Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms are already filling with landscape photos, colourful flowers and beach games galore. Even the least media-savvy will have realised it’s summer.
”People tend not to be very creative when it comes to these images,” media producer Jere Rinne from the Otava college says. “Others skip through them almost instantly. Social media has users taking part in all sorts of picture challenges during the summer when people are more idle.”
Social media fasting on the rise
But despite the growth of social-media bingeing, smartphone-free periods are becoming increasingly common. Some people don’t want to have anything to do with social media on their precious summer holiday weeks. Especially for those for whom the social media is a tool of the trade, the counter-phenomenon is a welcome break.
“I know people who buy themselves a cheapo 30-euro phone for the summer so they can’t surf the web,” Jere Rinne recounts. “They know themselves well enough to be able to make conscious decisions like that.”
A mobile social media platform has its hazards, especially if conceptions of vacationing differ within a family.
“Devices can come between parents and children, if everything has to be documented and published,” Rinne continues. “You can’t be completely present in a moment if you’re tweeting it at the same time.”
Rinne says that a two-week or even month-long social media fast could be just what the doctor ordered for many people. At least it would open their eyes to the world in a different way, he claims, adding that continuous social media use even causes accidents worldwide.
”On the Hong Kong metro, there are regular announcements warning people to look in front of them, not at their phone screens,” Rinne says. “In other countries, warning videos have been posted urging citizens not to use their phones while driving. It’s a no-brainer, but people still do it all the time.”
Facebook still a holiday favourite
Despite the hazards, however, social platforms are becoming an integral part of many Finns' holidays, with easily portable smartphones and tablets within arm’s reach. Facebook is an extremely popular mobile interface. Twitter, however, remains a fringe phenomenon.
“When vacationers open their phones, they’re most likely to click on Facebook or maybe Instagram, and only then might they log onto a news site,” says Yle social media producer Antti Hirvonen.
“Increasingly many actually get their news through Facebook itself,” he adds.
