Off Facebook day diary

Update 5 / 11.40 PM


One and a half hours to go and I'm back.

True that I haven't read so many websites today, I haven't listened to so much music, I haven't laughed or smiled so much, haven't got so much inspiration and haven't seen so many stunning photos. I haven't been exposed to so many real people's true stories and have't shared moments with so many. But I haven't fallen into the multitask-trap either and I focused more easily. I've been quite productive.

And I think I'm not addicted to social media or FB more closely. I'm addicted to people.

My dilemmas answered? (How I think about them after a day off FB)

Am I so much used to Facebook that I can’t see it’s flip-side?
------What is the flip-side? The articles based on studies and research on FB in mass media? Still can't give a damn, sorry :) Nobody has ever researched my newsfeed, my behaviour and my network :D

Have I been so heavily devoured by social media that I can’t see real life?
------Real life? Life viewed from my own frog-perspective, from which I only see the leg of the table? Is that real life? HAHAHA

Am I an addict? Pathetic? Narcississsiissssiissstic???
-------If I am, I am anyway. Without FB just as much of a moron as with it.


But but .... that is the source of my daily online professional development! Or is it just an illusion?
-------No, not and illusion. Reading is reading and not reading is not reading :)

I’m connected with like-minded “friends from all over the world! Is that all fake?
-------No, still seems real.
Do I really harness Facebook and use it consciously or I'm just driven away by its devil 24/7?
-------I make quite a lot out of it. Now I feel my mission is to drive others away from more manipulative, fake mass media products. This is not about devillishness, it's about angelic qualities :D

What will I refine about my own FB behaviour? 

I won't open all the links to have 47 open but unread tabs per device by the end of teh day.
I won't interrupt myself when cleaning the toilet or mopping the floor just to have a quick look at my newsfeed.
I will poke more people.
I will wish more happy bdays :)
I'll cut down on my in-the-lesson and while-working-on-something FB peeping.
I'll not exclude and use more of other news sources  (Twitter, Scoop.it, RSS)




Update 4 / 5.04 PM

• So in the middle of my Facebook abstinence day I ended up on Twitter :) (I posted this on Twitter and  @michaelegriffin replied, and @abfromz retweeted it XD). Funny, anything I tweet appears on FB, I tweeted the updates here, so I was on FB and I wasn't.
• And I seem to have a potential new FB friend (@michaelegriffin), that shows how much more suitable FB is for me, although I know that those names and tiny avatars are people, FB seems to emphasize the human-like attributes of users (to me).

• And yes. Sometimes .... when my lesson is not so intensive (my student does something I'm not needed for).... yep... I check FB... Now she is doing an activity with her new vocabulary  online :D and I'm writing this now. The latter observation means I'm not a FB addict, I'm just hyperactive. She's doing sooo fine!!! Love that girl :)

• I'm hungry-> I feel I want to see what's going on on FB :))

• Not entirely cut off, chatting with a friend on Skype. Good, good, but I can't see the newsfeed behind tha chatbox.

• And since last night I haven't read a single word about teaching. Ok, get back to Twitter, find something to read. (That is, I'm not a FB addict, I'm an information addict. I could as well be reading Kiskegyed (a boring women's mag in Hungary), aren't I better off with this? ... let's find something .... http://langwitches.org/blog/2013/02/03/ipad-fluency-in-kindergarten/  <--this li="">

• Now I remember a day when I wanted to write something. there was no straight deadline, which always activates my procrastination genes. So I realized I was wasting time on FB instead of writing. Writing something is anyway difficult for me as there is a constant layer of self-doubt under it. So I said no, for an hour I wouldn't use FB! And I didn't. But I noted down each time I wanted to log on. Only the times. In the first half an hour  it was every minute! Then gradually less frequently, finally I managed not to think of opening FB for 17 minutes!! :D That time I wasn't distracted by FB for an hour. Distracted? This is weird! Normally nothing distracts us, it is us, who click there :) I was in control. XD
• Many times people complain that their kids waste time online, a standard reaction is to cut them off the internet totally. I don't know, this is something like chocolate. Of course all the kids would want to eat chocolate all the time, all day, for breakfast too. During our childhood we are not deprived of choc altogether, our parents train us, they (hopefully) tell us about how bad it would be for us to eat choc all the time. Then we grow up, we could eat choc non-stop but we don't. Because we have learned a set of principles and a couple of habits concerning that. While being brought up we CAN eat chocolate, it's not like 18 years no chocolate and then you are liberated! (Similarly) I have/had to teach myself the FB principles and habits, my parents had no chance to do that back in the 70s and 80s :)

• I wonder how many notifications I will have...

