So last night I revealed my secret shame.
I gotta say, there have been lots of times I’ve been tempted to go full convert. Point to some social media kerfuffle as “everything that’s wrong with people today”, have myself a road-to-Damascus moment, condemn everyone on social media as fools, and use that self-righteous energy to go stomping off into the sunset.
But I can’t let myself do that. It’s not you, it’s not the medium. It’s me, and my avoidant behavior patterns.
Social media is still vital to me. Whether I like it or not, Facebook is how my close friends and family keep up with each other. Twitter is where my peers keep up with each other. I still want to talk to them. And, pragmatically speaking, for better or for worse visibility on Twitter is essential to my business, which in turn is essential to my family.
So, I don’t get to use any tricks to make this easier. No convenient righteous indignation. No hostfile mappings to 127.0.0.1. Just good old-fashioned gritting my teeth and getting my shit together to make hardest conversion of all: the conversion to boundaries and moderation.
Wish me luck.
I fasted from social media (FB & Twitter) for Lent and found it a challenging but helpful discipline. Happy to talk with you about my experience.
I read this article recently. It’s about spouses so I want to mention that I don’t think Stacey is addicted to her phone 🙂 I think you might relate to the generalized point about modern society.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/randall-sokoloff/2014/01/im-competing-with-an-iphone-5-for-my-wifes-attention/