Note: it is not an ELT post as such, but could become a conversation starter. Your feedback is welcome!
Facebook users may know about this feature: you can ‘snooze’ a friend for 30 days if his/her posts are too frequent/too political/too irrelevant/too job-related/too… I was most likely ‘snoozed’ by many of my friends while promoting our EduHub Teacher Sharing Day, for example (very specific audience, only in Ukraine, etc.) I could have posted to the list (e.g. colleagues in Ukraine) or even ‘target’ specific people. Social media skills are not the point of this post.
I just realized that it is a ‘feature’ of the modern world: we can ‘snooze’ people we disagree with, avoid what’s not emotionally pleasant or desired at the moment; we can ignore or keep our eyes closed to the aspects of life we don’t want to know more about, and only focus on what’s ‘good’, productive, useful, healthy, etc. I am not saying it is good or bad, and I see lots of advantages in being able to do so (so much content is being shared, broadcast, offered, e-mailed…)
I suddenly thought that ‘snoozing’ is not (or should not be?) about friends. Not ‘Facebook Friends’ (although those may be the same people!) but real friends. It reminded me of the ‘Click’ movie (2006?) where the main character had a remote control and could ‘skip’ the boring or unwanted parts of his life (realizing later how much gets missed!)
Finally, a classroom-related thought: in the face-to-face communication, we can’t really ‘snooze’ the person we are talking to, and can continue politely, or excuse ourselves politely. I wonder if some explicit ‘snoozing strategies’ can be taught (or do they need to be discussed?)
Do you ‘snooze’ people online? What are your
reasons?
Thank you for reading!
Wednesday Seminars 
Interesting! I immediately remembered the White Christmas episode from the Black Mirror series. 😊 No, I’ve never snoozed anybody on social media yet sincre I believe there are better strategies – snoozing somebody just seems a bit cowardly to me. 😉 By the way, does the person know they have been snozeed?
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Sorry for the typos. I should never use my cell phone while commenting. 😁
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Hi Hana, thank you for the comment: I now want to catch up on the Black Mirror episodes! I like to think about what you said: ‘a bit cowardly’… As for ‘snoozzed’ notifications, no, this is what FB says: ‘The person won’t know you’ve done anything, so you don’t have to worry about offending people when you Snooze them. If you decide you’ve been too rash and want to un-Snooze someone, visit their Profile, and then tap or click the “Snoozed” setting.’ And the good part (if there is any) is that it is for 30 days only, and then the posts will be back.
Thank you for making me think, as always!
Zhenya
P.S. typing from the phone has never worked for me in terms of spelling, but it does bring the feel of immediate response (and more real communication :-))
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Hi Zhenya! This is a thought-provoking post. I snoozed a Facebook friend for the first time the other day. (It wasn’t you. 😊) What I have done is “unfollow” a number of friends (acquaintances? connections?) and then just recently followed them again (and maybe will unfollow again). Mostly it’s because of too many posts, personal or political. When I realized that I know more about what’s going on in the lives of relative strangers than my own family members (one criterion I use is whether I’ve ever had a meaningful real life conversation with the person), then I know it’s time to disconnect.
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Hi Wilma, thank you for reading and ‘talking’ about my snoozing thoughts! I wonder if they created ‘snooze’ as a temporary version of ‘unfollow’ then? Basically, you ‘unfollow’ for 30 days and then the person is back to your news feed in a month.
The big point you made is about knowing about what’s going on in the lives of relative strangers as opposed to the people from my family. Made me think (and re-think the time spent online and on social media? Sounds obvious of course, but sometimes I need ‘friendly reminders’ to go offline!
Sending hugs your way! 🙂
Zhenya
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