• Academic research on FB habits. Does it make sense? Just as much as how to teach young learners. Which young learner? :D ok, there are basics and facts but honestly, as a practising teacher I would say individual differences are huge.
  Like FB habits. And my individual FB habits keep changing as well.
• To know how to improve anything in life you need to reflect. Academic research should be unplugged or what :)) <><><><><>If you want to teach kids the smart use of social media, you should know how they are using it now. Research it. But that makes no sense, that is individual. Rather tell them to observe reflect on what they do, make conclusions and improve habits. 

Update  3 / 11.59 AM

• My colleague  I told about here said she was not interested in the stuff on Facebook. What is that stuff? Is she aware that the "stuff " there is not like the "stuff" on TV, with frequent stupid stuff pushed right into your face. Does she know that Facebook "stuff" (call it content) is customisable by you? Does she know she can have control over that?
• Modes: I've recently discovered my teen students' modes, they operate in different modes. (zombie mode, learning mode, creative mode, good guys, badasses, depending on who they want to please, teachers or peers :))----I wish they were able to switch modes. It seems that they can't really, it's the environment tat serves as a trigger to put them if specific modes. Now I can obviously put myself into and out of FB mode. Good news really, it is important  to be able to put yourself into modes, not to be be susceptible to outside factors that are harmful to your life/progress.
• Self-direction is a skill to be promoted, isn't it? The role of control over your life is crucial. (Part of it is switching modes.) If you have control overt your life... even the illusion of that control leaves you with less fear or stress. As for media,  If you are not capable of controlling what media you digest ... what are you capable of doing then?  To what extent much are you manipulated? How big surface of you is exposed to media, stories, messages effects that have an impact on your life? Can you control that? Do you want to? Are you critical? What sources do you trust? What machineries are you ready to enter and go through? Do they (the designers of those machineries) really know what is good for you? Is it still your life or are you living up to the ideals you are given? TV commercials and soaps?
• I miss good people and  good things and social media, now I feel it. I'm happy I know I can go back tomorrow. Life is great here, no problem, it's warm in here, the snow is nice (bit grey though), I love my students, ... but there's more good in the world that I have no access to at the moment.

• Checking FB too frequently is a bad habit of mine, it's an annoying frequency... now no problem with this, good news, its the question of determination :)
• Doing cleaning: triggers the itch to check FB, checked emails instead and the stats of this blog :)
• I'm hungry for immediate reactions/praise. I might be addicted to people's reactions. Dilemma: am I an attention prostitute? Am I moved entirely by external motivation  of just seeking immediate praise or reaction to my existence :) ? Is it a sin? :) Even in real life I'm a clown...
• Habit revealed: right after my lessson, the moment my student and her mum left I automatically wanted to resort to FB. Is that my home screen? My den? The virtual place I retire to? OK, I've been working for this and this long, now I need a bit of separation from it. FB is my caesura? Now I think I've identified a point where I am  often driven away from my plan and get distracted. This is a typically weak moment (feeling I deserve some goodie, let myself carried away by FB. I think I'll be a more aware and conscious user in the future.

• Bad news: someone has just died in my family. I'm thinking of his son. Terrible, I want to comfort him. I can't of course, just want to do something for him. How I cope with bad things myself,  using FB? I post it (in some likeable format possibly), people react, I feel better. It took me bitter times to learn that I'm completely alone, no matter how good friends I have, I'm alone. Fact. Everyone is alone. You have to do it alone. But you can use help. Thoughts created and posted on FB are my help, these will invite people's thoughts in the form of comments, messages and updates, or other content.
• Now my immediate problem: I've got to let my grandma know about the death of that relative.  I hate this, I don't want to tell her. But I've got to go and tell her. And after that I can't go to FB to get my thoughts driven away from her tears and recollection of all the sorrow we've lived through together during recent years (literally everyone died around us). Poor her ... how can she take this all?
• Dilemma:  Facebook shows me that the world is big , if I have a problem it doesn't mean it has to grow over everything. Having this kind of view on the world gives me the chance to step back and not let myself be buried under adversities and negative feelings OR it's just an escape from the problems. No, that's not a dilemma.  I solve the problems after all. It's just the explanatory style that is different.

