Foggy has 3 days left. Sally, Foggy and a couple of members of Team Foggy will be ending his World Tour on the London Eye in London. While he is resting his paws in Foggy HQ he has told Sally to write about one of the things that drains her energy super fast...I.T.
Hi,
Let me start by saying that I am I.T. literate; I actually know more than the average Joe about websites, mobile phones, social media etc because of previous jobs that I have had and life experience. However, just because I know stuff doesn't mean that my brain can cope with it! When I say I.T. I mean everything related to it: computers, mobiles, software, cables and stuff we can't see ie. clouds. I spend an extraordinary amount of time each week downloading files and images. Easy enough but every week there are at least 10 instances of the file being too big or incompatible. When that pesky error message comes up on the screen how quickly do you think my brain remembers how to resize or reformat it?
It's ironic that Foggy's campaign is social media driven; social media tires me out tremendously! That constant need to upload something engaging, and responding to Followers as quickly as possible, means my brain is always on Foggy alert. Some days, when I get home from work, I have to force myself to upload content. I love Foggy and everything about this campaign but it has also been exhausting. My own personal drive keeps me going and has been forcing my body to push itself for the past 12 months. I know some of my close Foggy supporters have been worrying about me and the pressure I put on myself, thank you for your concern; it is appreciated.
Foggy's campaign has amassed more than 5000 photos (eek). Way back in July 2014 I bought an external hard drive that was capable of holding A LOT of images. Great! Or so I thought. In November 2014 it died. CORRUPTED. Nooooo! Panic mode kicked in and Andra (key member of Team Foggy) helped to salvage as many photos as she could; she even put the drive in her freezer to try and fix the problem! Don't ask, apparently it's a tip that sometimes works. Luckily, MOST of the campaign photos were rescued and moved onto Google Drive. However, they were now in no particular order. I will hold my hand up now and say that I simply have not had the cognitive energy to reorder and categorise the photos that had been 'lost'. It will take me hours and hours of sitting in front of a computer screen, dragging and dropping. This makes uploading photos incredibly time consuming (scrolling through them to see which one I want) and it is all a bit hit and miss but my brain hurts just thinking about sorting them all into month order.
Ahhhhh, next comes mobile phones or as I like to call mine 'the pain in the **** portable computer'. Let me clarify, I have a super duper smart phone. It is an old business phone and is far too techy for my own personal needs. The contract ends this month and here is a photo of the phone I am getting next. Yes, it is a Nokia...with BUTTONS!!!!! My pet mobile phone dislikes, with regards to M.E. are:
- Massive bright LED screen hurts my eyes, even at the lowest brightness level.
- Touchscreen doesn't always register finger presses and I use energy trying over and over again
- Scrolling through to find the app that I want; again, waste of my energy - cognitive and physical.
- Don't even get me started on updates - very low level stress impacts my energy levels. Especially when they fail because you dared to change your password on another computer!
- Being available 24/7....means I can't 'turn off' unless I physically turn the phone off. Not great when I need to reserve energy.
I think having a phone that allows you to do EVERYTHING pressurises you to DO everything. I am more of a pen and paper kind of gal. I used to spend time keeping notes on my phone, it took ages to concentrate on pressing buttons and getting the drop down box to register my finger press. I don't need to keep notes on a mobile phone, just give me a scrap of paper and a pen. No need for pin numbers, passwords, updates or settings changes with a scrap of paper.
So, I have a master plan. For 6 months, up until I start another Foggy campaign and need mobile social media again, I will be having an old school, easy to use mobile with no data plan. You can get data on this phone but I am choosing not to. I am going back in time, to the days when mobiles were used for communicating with calls and text ONLY. I can feel the stress ebbing away already!
Since starting this campaign it has become abundantly clear to me that M.E. sufferers need to simplify their lives as much as possible. I think most sufferers find I.T. and social media, incredibly draining and tiring. Let's all ignore super duper marketing campaigns and peer pressure and get back to basics. Our bodies will thank us for it.
Sally xx
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