“On Sunday, September 25th, at 11:59 p.m., I signed off of Facebook.  I would not sign on to any kind of social media again until the following Tuesday.  This is my story.”

So begins a video report capturing snippets of Matt Mecoli’s journey away from online interaction.  The roughly weeklong “social media blackout” carried out by the University of Alabama student earlier this semester was an attempt to determine his own– and society’s– level of social media addiction.

“I found giving it up to be an extremely uncomfortable and difficult experience,” Mecoli confirms in a related write-up for The Crimson White, UA’s student newspaper.  “The level to which social media permeated my life and how frequently I was using it didn’t become apparent until I gave it up.”

He recounts that he had to stop himself from signing onto services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Skype an average of 16 times each day.  He was surprised by how often he turned to them during downtime such as waits at the bus stop or even during boring moments in class.  He also recognized just how much he used social media to keep in touch with friends and family and keep abreast of current events.

“I found it shocking when my friends began talking about the Wall Street riots in New York City,” he writes.  “I had no idea what they were talking about, and I came to the realization that I’d come to depend on social media: for my news, for my networking, for many of the little tasks that contribute to managing my life.”

With the help of classmate Jay Kennedy, Mecoli put together a video summary of the self-imposed blackout.  The resulting three-minute clip is funny and engaging.  It includes scenes of Mecoli reflecting on his social (media) alienation while standing alone by a lake; giving reality-show-style confessionals of his Facebook longing; and holding a poster on UA’s campus in the vein of a panhandler that reads “Will Work for [Facebook] Likes.”

At one point during the video, a bearded student approaches the poster and carries out the ultimate digital native act.  He casually pokes the thumbs-up sign Mecoli had drawn on it, providing him with a real-life ‘like’ for his efforts.

By blackout’s end, Mecoli describes feeling a “strange sense of serenity” at being reintroduced to the world, without the wide web.  ”I noticed couples sitting under trees and friends playing Frisbee on the Quad and people biking their heart out to get to a class 10 minutes away in two minutes,” he recalls.  “I never would have noticed these things. And each thing I saw sparked memories and thoughts and questions.”

The big question: Can you go a week without social media of any sort?

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