 Update 2 / 8.29 AM:

• Revelation: on Facebook we often talk about Facebook. There is this Facebook meta-language.
• Whose birthday is it? What happened at night on other continents? Now I realize that every day FB reminds me that it is someone's birthday. It's always a birthday! And FB made me understand that the earth is a globe and there is always someone awake. Sure I learned that at school but had never really felt before chatting with Rose in Brazil and Chuck in Japan at the same time. He getting up, Rose having the day, me going to bed.
• I woke up, lucky I remembered it was the no FB day, and I missed the updates of that certain page, tech in education, don't even remember the name, can't find it now so easily, but I like the morning tech goodies ... So I'm already missing the RSS feed/newsreader function of FB.
• And I fell back to sleep. An extra hour.
• I have this feeling that I will be more focused throughout the day today doing anything: the dishes, the laundry, cleaning, etc. now that I won't check the news on FB every ... 2 minutes. We'll see.
• It's snowing quite strangely... horizontally. Normally I'd post it on FB.

Update 1 / 1:20 AM:
Uh! It WAS difficult to switch FB off.
Hey, wait! Am I not updating my status?????http://rbie.blogspot.hu/2013/02/have-myself-merry-little-off-facebook.html

Have myself a merry little off Facebook day

Yes, I’m gonna go 24 hours without FB.

What made me ... ?

Today in the office a colleague sitting next to me had a question about a sample language exam task she was holding. I felt overly competent to answer her, being lucky enough to be a contributor to one of the “products” of the language exam centre in question. 
After answering her question I felt the urge to show her the “product”, a funny Facebook app that posts 5-minute tasks three times a week right to you, quick, engaging, useful, I love it, my favourite pastime is doing my part of it. This week’s tasks I am especially proud of.
So I quickly presented the task, she liked it and (with a frown on her face) she made a remark: “Pity it’s only available on Facebook. Why don’t they put it on their website?” She pointed out she felt excluded from things as she was not on Facebook. I was .... very surprised ..... To me it sounded like “How unfair that swimming is only for those who go into the water.”

The idea of putting the Facebook game on the website left me cold as an Eskimo’s tombstone.
I said (upset as slightly as only I noticed) “Hey, but there is a six week long, entirely free, quality e-learning exam prep course on that website!” (Which was not the point either, I admit :))
She said yes, she knew about that but ... And she went on with the usual anti-Facebook things like how annoying the whole Facebook thing was, not being on Facebook meant you didn't exist, .... tadadadadaaaaa...
Then I wanted to ask her why she hasn't registered, but she was faster. She said she wouldn't register after all because she wasn't interested in the stuff going on there at all. 

Pretty shocked I was, sitting there, paralysed  (She was already gone:) No boasting with the funny task, no joyous feeling over how great social media was ... but ... puzzled.


Dilemmas:

Am I so much used to Facebook that I can’t see it’s flip-side?
Have I been so heavily devoured by social media that I can’t see real life?
Am I an addict? Pathetic? Narcississsiissssiissstic???

But but .... that is the source of my daily online professional development! Or is it just an illusion?
I’m connected with like-minded “friends from all over the world! Is that all fake?
Do I really harness Facebook and use it consciously or I'm just driven away by its devil 24/7?


It all happened some time around midday. By midnight it has been decided: 
I'm having a day deliberately without Facebook.


What do I expect?

I will miss it. I will want to look around for news, professional treats, fun, music from friends and students, quotes and motivational wisdom, chats with close and distant friends, emoticons, real stories, opinions, humour woven throughout comment threads by friends and strangers, booooohoooooooo :’(

Nevertheless I must see this. What will this experience feel like? What thoughts will it bring about? Will it reveal my addiction or prove my view social media? Will I want to change my Facebook habits afterwards? Will I commit facebookicide in the end?

What will I do for a day?

I will go into a kind of self observation. I want write a mini-diary about it. (I won’t have too many lessons as is is the flu season, hopefully time is not going to be a problem.)


Sooooo, let’s get started!!

Click here for the diary.

HBD from Bea, she doesn't even know about it XD

Hello, my name is BBarbi, it’s my BBirthday, one of my BBest BBirthday BBresents is BBea, the newBBorn BBlogger :)

 Do you know this classroom activity? I read it here, right away I tried a version of it with one of my teenage groups and it kind of worked. The guys in the class came up with funny sentences, I imagined pictures of them: Nándi having a NNap, Bianka riding a BBike, all the Peters of the group: Ákos (who is also Peter o.O) gobbling up a huge PPizza, another Peter with a PPlastic landphone, Peter in the case of whom I won’t be able to PPredict what he’d say, Enikő and tha EElephants ...and blah blah blah... It’s only fun for me, eh?
Who is Bea? Beatrix Price, she wrote about that activity after joining the British Council Blogathlon, also recalled  her feelings during the lesson when she herself used this game. Which made me feel good and gave me confidence in what I do.

