Social media: the experiement

Being a tech-geek, last week I decided to test myself and see how I would be able to cope without any form of social media usage for seven consecutive days. Okay, truthfully my internet connection developed a fault and I was forced into making the decision but either way, I did. Anyway, here is a quick breakdown of how the days unfolded.

The first two days felt weird. What do I mean, you ask?. Well, it felt as though I has being restricted from doing what I wanted when there was nothing to do. Being completely addicted to 'chatting' away to friends outside of my everyday social circle via Facebook is something that I have become accustomed to on a daily basis whenever I am bored and have time to spare. I actually felt lonely. Okay, that sounds extremely sad but in the context just mentioned I'm sure you understand what I mean.

By the middle of the week, I had become used to it. Almost like a child finally realising he is not going to get what he wants and has to now live with the realisation. However, this is where I started realising a few serious negative points to my lack of access to social media. Being unemployed, I use Twitter as a tool to job search and then subsequently apply for those roles, and now this was taken away from me leading to no responses from potential employers. Be it rejection emails, this was the first week where I had received none at all and this was not a good place to be whilst being unemployed in the current climate.

The only form of income that I do generate is through sales of clothing through my own small clothing line. Now, this was being affected too. Facebook is my main form of targeting and attracting potential customers and with this now being taken away, I had just witnessed the lowest number of sales I have ever had in a week!.

I must say that by day six, I failed to complete my task fully and cheated slightly. However, this was not due to my inability to finish tasks, but more to counter the lack of job applications I had made and to update my brand's Facebook page. Both of which I could not really afford to not do.

I must say that I was shocked with finding out how reliant I am on social media. At first, I thought I would be affected by the lack of socialising, but this could not be further from the truth. The free time where I had nothing to do actually forced me to go out and see more friends so it actually worked out to be a treat. It was more to do with my reliance on social media as a means to an end that really shocked me and I guess that could either be a positive or a negative thing depending on how you look at it.

East London lads light up the world stage

First of all, I probably should not post this on a blog about PR- but the organisation in question in this post is the one I work for as a communications officer so I guess it somehow opens up a loophole where I am allowed?. Or maybe i'm just making excuses. Either way, I could not be prouder of our achievements over the past week.

For those of you that do not know, whilst I am looking for a permanent role in PR, I work voluntarily as the communications officer for the Bromley-by-Bow Community Organisation. Considering it is my local community and the fact that I am one of its founding members, I do end up doing all sorts of odd jobs just like everyone else. The past week was one of the perks as we embarked on not only our biggest excursion yet, but an ultimatum of a whole years worth of training as we sent out our under-18 football team to compete at the Gothia Cup in Sweden (which just happens to be the largest football tournament in the world).

In a tournament that boasted teams from all across the globe and has produced some of the finest professional talent over the years, our boys were eventually knocked out in the third round on penalties despite not losing a single match in the whole competition. In fact, not only did we top our group but it was only in our third match played that we even had a shot on goal against us.

Well, I will end this post here so as to not bore all the football-phobes (is that even a word?). But all I must say is congratulations lads- you did us and England proud on the world stage.