I was filing my tax returns for the financial year 2014-2015 recently, which led to a lot of digging and scrambling for information for financial year 2014-2015. That also led to some soul searching, like assessing where I am and where I want to go, which gave rise to this post! Year in this post refers to financial year! 🙂
Social media has taken over this World, everything happens on social media. Job advertisements, breaking news, questions/answers, startup funding, finding love, shopping, etc happens on social media nowadays. Trawling through my Facebook I realised I have not made a status update, a photo upload, or a post since a year or so. I have a Twitter account but there are zero tweets. I might have answered a maximum of 10 questions on Quora over the course of last year. But my peers on Facebook have numerous posts, status updates, photo uploads over the course of last year. Their Twitter is filled with discussions with lots of other people. They have answered and participated on thousands of questions on Quora! Everyone seems to share their happy and sad moments but mostly happy moments, political persuasions and beliefs, the breakfasts/lunches/dinners, the night-outs, overseas trips etc. Sometimes I feel like I am not doing much, I wish to be like a 21st century person like everyone else in this current day in age, i.e. social media savvy.
I consider myself technically up-to-date and inquisitive but it was really stupid of me to think that all their social media contributions was through a laptop or desktop computer. I realised few months ago that everyone has relevant apps enabled on their smartphones and upload posts/statuses/photos on the go!
Over the course of last year, I have had many breakfasts, lunches and dinners, some fancy and some not so fancy, launched The Portfolio Trader, finished post-production and final-cut of a short film, submitted the short-film to many film festivals, got myself a decent actors agent, filtered through numerous short-film scripts from all over the World, honed in on one particular script to produce, released one of my private repos as open-source on GitHub, worked on refining my automated trading systems, re-did my CV and applied for many jobs, attended many interviews some successful and some unsuccessful, got promoted at my current work-place, dived into deep learning frameworks, published a CVPR 2015 conference workshop paper, published a Machine Vision and Applications journal paper, and the biggest of all, we welcomed our baby son!
Now, there were enough events or content available for me to upload to my social media but I did not, why?
I get up at 0730 Hrs in the morning and by the time I get ready, drive (25 mins) to work and login in at my work-place it is almost 0830 Hrs. I browse through my daily dose of online newspapers, financial market blogs, political blogs etc, get a cup of coffee and actually start working. I finish work by 1730 Hrs. So, between 0730 Hrs and 1730 Hrs my smart-phone is being used sparingly i.e. may be 2 or maximum 3 times to make/receive calls, text messages and read/reply personal emails. I have to work, so I cannot be on social media at work! I return home by 1800 Hrs, on days I visit the gym (once or twice a week) I return home by 1900 Hrs. By the time we prepare dinner, get my son into bed it will be 2100 Hrs, I hit the bed at around 2330 Hrs, so the slot between 2100 Hrs and 2330 Hrs is the time I get to do my daily checks on automated trading systems, managing bank and other accounts, software repositories and other miscellaneous stuff, usually multi-tasking while watching TV. During weekends, we head out for lunches and dinners, swimming, shopping, walks, etc. How do I fit in social media activities into this schedule?
Smart phone is probably the easiet way for someone pressed for time to participate actively on social media. After analysing my activity, I realised that the only time I actively consult my smart phone is if I have to make/receive calls, send/receive text messages, checking time/date, my Wunderlist, for Google Maps and browsing Imgur or Reddit before bed-time. The times I am not looking at my phone, I am either driving, talking to my partner, having a nice breakfast/lunch/dinner with my partner and son, working, cooking, cleaning, shopping, at a party chatting with strangers, catching up with family and friends, playing with my son, script reading, on a film set or sleeping!
So, I ask this question – Where is the time?
Sometimes, I do wonder if my inability to participate in social media is either because of my inability to accommodate it into my schedule or my inherent trait of keeping things private? But even if I suddenly decide to share my daily eating and toilet habits I am afraid I may not have the time to actually share it on social media!
That is the truth and I have to live with that.
Note to residents of United States of America (especially school teachers and law enforcement officials): Yes, time does refer to clock but I just want to be clear that I am not looking at building clocks.