Agreed. Very tenuous times ahead...as if they weren't already. I, too, have made a very conscious and concerted effort to cut back, step away, not engage with most of my social media. It has been hard for me to completely cut the cord if you will. But the more I think on it, the easier it becomes to feel more comfortable and confident in this decision. I applaud you in your decision and gladly support you. I so greatly enjoy your content and will continue to no matter what way you choose to share it with us. Love you dearly my friend. 💜💜
I too have left FB. Still addictd to YT. Still holding to IG. But, just tried BlueSky to see what's up. Thanks for the inspiration. Where do you live now?
I quit social media in 2018 for many of the same reasons you have. After months of thought, I finally decided to come back this year (in a limited fashion). It has been eye opening to say the least. Here's a few learnings.
Pros of being off social media
- I could finally get to know who I was without distraction and comparison
- I was forced to have human interaction with people that I likely wouldn't have cared to befriend if I was still on social media. These interactions taught me a lot about myself and the human condition.
- I was free to enjoy life experiences without feeling compelled to broadcast it to the world.
-Not all of my data wasn't being mined and sold.
Cons of being off social media
-I didn't know to what extent the creative world used social media until I found myself very alone.
-I missed some major life events from people I truly love. Like long lost friends going through cancer and dying.....
-The learning curve of how social media has changed and what is in the zeitgeist has been extremely steep. I feel like an 80 year old trying to figure out how to video call my grandkids 😜
Not sure how helpful this is but thought it may resonate in some ways. In the end you will make the right choice for you and the moment you are living in ❣️
Thank you for these insights! I’m so sorry about your losses. ❤️
Not having these apps on my phone has been fantastic and I won’t reinstall them. I will likely just keep my personal FB page and my Insta. I will not share any creative content anywhere but here, I want to be able to control it and monetize through subs.
I have a health condition that makes me high risk for COVID and other respiratory conditions so I don’t get to leave my home often. We live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Amish farms, so the internet is my main source of social connection.
It’s all a trade off of sorts. We just keep marching bravely forward!
I went all ten rounds with this same question. I cut everything off while trying to decide if the internet itself was even too much, and quickly had to face that the vast majority of my social interaction was in this little computer box, and if I didn't find a way to balance those connections with the bigger questions and my mental health (etc.), I was going to get REAL WEIRD, REAL FAST.
*(Weirder than normal, I mean.)
Ultimately, I decided to put effort in here, play on bluesky, and check in on FB, since a whole boatload o' folks who aren't all that tech-curious probably won't be switching to anything else. Does this mean Zuck gets to datamine me? Sure. But I'm not doing much there, and the connection is worth some risk for me. I don't know how long that'll be the case, but for now, it works kinda sorta. I doubt they'll get much from me.
(Of course, I also thought I'd be long dead before the dystopian hellscape presented itself and did a little jig on our democracy, but here we are, so...my predictions may not be all that accurate over time.)
I think you and I are in a similar stuck at home alone a lot boat. I love my dogs, but the one sided conversations are proving unsatisfactory. I have been a bit...well...vocal about some things over the years and I suppose since our digital footprint is mostly impossible to erase, I can't do much about that. I'm okay with losing YouTube and also my public FB page, with the tangential things I've been doing over the past 13 years those places got weird and confusing to people who started with me as a craft expert. The people who have been part of my online journey from before my first book already knew the real me.
I think I am going to do something similar. What about Insta? Did you dump that? I may keep Insta and personal FB and BlueSky and of course Substack. I think that's enough. Also keeping FB and Insta off of my phone will save my phone battery.
So we'll see how it all pans out!
I didn't have dystopian hellscape on my Bingo card either. Damn it.
Hmmmm…great dilemma to ponder. I finally left Twitter (will never call it X) and 12k followers behind. That one hurt as so many of them were educators and you know how I love working with kids.
I never got the hang of Insta (absolutely NO desire to be in videos) and TikTok makes me cringe.
What’s a puzzle to me is how best to get people to take a moment to read or simply look at something I’ve created. Anyway, like you I find myself torn about SM but have made so many terrific friends in all parts of the world that I can’t cut myself off from all platforms.
On a side note, I do a lot of creative work and socializing as an avatar in virtual worlds. I bet you’d love both the crafty and the social side. The building tools are incredible. There are folks who make very good livings creating digital fashion, buildings, art, etc. I’ve discovered and developed another side of my creativity there. Maybe check out my virtual worlds page if you’re curious: https://www.dreamingwideawake.org/virtualworlds
P.S. Skip the presentation and check out the projects I’ve worked on below it.
I left Twitter when Leon took over and I don’t miss it at all! Had a TikTok for a moment, also don’t miss it. My only interest in FB is to keep my many lifetimes of friends there.
I am honestly not even a little interested in virtual worlds. I love the messy, wild, and wonder full real world. I like getting paint and glitter under my fingernails. I love digging in the dirt. I have always been me online and I like it that way. I am more inclined to keep paring back than adding more to my digital footprint. Whatever works for you, do more of that! I am all about following your bliss!
I’m an actor so video is my passion and of course, writing and art and music! All of that can happen here and I love the one stop shop of it all!
Agreed. Very tenuous times ahead...as if they weren't already. I, too, have made a very conscious and concerted effort to cut back, step away, not engage with most of my social media. It has been hard for me to completely cut the cord if you will. But the more I think on it, the easier it becomes to feel more comfortable and confident in this decision. I applaud you in your decision and gladly support you. I so greatly enjoy your content and will continue to no matter what way you choose to share it with us. Love you dearly my friend. 💜💜
I love you, my dear friend. Here's to making our way in this brave new world.
