So Long, Twitter and Instagram...

Hi, everyone! I hope you're all having a great summer! It's been very hot and humid here in Japan. I mean this is how summer is supposed to be in Japan, but every time the season comes in, I always think, "Jeez! This is the hottest summer I've ever had!" lol I've been trying not to used the AC so often to save money, and I always use a fan. But when it's too hot, that doesn't really help, because it's just a fan; it just blows out air, not a cool air, so it's still hot. During winter when it's cold, you can bundle yourself up with clothes. But when it's hot, you can't just do the opposite. Well, you can take off your coat, jacket, cardigan, etc., but you cannot take off everything. You cannot just walk out of your door without wearing anything. You still have to wear something. 

Oh, the problem is not just about the heat. Ok, so when you go outside during summer, you don't want to wear a lot. It's deadly hot outside, so just a T-shirt and short pants are more than enough. You walk to school, and yes, it's this temperature, so just a casual 15 to 20 minutes of walk makes you sweat like you've become a waterfall. You enter to the classroom, and you feel like you've come to the heaven, because it's an air-conditioned space, and you don't have to sweat anymore. But nothing is permanent, and the heaven does not last forever either. Now you start to feel cold. You feel cold because you are wearing the same clothes which you chose to wear for the hot temperature outside. And that outfit is not suited for sitting in an air-conditioned classroom for 90 minutes. After the class is over, you get out of the classroom, and the building; you feel even good to go into a much higher temperature. But then again, nothing lasts forever, and you eventually start to feel like you're dying because of the heat. This happens anywhere! When you get on a train, when you go into the library, when you are shopping at a mall, etc., you feel so comfortable at first, but then you start to have goose bumps on your arms. Oh, there's an exception: when I get home. It's really hot in my apartment, so when I get home, I don't feel comfortable at all. lol 

I wonder how it's like to live in the south hemisphere, where it's actually winter during the time when it's summer here. It's like, "What?! It's winter in your place when it hits the highest temperature of the year here, and you're sweating during the Christmas season?!" Actually, I've been to Australia once when I was little, but because I was little, I don't remember anything about the trip. How sad! I saw kangaroos, tried to feed them, but then I got scared when the kangaroos approached me to get food, and I started to cry. This is the story my parents tell. Oh, and because I was crying, my dad came to rescue me. But because he was in such a hurry, he accidentally stepped on one of the kangaroo's tail! Luckily, the kangaroo didn't care, and my dad wasn't hurt. 

Alright, so I am starting a whole new topic from here. I've deleted my Twitter and Instagram accounts. I don't have Snapchat, and what I have now is just this blog and Facebook. Why I deleted them? Because I knew that I didn't really need them, and I knew they weren't really beneficial for me. And they weren't making me happy. Well, in addition, I wanted to have lesser screen time. 

Modern people are so addicted to phones (or screens in general), that most of us pick up our phones when we don't really have any purpose to do so. It's not because your phone rang to let you know that you've got a message. It's not because you remembered that you had to send an e-mail to somebody. We do pick up our phones with a purpose in our minds, but there are so many times when we open our phones without any particular purpose. 

Why do we do this? I think we do so because our phones have got something, always. Think about Twitter and Instagram; they always show something new every time you open those apps. It doesn't how to be only about those apps. Any social media outlets, news feeds, online bulletin boards, etc., offer new stuff. Also, note that all those things are bottomless. You can just scroll down, and there is no point where you can no longer scroll down. That's why it's so easy to forget about time, and spend like an hour on the Internet. 

Even when we open our phones with a purpose on our minds, we tend to open social media apps after finishing our tasks, and before putting down our phones. It's almost an automatic behavior. 

And what do we get? Well, yes, we get information from those social media outlets. Those posts are information, those pictures are information, and those videos are information, too. But is it always good or fun to get new information? Are you even interested in all those information? More simply, are you having fun with what you're doing? 

I'm not hating the Internet and social media services altogether. What they can do is fascinating, and I know how they can be fun. But it is also true that we don't have to be connected all the time. When you scroll through your Twitter feeds or Instagram feeds, are you smiling? Or are you facing the screen with rather emotionless face? Some posts do actually make you have facial expressions, but I feel that most of the times, people are staring at their phones with a deadpan. 

People nowadays are distracted easily, and we are so impatient. We cannot wait even just for a minute. We loved to be stimulated. And smartphones offer anything so that we are always distracted and stimulated. 

Because of the Internet, we don't have to worry about time and space anymore. Thanks to the Internet, we can connect whenever we want, and from wherever you are. In this sense, we live in  a virtual. But isn't it also important to be aware of the present moment? Right here, and right now. Time is a pile of moments, and I want to live each moment with awareness. 

Alright, I'm off to dinner now. My sister called me while I was writing this post, so it took me longer than I had expected to finish up. I don't wanted to write and talk at the same time, since I cannot pay my full attention to both of the activities. I didn't want my sister to think that I wasn't really interested in having a conversation with her, and that I wasn't paying attention. So, we talked for about 90 minutes, and I got back to finish this up. My plan was to have dinner after I uploaded this post, and the dinner time is going to be later than I had originally planned, but that's just fine. I'm glad that she called me. 

Ok, so thank you for reading my post! I hope to you in my next post! Bye!