My Personal Experience With Social Media In This Coronavirus Lockdown

How’s your experience of this coronavirus lockdown going on? Have you been able to set a sleep schedule? What about following a daily routine? I know it’s hard, but what else can we do except stick with them? During this lockdown, I have tried to experiment with different social media platforms. I would like to share my personal experience with you.

Updates and Connecting with Facebook

What better than Facebook for this? Get the live updates, and enjoy its usage alongside. Killing two birds with one stone!

I finally became a big fan of Facebook with this coronavirus pandemic. Every time I wanted to know about the live coronavirus data, I tuned in to Facebook.

Yeah, alright… I have kind of become a Facebook addict, something I never thought I would be.

Back to seriousness, Facebook has also helped me to connect with my known ones from all over the world. When the lockdown had started, I contacted my friends who study in different parts of the world. I thought my situation here was terrible until hearing about how the coronavirus was impacting them. But looking at the positives, a few of them have begun their personal development journey amid this pandemic.

Linking with LinkedIn

Another crucial social media throughout this coronavirus pandemic has been LinkedIn. But can we even consider LinkedIn as social media? After all, it’s particularly for business and professionals, or so I thought…

I had an unused LinkedIn account for a long time, like the spider webs we could find in the corner of our houses. Anyway, for some reason, I decided to use LinkedIn during this lockdown.

I started connecting people from my professional background. As my connections increased, I began to message a few of them.

One thing I learned from LinkedIn messaging is that we have to be very direct with our texts.

In other social media platforms, we begin with an informal and indirect texting style. I tried using the same strategy on LinkedIn at the beginning.

I texted 10 people using that strategy. Can you guess how many replies I got?

0

Well, 1, to be honest…his reply was something like, “Please learn to communicate professionally, and respect others”

Wow! Was I that bad a communicator? Seemingly, I was…

Hurriedly, I searched ‘How to start communication professionally’ on Google. I copy-pasted the most interesting lines in a Word File. Then, I started texting a lot of new people with these lines (or more like spamming them).

Still not satisfied as I wasn’t being myself, I deleted the Word file. I started creating my own words despite they might not have been the best. To my surprise, most of the people texted me back. They had appreciated it as I had used my own words rather than copy-pasting from Google (apparently, that’s what most beginners in LinkedIn do)

Now, I have been a constant LinkedIn user. I have met some wonderful, like-minded people on LinkedIn. It has been hard for me to motivate during my worst times. But, these people have not only motivated me, but also mentored, and assisted me a lot with my career planning.

If you have never used LinkedIn, then I would encourage you too to try it as well. There’s a good chance that your career will gain a massive boost.

Parting with Instagram

Instagram would have been great if I didn’t have to scroll down my Instagram feed every 5 minutes. This was a whole new level of addiction.

It has been that one social media that I can’t seem to part with. I have tried to quit it so many times — deleting the app, deactivating my account, and blocking Instagram from my web browser. These seem to work for a few days, but inevitably, I return to where I was.

So I told myself, enough’s enough. I had to control this before it controlled me.

I permanently deleted my Instagram account three weeks ago. Since then, I haven’t looked back. Because of my habits, I still tried to use Instagram, before realizing that it’s gone, forever. In all honestly, my daily routine has been much better now.

When you lack the required self-discipline, changing your environment is the best alternative. I have tried this to succeed. If you are unable to quit Instagram like me, then deleting your account permanently is the way to go.

Learning with Quora

I have been using Quora for over two years now. This coronavirus lockdown has been extra special because I have been able to use it a lot more than I used to.

What I particularly love about Quora is that I can find so many insightful answers to the same question. The best questions have been those where we can take one side. For example, should euthanasia exist? Questions like these could have answers either way. While I might have an initial side that I choose, the answers in Quora convince me to rethink my choice. I get to learn about both the arguments in the best possible way.

There had been a time when I stopped Googling about the thing I wanted to know. Instead, I used to go to Quora.

It’s great to see so many wonderful writers contributing to Quora. I started following the writers who write about book summaries, personal development, etc. In a sense, Quora has helped me develop during this coronavirus lockdown.

P.S. Whenever I find it difficult to come up with a blog topic, Quora has always helped me to generate new ideas.

Overall lessons from social media

It has to be said that social media platforms have helped me a lot during this coronavirus lockdown. Without them, I could not have been able to connect with my old friends (Facebook), meet like-minded professional people (LinkedIn), and learn new topics (Quora). Sorry, Instagram, for not mentioning you — you too have played a major role.

I have written a similar article about the top 6 personal development influencers. It includes Gary Vaynerchuk, who is one of the best social media personalities in the world — Top 6 Personal Development Influencers

If you learned something and enjoyed reading this article, then please consider sharing this with your wonderful friends as well.

Thank you so much!

Originally published at https://proinvestivity.com/2020/07/24/my-personal-experience-with-social-media-in-this-coronavirus-lockdown/