Going Cold Turkey
As I write, I'm on day seven of a self imposed social media ban. For me this means Facebook and Twitter. I didn't take this decision lightly, but it's an important one for me.
For a while now, I've been getting a bit bored with social media, particularly Facebook. Twitter I like but again it is a bit of a time black hole, where you log on 'for five minutes' and emerge an hour later having accomplished nothing. But there's a bigger reason why I'm absolving myself from social networking sites, for the month of April at least.
Recently my life has been a lot about work(got to pay the bills somehow) to the extent that, while I've had plenty of writing ideas - thank the almighty for scribbling title ideas in notebooks - I haven't been in the right head space to sit and write. One thing that was sucking my energy and distracting me from writing was social networking. Something had to give.
It was getting ridiculous, ok I have my 9-5 job which is important to me, but I'm a writer. It's lines for poems coming into my head on the way back from the supermarket(rock and roll) that excites me, it's the rhythm and rhyme of an open mic night that gets my pulse racing.
NaPoWriMo was coming up, (for more on NaPoWriMo click the link here)the timing was perfect, I announced my intentions to my boyfriend. His reaction made me laugh, 'don't do it!' We send each other Facebook messages every day, so maybe that was the reason for his panic. Having said that, even he has been getting bored of Facebook recently, and he's a total social networking addict. I thought it over for a few more days, and decided. I was adamant. Time to de-activate.
It's been seven days, and I have to say so far I've made the right decision. I've written six poems with one to write later, and I feel much more in the poetry zone than I was before. I think it'll definitely be a way to tell who my true friends/family are too. I'm not someone to share every detail of my life online(though I do admit I love taking pictures of my food) and would say it's rare I have a meaningful interaction with anyone online. I'd much rather send a text, talk on the phone, or talk in person.
It's like poetry, you can read the words on the screen, you can try and guess what the writer was thinking when they created the poem. But I'd take seeing someone read their work and chat to them over a Facebook 'like' or @follow on Twitter anyday.
Not using social networking sites definitely feels weird. You don't realise how often you go to post something random, upload a photo, or comment on a TV show or book until you can't. I'm hoping after the month I will be a better person for it. So here's to going cold turkey, and a flood of creativity following!
For a while now, I've been getting a bit bored with social media, particularly Facebook. Twitter I like but again it is a bit of a time black hole, where you log on 'for five minutes' and emerge an hour later having accomplished nothing. But there's a bigger reason why I'm absolving myself from social networking sites, for the month of April at least.
Recently my life has been a lot about work(got to pay the bills somehow) to the extent that, while I've had plenty of writing ideas - thank the almighty for scribbling title ideas in notebooks - I haven't been in the right head space to sit and write. One thing that was sucking my energy and distracting me from writing was social networking. Something had to give.
It was getting ridiculous, ok I have my 9-5 job which is important to me, but I'm a writer. It's lines for poems coming into my head on the way back from the supermarket(rock and roll) that excites me, it's the rhythm and rhyme of an open mic night that gets my pulse racing.
NaPoWriMo was coming up, (for more on NaPoWriMo click the link here)the timing was perfect, I announced my intentions to my boyfriend. His reaction made me laugh, 'don't do it!' We send each other Facebook messages every day, so maybe that was the reason for his panic. Having said that, even he has been getting bored of Facebook recently, and he's a total social networking addict. I thought it over for a few more days, and decided. I was adamant. Time to de-activate.
It's been seven days, and I have to say so far I've made the right decision. I've written six poems with one to write later, and I feel much more in the poetry zone than I was before. I think it'll definitely be a way to tell who my true friends/family are too. I'm not someone to share every detail of my life online(though I do admit I love taking pictures of my food) and would say it's rare I have a meaningful interaction with anyone online. I'd much rather send a text, talk on the phone, or talk in person.
It's like poetry, you can read the words on the screen, you can try and guess what the writer was thinking when they created the poem. But I'd take seeing someone read their work and chat to them over a Facebook 'like' or @follow on Twitter anyday.
Not using social networking sites definitely feels weird. You don't realise how often you go to post something random, upload a photo, or comment on a TV show or book until you can't. I'm hoping after the month I will be a better person for it. So here's to going cold turkey, and a flood of creativity following!
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