So, there’s been another gap in me writing here and as usual I’d like to write about it, for what use it is to others who may read this. As usual, it’s had to do partially with me being tied up with other things, but also has to do with me spending time doing something I haven’t done in several years — whatever I want, without much care for anything happening with anyone else.
Let me explain.
Over the years, beyond day to day work, I’ve kept up this site as a hobby — something to have fun with. At times it’s become a bit “too” serious and I’ve had to step back and re-evaluate things (such as my history with Space related subjects) and kind of go back to my roots and what I can just have “fun” with.
The thing is, the rest of my digital life has kind of gone the same way, without the re-evaluation. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say I’ve been years upon years overdue from making some changes in how I spend my time online.
To put things simply, social media, namely Facebook, had become such a bad habit that, combined with the nature of what I saw on there and just how the social network is (it’s hard to explain in short form but I’m sure many of you know what I’m referring to) it was not only eating up my time but outright depressing me.
I’d spent far too much time and energy on such, and the side effects of it just weren’t healthy, to say the very least about it here. The other day, I had noticed I hadn’t written in a while. Sure, it was the middle of the week when I’m most busy but when I was browsing Facebook I suddenly realized — I need a break. A massive one. It’s been nearly 10 years on the site in some form and given the nightmare that social media has become my nature as a creature of habit, always checking the site when bored, browsing through, carrying on conversations with people that usually wound up going nowhere, well, it all hit me just how completely pointless and, worst of all, damaging, it really was. It’s not healthy to focus so much on so many people as intently as sites like Facebook can make one want to without them even realizing it.
I’d known this for a while, all the studies done on social media usage and its effects on a person, but I’d never really thought to look in at myself and what was happening or, more importantly, just even tried to avoid it for a while just to see how I’d feel. I’ve actually wanted to write about that subject for a while now, and I guess now will be my chance to, soon enough anyway.
So, the other day I decided it was time to take a much needed break, to see what would happen. It’s just a deactivation of my account, for now, but I already feel better. The fact that any attempt to go to facebook.com results in me having to log in alone is enough for me to say “forget it” and not go on. Not having it there, taunting me, is pretty great. There’s a psychology to all this and in my case knowing it’s available but having the control to not go to it again, to develop the habit of not checking it often, that’s the key thing.
Following that, I can see where I want to go from there, and then pass judgement where I need to on Twitter, the only other “social media” platform I really use.
This has had some drawbacks — I can’t use the work Facebook page anymore to do business on (something I may need to make a “backdoor” for just in case) and the Xadara facebook page is kind of dead in the water right now, but I’m fine with that as I get very few hits from there anyway.
On point, though, since doing this I’ve been far more relaxed. In much the same way pulling all of my videos from YouTube took off some stress, so did disabling my Facebook account. I don’t know what people are talking about on there, and I don’t care. The fact remains in my life, it’s actually unimportant and as I get used to this free time that I once would have spent browsing the site I can put it to good use on other projects, gaming, going out and enjoying myself, or just relaxing and not caring about anything. Sure, I’ll miss regular updates from some people, as I know a few people will miss my posts, but it’s better this way. If they really want to get a hold of me, they can still contact me via Messenger — that’s still active, for now. I honestly don’t think I can get rid of that, as much as I’d like to, given how many people effectively rely on it.
When it’s all said and done, I feel better. That simple.
Right, this article went on longer than it should have. I’ll have more on this as time passes. It’s interesting, though — I’ve cut off YouTube and Facebook, what next? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. We’ll see how I feel over the next month or so.
