I had found myself clicking on it SO frequently, and SO mindlessly; not just on my phone during downtime, but also anytime I finished a task at my work computer. Or many times when I hadn't finished the task, but the task was uninteresting. Sometimes I would do that thing where, I would close out the app, having learned there was nothing new to see or read, only to go back and re-open it 10 minutes later! WHY!? Dopamine, I guess. Addiction. It was time to quit.
I see this same behavior in my kids, particularly Alex, and it upsets me. I was naively hoping he/they would take my cue and give up social media as well, but that didn't happen. (They both gave up soda.) Still, perhaps they'll learn by osmosis.
It has not been easy. I'm grateful that on Day 2 of the experiment, I left town for a business trip. I had a book with me because of traveling, which I think helped. Actually that's one thing I'm hoping to get out of it -- more time spent reading actual books.
I'm still reading news online, and therefore seeing some of the trending stories. Yesterday I checked FB for just a minute because one of my closest friends had posted "after a long time," (I got an email, thanks, FB) -- turned out it was a birthday photo of her now-15-year-old, and I'm glad I got to see it, but I was careful NOT to continue scrolling after that.
Anyway, I'll keep you posted.
Blogging doesn't count as social media, in this instance. Because I said so. ;)
I went to a writing workshop at the work conference (for reference, it was a conference for young breast cancer survivors and my company was exhibiting). I thought a lot about being "a writer." About whether or not I am. (I am.) We were given a prompt, and here's what came out:
"...what I really want to say is -- my gosh, we are all feeling humans. It's interesting that you can put 30 women in a room with paper and pen, and they will WRITE. So many words! We all have all this STUFF inside that wants to be seen -- not heard, but SEEN in letters and curliques of punctuation. We write like our lives depend on it, when given the chance! The time. The quiet. We write to... continue. One day to the next. One paragraph on top of another. Poor penmanship and all, it pours, or drips, out of us. Think of the number of diary pages I have seen. God bless the pen, who takes all of our feelings direct from "where" -- deep inside -- to here, right in front of our eyes."
3 comments:
A social media fast sounds EXCELLENT. I hope it goes well for you!
Lovely writing there, my writer friend. I have mostly been off facebook for about a month. Same reason -- I couldn't stop checking it. I was definitely addicted. And I'm not totally over it, because I still want to check it, but I've mostly stayed off. A good book helps tremendously. I'm still addicted to the phone -- picking it up for emails, texts, checking theatre attendance, checking reviews and rechecking reviews. I think that's what I have to stop next. Reviews ... let's see ... what's the word ... suck ... the joy from my very existence. And to share how I'm feeling ... Just found out I may have to be in a show tonight and I thought Darryl and I were going to get to GO to a show, so I'm down, but someone else may come through and hey, it wouldn't be THAT bad. Except I also just realized that I'm in a show next weekend and I told Madison we could go camping with her friends. I'm going to work it out by driving late at night after the show, meeting Madison and the friends up there, and driving back the next afternoon to be in a show. It's all fine -- I'm just feeling sorry for myself. It's been the easiest work week in the world. I planted flowers yesterday. I'll survive. But I'm annoyed at the world which is not revolving around ME! :)
UPDATE: Somebody else is doing the show for me tonight. I can continue in my mild stupor throughout the day.
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