions, so it’s possible, but I worry I am missing something. I think I might try to find another news-based podcast just to ensure I’m missing nothing that matters.

* Which I am of course only aware of due to the Main Stream Media

A month without Twitter

In addition to the usual trinity of resolutions* I have decided to give up social media entirely for the month of January.

I’m going to blog about this experience, although given I won’t be able to publicise it, you probably won’t be reading this until the experiment is over.

I am a regular user of Twitter and Facebook. I don’t use anything else except LinkedIn (to publicise a few work-related things). Having decided to abstain pretty much at the last moment, I’ve not done the numbers on how much of my time social media takes up. It tends not to be big runs of time – but it will be a few minutes, several times a day. Certainly more than an hour a day and probably more than two. 

Some quick calculations suggest I tweet about 150 times a month. But I spend a lot  time using both as a news/information source; Twitter through the people I follow and Facebook through pages I like (The Guardian, NPR etc) and which find their way to the top of my news feed. Not all that time is going to be saved, particularly if just I find myself on the Guardian App rather than pulling down articles via Facebook.

Why am I doing this?

Firstly there is that classic ‘alcohol-free month’ approach – just proving to myself that I can stop any time I want. Honest.

Secondly I don’t have a lot of free time and I’d like to think there are better things for me to be doing with it. I’ll try and cover what these might be, and how I get on with them, in future posts.

Third, I am increasingly aware (thanks to the likes of Michael Gove telling me) that I live in a bubble of comfortable ‘metropolitan elitism’ where the news that is curated for me on social media reinforces my existing views. This of course happens with many of the people I meet in real life, but I tend to be far less likely to be involved in political discussions there, and it is much harder to avoid human social interaction. I could have chosen to source my news from Breitbart and the Daily Express for the next month to try and rectify this, but that’s just too painful to seriously contemplate. So this is an attempt to, if not step out of the bubble, at least try to spend a bit less time inflating it.

Finally, the world over the last year or so has been a pretty rubbish place to live. (I mean this in a general sense –  my own life has been really good in 2015/6.) Stepping back from the hate and worry for a month feels like a nice break.

That’s the plan, and 16 hours into the New Year I’m still sticking with it. I’ll post in a couple of days on how things are going.

If you have any views on this, feel free to Tweet me at @rossofpenge. Just don’t expect a reply before February.

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* exercise, alcohol and smoking

Sexist Boy

I was going to blog about sexism following something that happened on Facebook the other day. And then Joey Barton opened his mouth on Question Time last night and brought the issue front and centre. So no time like the present.

I am going to preface this with a sort of health warning. I am thick-skinned. I spend my days working with and against litigation lawyers. They love to argue, for the hell of it. And if I couldn't cope with that I'd be a gibbering wreck. So I am perhaps desensitised to argument. And I have a dry sense of humour, to the point that if I express outrage or massive horror about something etc it is often not how I really feel; it's probably sarcasm or a wind-up/trolling exercise. So please don't think I was upset by any of this. Nor, probably, will I be upset by your comments on it. I genuinely don't know the answer to the point I am making, and welcome clarification - as a straight white middle-class middle-aged man, I've not got much experience of discrimination to relate back to.

Anyway, I shared this cartoon, from the Spectator and reproduced here with full acknowledgement and for the purposes of criticism.

I shared it because I thought it was funny - a play on the two meanings of the words deep and shallow. And you know how Facebook works. See it, enjoy it, share it, move on.

And after a couple of likes, I got a comment - "I bet a man drew that". And so I looked again. There is a clear inference that could be drawn that women are shallow gossipy creatures whilst men are intellectuals. The first time, I did not see it this way. But an allusion to the issue made it very plain to me.

It's hard in hindsight to recreate a thought process. Was I blind to the sexism? Was I completely focused on the wordplay and didn't see the sexes of the people? If the latter, should I have?

I've asked around - I've shown the cartoon to twenty people or so. Simply saying "what do you think of this?"

• Five (split three men and two women) did not get it. They are no longer friends. (Joke.)
• Eight (50/50 split) thought it funny
• Three said they understood it but did not find it funny. All men. Two of whom have very slapstick senses of humour - you know the type - thinks Milton Jones is rubbish. None of these people 'get' the titles of my blogs either*
• Four - (three women ) saw it as sexist, although two of the women also said without prompting that they thought it was accurate (I don't know what to make of this!)

Not much of a sample, and no clear finding. Some people were (very mildly) offended by it. At The Spectator, not at me. Is that enough that it shouldn't be published? Do I need to consider the sexist (and also presumably racist, homophobic etc) potential which could be in any joke before I make it?

My conclusion - modern life is complicated.

And in waded Joey Barton. His comment - paraphrased - on looking at the recent elections, is that it was like four ugly girls at a party and selecting UKIP was like selecting the least ugly one. And engage Twitterstorm level 3.

Barton has form. He has made derogatory comments in the past about other footballers and their sexuality. He has been violent. He has had, as they say, issues. He is though (it is apparent from QT) not stupid. But he's not, I suspect, formally educated - he was just born bright, and once he realised there was more to life than kicking a football, has done something to educate himself, through reading etc. (This is potentially a massive generalisation - but indulge me.)

How, dear Reader, would you cope on Question Time? I would be utterly terrified. Most of us, when put on the spot, tend one of two ways. We shut up - not good in a panellist - or we babble. And that is what Barton did, I think. I am sure that if he had been given time, he would have not made the analogy. (He has apologised and seems genuinely upset about it.) He could have found another example. Or simply stuck with what he had said before.

But now we know that, even if he had self-censored, that this is how his mind works. Is he innately sexist? Given my posting of that cartoon, am I - with me just lacking the pressure and/or opportunity to be openly so?

There is a difference of course. I am guessing that if you polled people, a very high percentage would see Barton's comments as sexist. It is obvious. Res ipsa loquitor**. So I think that's my line. Some things are so obviously offensive that they should not be said. But the things that divide opinion, or offend a small minority are just life being difficult. People have the right to expect me, Joey and everyone else to remove the first, but you just have to accept the second is going to happen. If you are the only person in the world offended by x, then unless x is personal and about you, it probably says more about you than the world.

Should Barton be ostracised and pilloried? No, of course he shouldn't. QT picks non-political panellists because it wants more than the 'on message' answers. It should be more interesting. More 'real', whatever that means. It was a throwaway comment and I suspect he will learn from it. We shall see, because I am sure, following that, he will get plenty more TV chat opportunities.


* not 'get' them individually - 'get' the fact that they are usually slightly twisted references to pop tunes. You all got that, right?
** the thing speaks for itself.