A Break From Social Media

One of the unlooked for advantages of taking a long vacation is that it bleeds over into your social life - and online social life as well.  My use of social media has fallen to an all time low, at least in the 6 years since I started using it.   And I have to be honest, it seems to be the greatest thing ever.

It is not just the time sink of the activity - no, it remains the fact that all of sudden I do not have the ongoing lives of others pressing into my own.  There is a certain amount of stress and care that simply falls away when others no longer play such a significant role.

The odd thing is that for a couple of years I was a consistent poster; every day, I would seek to post quotes to inspire every one.  People seemed to appreciate it of course, but it reached the point in my life that I was freaking out over finding quotes to post every day (2 in most cases).  It got to the point that I could not longer keep up.  So I stopped.

And found out that it was hardly missed at all.  Not one person - one - asked about why the quotes no longer appeared.  My great gift to the online social world, it seemed, was little more than something else to fill up the feeds of others and to occasionally be responded to.

The same thing happened this time around.  Suddenly my day became less and less controlled by what was going on in the lives others.  I filled the time, to be sure - I read.  I followed up on actual events in the actual world.  I wrote.  I planned.  I held rabbits.

And felt the weight of that world slip away.

Will I abandon social media?  Not at all - like an automobile, it has its uses and pitfalls.  I have found a new level for the uses.  I understand more fully the pitfalls.

And I need to remember - I have actual people here in my life, far more close than the feeds of others crawling across my day.  My attention should also be appropriately focused.