Social Media Isolation and the Attempt to Re-build.

 

A while back, I decided to limit my browsing and interactions on Facebook.  My viewing became mostly limited to perusing Marketplace for things I didn't need.  I will often glance at the first FB post at the top of the feed, but that's about it.  I have resisted the urge to comment on anything. 

The fruit of that experiment is multi-faceted.  I'll spare you the long version, and go with bullet points:

• In time, I found that I enjoyed not being triggered by posts and feeling the need to add a comment. This is what Facebook is so good at - triggering us.  It's not just Facebook posts which are designed to do that, it's that we sometimes trigger each other to respond. The triggering isn't necessarily bad... it's just triggering. That responding to being triggered is addictive.  Don't miss that, not one bit.
  
• I do not miss the guilt of feeling like I just wasted "X" number of minutes on Facebook.  This was a frequent sensation of mine.  Why, you ask, did I wait so long if that was the case?
• I have been reading more.  A friend of mine regularly sends me books to read, apparently in an effort to keep me sharp.  He's a good friend, but I don't know that it's working.  It's a good effort.
• As mentioned, the guilt of wasting time perusing Facebook dissipated.  I spend more time reading the news.  This has relieved my guilt, but made me more aware of things I'd prefer to be in the dark about.
• You all have gotten the benefit of not hearing about things which are of little interest to anyone else.  This has decreased your own guilt of having wasted your time reading about them.
  

 
 But alas, it is not all good:

• I am stuck with perusing Marketplace.  I should apply bullet point #2 above, starting now.  This is likely related to the FOMO on the best deal ever on a motorcycle. The reason for this is probably two-fold:  it is by design by Facebook, and it is in my genes from my dad. 
• I have been writing much less. This is no doubt due to the feeling I have no audience to interact with since I'm avoiding Facebook. This part I hate, because when I write less, there is a level of analysis in my thinking that I may not get to.
  
• To be honest, I feel unconnected to the group of people I normally interact with on Facebook, and I do miss putting in my two cents in. I'm certain my two cents are greatly missed.
  

 

The picture you see is a re-building of an old play area we used for our kids.  We had disassembled that play area a while back and set the 4' x 6' platform (no legs... just the platform) aside for future use.  We built this new one based off that platform for our grandchildren. For anyone interested, I can supply a captioned picture of the details of this magnificent creation.