Knock Knock, purveyor of fine paper goods (like funny checklists) and oddities (like Clump-o-Lumps) has declared this Thursday, October 16, the first ever Social Media Blackout Day. According to their website, we average over an hour a day on social media. Think about what you could do with all that time. Then tweet about it.
No, I’m kidding.
What you’re supposed to do is change your profile pic to the image above, change your status to something with #SocialMediaBlackoutDay, and then actually stay off social media for 24 hours. Think you can do it? I haven’t decided entirely if I’ll do it or not, but I still tend to use email much more than Facebook and Twitter, so it’s not quite as huge a sacrifice for me.
Author Marc Hartzman collaborated with Knock Knock to create the Anti-Social Network Journal, a mostly-blank book that’ll give you something to do on your day off from Twitter and Facebook and the like. It’s a cute book, whether you’re participating in the blackout day or not: most of the pages are just blank, with little quips like “This journal will not suggest other journals you might like” or “Bookmark this page by inserting an actual bookmark.” There are also some pages with writing prompts: “Things you like without clicking a button that says so” and “Birthdays (of people you would expect to say happy birthday to).”
If you want something a little more guided, I might suggest 1 Page at a Time: A Daily Creative Companion by Adam J. Kurtz. It contains 365 prompts for writing, sketching, and thinking about things without broadcasting everything—in fact, some are specifically for you to write down things that are not intended for public consumption.
As both journals note, you don’t have to worry about privacy issues with anything you share in them—unless, of course, you lose the book somewhere.
I think a Social Media Blackout Day isn’t such a bad idea—it’s certainly a little easier than National Unplugging Day or Screen-Free Week. If you take a day off social media on Thursday, do something fun… and then don’t leave anything in the comments.
Disclosure: GeekDad received samples of the two journals.
It has been interesting when I am off of social media for a day or two. I feel like I am happier and much more fun to be around because I am not thinking about what I am going to write about next or what I am going to tweet about. I don’t know if I can participate but it would be worth a try.