Abso-freaking-lutely! 🥰
I am in the same place. I have left FB and eventually I will leave IG. Im working on future ideas for the coming year. Just crazy times.
Crazy times, indeed. Stay safe my friend and keep creating. It's the antidote!
I too have left FB. Still addictd to YT. Still holding to IG. But, just tried BlueSky to see what's up. Thanks for the inspiration. Where do you live now?
It’s all a weird juggling act finding what works! I’m in SE Pennsylvania farm country.
I quit social media in 2018 for many of the same reasons you have. After months of thought, I finally decided to come back this year (in a limited fashion). It has been eye opening to say the least. Here's a few learnings.
Pros of being off social media
- I could finally get to know who I was without distraction and comparison
- I was forced to have human interaction with people that I likely wouldn't have cared to befriend if I was still on social media. These interactions taught me a lot about myself and the human condition.
- I was free to enjoy life experiences without feeling compelled to broadcast it to the world.
-Not all of my data wasn't being mined and sold.
Cons of being off social media
-I didn't know to what extent the creative world used social media until I found myself very alone.
-I missed some major life events from people I truly love. Like long lost friends going through cancer and dying.....
-The learning curve of how social media has changed and what is in the zeitgeist has been extremely steep. I feel like an 80 year old trying to figure out how to video call my grandkids 😜
Not sure how helpful this is but thought it may resonate in some ways. In the end you will make the right choice for you and the moment you are living in ❣️
Thank you for these insights! I’m so sorry about your losses. ❤️
Not having these apps on my phone has been fantastic and I won’t reinstall them. I will likely just keep my personal FB page and my Insta. I will not share any creative content anywhere but here, I want to be able to control it and monetize through subs.
I have a health condition that makes me high risk for COVID and other respiratory conditions so I don’t get to leave my home often. We live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Amish farms, so the internet is my main source of social connection.
It’s all a trade off of sorts. We just keep marching bravely forward!
Same with health condition and living in the country, so my circle of friends is tiny but golden.
A quick story: A very close friend of mine was Republican; he would introduce me as his sister and say "Not my blood sister, but my real sister."
We had no issues with our differences and frankly, they were slight - never could figure out why he was a Republican.
That is, until social media helped to polarize our nation. I watched him become radical and in the end, he was hostile to me.
Still miss my old buddy.
I have never met you, but don't want to lose you!!
I’m not leaving here! No worries! We will stay connected!
Great, because you bring so much sparkle ✨️ and hope to my world.
I went all ten rounds with this same question. I cut everything off while trying to decide if the internet itself was even too much, and quickly had to face that the vast majority of my social interaction was in this little computer box, and if I didn't find a way to balance those connections with the bigger questions and my mental health (etc.), I was going to get REAL WEIRD, REAL FAST.
*(Weirder than normal, I mean.)
Ultimately, I decided to put effort in here, play on bluesky, and check in on FB, since a whole boatload o' folks who aren't all that tech-curious probably won't be switching to anything else. Does this mean Zuck gets to datamine me? Sure. But I'm not doing much there, and the connection is worth some risk for me. I don't know how long that'll be the case, but for now, it works kinda sorta. I doubt they'll get much from me.
(Of course, I also thought I'd be long dead before the dystopian hellscape presented itself and did a little jig on our democracy, but here we are, so...my predictions may not be all that accurate over time.)
I think you and I are in a similar stuck at home alone a lot boat. I love my dogs, but the one sided conversations are proving unsatisfactory. I have been a bit...well...vocal about some things over the years and I suppose since our digital footprint is mostly impossible to erase, I can't do much about that. I'm okay with losing YouTube and also my public FB page, with the tangential things I've been doing over the past 13 years those places got weird and confusing to people who started with me as a craft expert. The people who have been part of my online journey from before my first book already knew the real me.
I think I am going to do something similar. What about Insta? Did you dump that? I may keep Insta and personal FB and BlueSky and of course Substack. I think that's enough. Also keeping FB and Insta off of my phone will save my phone battery.
So we'll see how it all pans out!
I didn't have dystopian hellscape on my Bingo card either. Damn it.
Hmmmm…great dilemma to ponder. I finally left Twitter (will never call it X) and 12k followers behind. That one hurt as so many of them were educators and you know how I love working with kids.
I never got the hang of Insta (absolutely NO desire to be in videos) and TikTok makes me cringe.
What’s a puzzle to me is how best to get people to take a moment to read or simply look at something I’ve created. Anyway, like you I find myself torn about SM but have made so many terrific friends in all parts of the world that I can’t cut myself off from all platforms.
On a side note, I do a lot of creative work and socializing as an avatar in virtual worlds. I bet you’d love both the crafty and the social side. The building tools are incredible. There are folks who make very good livings creating digital fashion, buildings, art, etc. I’ve discovered and developed another side of my creativity there. Maybe check out my virtual worlds page if you’re curious: https://www.dreamingwideawake.org/virtualworlds
P.S. Skip the presentation and check out the projects I’ve worked on below it.
I left Twitter when Leon took over and I don’t miss it at all! Had a TikTok for a moment, also don’t miss it. My only interest in FB is to keep my many lifetimes of friends there.
I am honestly not even a little interested in virtual worlds. I love the messy, wild, and wonder full real world. I like getting paint and glitter under my fingernails. I love digging in the dirt. I have always been me online and I like it that way. I am more inclined to keep paring back than adding more to my digital footprint. Whatever works for you, do more of that! I am all about following your bliss!
I’m an actor so video is my passion and of course, writing and art and music! All of that can happen here and I love the one stop shop of it all!
Great insight and I appreciate it very much!
Just a suggestion :-)
Much appreciated! ❤️