First I spotted Bea in 2010 in Zánka, it was a conference, there was this radiant lady, significantly more upbeat than any of us, even her hair colour and her clothes said “frieeeennnd” :)

She’s someone who is very easy to make friends with, great fun and very entertaining.

We’ve met many many times since then of course around IATEFL Hungary, but one thing I didn’t know about: what kind of a teacher she was. Miraculously, I had never attended any of her conference sessions either. I’ve always been convinced she must be great though.

Then some real surpr@ise arrived: this blogathlon thing. She joined the competition and ... turned out to be just the right blogger for me! I enjoy every word of hers! She gives me a lot of ideas and  eases my uneasiness around teaching. And helps me think deeper and laugh at myself.

Hey what’s the odds of this? I mean, may say I have quite a large PLN, wonderful people from all over the globe, and one of the best suited reading for me comes from someone just a couple of (ok, 150) km away???

Yihhiiieee! Thank you for the birthday present Bea! Don’t worry, you don’t have to write every day after you have won the trip to Liverpool, and I do hope you will go on blogging!


And now I feel I’m older as I keep saying “I knew. I told you. I felt it in my bones.” (Old lady fashion.)
Maybe this is one good thing about getting older. You just ... know things.

My boiler and the polyglot repairman

The adversity

In the past few days our Baxi Eco 1240i wall-hung gas boiler hadn’t been working. (Now it is :))))
It was terrible, you know, 21th century, Europe (right, Eastern ....), and you don’t know when you will have heating with minuses outside? With my granny 88 who keeps panicking every now and then (although she’s an absolutely fantastic person, who has survived all the calamities of the last 88 years of Eastern Central Europe).
I was feeling really bad, I was worried about Granny,  multiple repairmen said so many different things, had to cancel lessons, the least negative thing was feeling cold.
To ease the stress I kept posting it all on Facebook, trying to apply a coat of fun :).  What helped me immensely was my friends' reactions: likes, comments, messages, chats. Thank you ever so much for everyone really, it means so much to me! I can’t express. *.*

The way out

Altogether 3 repairmen saw it, there have been various diagnoses and treatments, with potential costs of €600-700 or €230 or €nobodyknew.
You won’t believe it, finally I paid €35.
But the miracle of the whole story was the pleasure of meeting the amazing man who finally fixed it for so cheap.
The guy with the screwdrivers turned out to be the ex-owner of a translation agency, speaker of at least 8 languages, having multiple jobs and businesses (something like Seamus McSporran from an early edition of Headway Elementary, but in big), having travelled the world and worked in several countries. (Now I had the chance to hear how to get beer and make friends with the waiting staff in Arabic, Greek, Russian, Polish, Italian, ....., I couldn’t memorize all of that though.)  He told me stories of how knowing languages actually earned him money. :)

I was just listening to him with my jaw on the floor and of course asked him why and how. (In Hungary it’s quite unusual to speak foreign languages, that is.) I thought he had been a bilingual kid or been brought up abroad or something. No. His career as a language learner started when he was 14 and went to a nearby Prussian-style gymnasium, where he chose to learn English but he was streamed to the Latin group out of some reason. He said the secret lies in the quality of his teachers who spoke 8 languages, Sanskrit, Latin, Ancient Greek, ....  (Saying that teaching a dead language using the strict grammar-translation method results in polyglot problem solver????)
Then he put forward his idea of the ideal (low cost-high efficiency) language course:

• Go to the L2 country
• Meet your teacher in a cafe
• Your teacher gives you a task, for example “You have one hour. Go out to the city and ask people what they think of the weather here. Ask as many people as you can.”
• Then go back in an hour and report on what you have learned.

Yesss!!! This is something I can more than relate to, also similar to something I’ve already heard about last summer (Devon Unplugged SOL Course) and very similar to what Mark Andrews is doing right at the moment , if I’m not mistaken :))

Phew

So finally the heating problem has been solved, thank God my granny got over it without catching a cold.
If you ask me, these couple of days of uncertainty, cold and lessons cancelled were truly worth it. Through listening to the repairman's anecdotes I learned a lot ...  I usually learn easier from experiences and human encounters. 
I'm grateful.

Hmmm..... sigh of relief and the excitement of having met that marvellous character .... Warm radiators...  

What do I deserve now?? :)