Staying on track!

So here I am again, sticking up with the habit of writing! I don't think I actually blogged twice in such a short span of time in years. Maybe before Dubai, or maybe before I got distracted with social media years and years ago. I first thought, until a few years ago, that social media was only limited to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the likes... I didn't count WhatsApp or LinkedIn as part of the 'social network of social media' if that makes sense.

My addiction to social media goes way back. I try to think of a time when I wasn't connected and it's a very distant memory. I remember when Facebook was introduced to Egypt circa 2006-2007, I was sitting in the office and 'connected' to Facebook all the time. I bought my first BlackBerry in 2008 at a time, that, yes, I was proudly announcing it back then, amongst a very few people in the country with one. I was working for the top comms agency in the region and even my boss and the GM at the time didn't own one. None of my friends did, none of my clients did. I used to sit with my friends smoking shisha and holding my precious phone in my hands, logging online to show them how cool and fast it is, and checking my mail - when no one was even emailing me. Back then, we didn't leave offices with our laptops (those of us who had ones) and there was no such thing as 'checking emails' after 5pm or on weekends because no one had access to work email anyway and no one had his work laptop/desktop at home with them. This was across all industries. With my BlackBerry (BB), I was always chatting to my friends in the UAE (who were more advanced than those of us in Egypt at the time) through the BlackBerry Messenger, commonly known as the BBM. It was the coolest thing at the time. A portable MSN (which everyone used at the time) with you, anytime and anywhere. I had very few people on BBM to talk to, and in just a year, more and more people have started buying BB's just for the 'chatting' purpose. The once-in-a-lifetime 'work' phone became the new trending gadget with students and teenagers grabbing their hands on it so they can chat on the go. No one was using SMS's anymore. I was hooked. I was constantly on my phone. Then came Twitter and this was a rollercoaster of false highs, I became a walking zombie. It affected my life, my relationships and mentally I was getting my fix from my phone and social media especially after I had quit smoking. I felt no progress in life and that's when I decided to boycott social media and make massive changes to my life. In the following few months with trial & error, I was able to start a new fitness regimen and meet my future wife.

Moving to Dubai in 2014 meant I needed social media to be connected, and that awakened the junkie within. The once-a-day WhatsApp messages became Facebook posts, followed by non-stop scrolling on Twitter and Instagram and so on. Again, with trial & error, I have managed to get off Facebook (my account is still there but I haven't logged in since 2015 or maybe 2016 - all I remember is that it was June). I unfollowed everyone on Twitter but still kept the account. I stopped logging on to Instagram. However, I didn't remove WhatsApp or LinkedIn. My social media time was divided into those two platforms only and that was more than enough. All the time at the office I had LinkedIn open. Whenever I got introduced to someone, whether face-to-face or virtually or even if I overheard someone with me at work talking about someone, I automatically 'LinkedIn' them' to see who they were, what they did, where they studied, what type of posts they wrote, or emojis they used to comment, and so on. I became a LinkedIn addict. 

A couple of years later, WhatsApp introduced their most addictive tool yet, or let's just say, the most addictive chatting platform I have personally witnessed since the MIRC of the 1990s and that is the WhatsApp Web. Who needs the phone anymore when you can automatically have a WhatsApp tab on your Google Chrome browser to notify you whenever you receive a new message? If before I had a reputation of being 'always' available, I have now become not only available but the first to respond, the first to send anything, to reply to anyone, to start a new group, to stir a conversation, to wind up people, etc. I've become online all the time and the moment I switched off the laptop, I continued my WhatsApp and LinkedIn addiction on the way back home and even from my couch/bed at home.

I started reading less, and I stopped writing completely, On here and on the movie script that I once fantasised about writing, I even watched TV less. I stopped watching football games with my eyes, I was just a person sitting in front of the TV but my head was down, of course, you guessed it, looking at my phone, scrolling through useless stuff. 

I have taken some measures in my life lately, not so extreme and not so subtle, but I am trying to mend those broken pieces. I realised that I constantly lost interest in projects I started or relapsed and wasted time and energy due to a problem in my behaviour design. This is going to be a journey of self-discovery, and self-progress. I know it will be a long journey but I am sure it's going to be an exciting one, too. 

It's never too late to make changes and become a better person, for yourself, your family and those around you.