Just about halfway through my college career, I sat in my Media Studies lecture this past week and witnessed my peer, my classmate, my friend crying on the projection screen for the class to see. We had been assigned end of semester projects to relate the impact of media and society back to our own lives. My friend chose to investigate his relationship with his self-proclaimed best friend, Facebook.

For two weeks he unplugged from the social media site, and shot a documentary-style video to capture the impact that it had on his daily life. At first, he was alright. He found other things to do, like study for our Media class. He talked with his friends. But then, only hours later he started getting anxious, his palms were sweating. Over the course of the week my friend experienced drug-like withdrawals from Facebook. He mentioned he experienced disillusionment with the real-world (even though he was technically LIVING in it) because he never knew what was going on. He felt left out in social settings. He missed appointments and meetings that he was only notified about through Facebook. In the most pitiful moment, he cried because he missed Facebook so much. Giggles ensued from the auditorium, and while I grinned I couldn’t help but think… how would I hold up?

This example of “unplugging” is pretty common in the college world. Sometimes social media sites, news, etc. can take up so much time and attention it is necessary to quit the virtual world and get back to “reality.” But because our age demographic grew up in this world of “information overload” we’re uncomfortable, even scared without “having it all.” Although an unplug is always a nice refresh now and again, there are some tools that act as filters to help weed out some of that extra information.

Topsy: A real-time social media search engine that is helpful when looking for specific content only on social media sites like Twitter and Google+.

Google Reader: Users subscribe to their favorite websites and content arrives via inbox automatically. It organizes the content so it is easy to discern what has been read and allows for easy sharing.

Hootsuite: Enables one user to manage multiple social media platforms, and multiple accounts all on one site. Posts and messages can be scheduled and the site tracks and analyzes the traffic produced.  

Filtering can ease the worries of a total unplug, but for those who grew up with the comfort of excess information, it doesn’t do much to lessen dependence. Until I learn to be comfortable and confident in the information I receive through filtering tools, I guess I’ll have to keep a box of tissues nearby.

-Gentry

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