Students on a social media "detox"

disrupting the everyday practices of social media use

Krista Lepik

Maria Murumaa-Mengel

pp. 60-69

in: Serap Kurbanolu, Joumana Boustany, Esther Grassian, Diane Mizrachi, Loriene Roy (eds), Information literacy in everyday life, Berlin, Springer, 2019

Abstract

This article explores how disruption of habitual social media use reshapes the information behavior of emerging adults. Using the core ideas from theories about the social acceleration of time, reverse domestication and social media literacies, we designed a study where full-time BA-level students (N = 42) were asked to keep a diary about quitting social media for five consecutive days. Despite temporary disconnection, participants expressed anxiety and negative emotions brought on by the non-usage and perceived slowing of time – meaning mostly boredom and "fear of missing out' while being inaccessible to others. Alternatively, many participants expressed fulfillment and a sense of serenity from the absence of constant availability. Considering this exercise of contemplating taken-for-granted activities, we propose a simple tool to reflect upon information behavior in the context of accelerating social time, to ensure subjectively perceived comfortable sense of time.