Nows and Forevers

Last week I did some thing that I thought I’d never do: I deleted social media from my iPhone.

Facebook has been a constant companion since I got my iPhone in the summer of 2008. I’ve had Twitter on mobile since 2009, and Instagram since 2012. I shutter to think how many times I’ve posted since then. It’s easily 40,000 times.

I never got into Snapchat or TikTok. I guess I’m just too old. Or I don’t really care. I did have WhatsApp for several years, although I consider that more to be a communications app, which I used every day when I was taking Welsh classes, and there’s a way to get people I was interviewing in South America, Europe, and last year, Ukraine.

I have to say this for a long time I considered social media to be essential. As a journalist, you need as many information sources as you can. And all of them, including Facebook, proved useful.

But over the last year or so , concurrent with but not completely with the Twitter controversy, I’ve realized that I’m not getting as much out of it as I used to.

So I took social media off the phone. All of it. And I’m not looking at them anywhere else either, except for my work Twitter and LinkedIn, which I still need. But even there, I don’t look at Twitter as much as I did, and I don’t post as much either.

With social media, I don’t find myself present, and I haven’t been for a long time. I haven’t put myself in the moment as much as I should have, and I haven’t accomplished many of the things that I want to accomplish. I can’t do much about my constant need to check my email, which is an occupational hazard of being a journalist.

I can’t do anything about that. But social media, and my relationship to it, there is something I can do.

Cut the cord.

I’m trying to figure out how I can change my life and improve, I realized a few things that I held onto, I needed to let go. I’ve let go of a lot of things in my life, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Some parts of my life and especially people that I have given up have been among the biggest regrets I’ve ever had.

It’s been a week and I have to say that I haven’t missed it. I feel healthier. My head is not in the phone as much.

I’ve been trying both voluntarily and in many respects involuntarily, trying to reevaluate all corners of my life. There are things that I want to do with whatever I have remaining. And scrolling constantly, or at all on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and posting to those, Well, that’s not what I want to do.

I need that time back.

I suppose that I’ve lost touch with some people, and definitely people that I wanted to know, and I wanted to remain in touch with. What I haven’t done until now is really evaluate whether or not I need to pee investing so much time For so little overall game. Do I really need to know what’s being posted? Do I need to post so much? I don’t. I’m pretty easy to find, so if somebody really wants to get a hold of me, they can. And if they don’t, That’s OK too. Life is sometimes missed connections, one-way relationships and unhappy moments. There’s only one person who I ache to remain in touch with, who is lost and gone forever, and there is no amount of social media that can help me.

I’m not saying that I’m closing the book on social media forever. There’s no such thing as an absolute forever except death and taxes. But right now in this moment, I am feeling good about my decision.