social media breaks

My complex and confusing relationship with social media

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 15 Comments

I’m going to preface this post with a clarification – I am not whining about not making money or book sales. I’m just rambling to blog friends about some disappointments I’ve experienced and lessons I’m learning along this writing and life journey.

I have a love-hate relationship with social media and lately, that relationship has tipped into the hate category more than the love.

As a self-published author, I need to have some sort of presence online if I want to sell books and that includes social media. I started writing my fiction books for fun and to escape anxiety and depression. I shared them here on the blog, chapter by chapter, again, as an escape and for fun.

Selling books was secondary. When I saw that I might be able to provide a tiny amount to the monthly family income, I became more interested in selling. Unfortunately, to earn any money as an independent author you need to be willing to put out more money than you earn at first and when you already don’t have a lot of money, that’s a definite challenge.

I’ve been pushing posts and sharing about my books fairly consistently for five years now (while also trying not to always be pushing books) and in the end it really hasn’t mattered. Every month I make about $40 on book sales. Previously I would make between $10 and $20.

I work hard for that $40 but it’s really not a good return on all the time and money I’ve put into my books. A lot of it’s been – dare I even say it – a waste of time. One of those things are the posts I make and share to Instagram.

I have a lot of fun making memes, laughing over them, sharing them, and meeting people on social media through them. I don’t find everything I’ve done online a waste of time.

I’ve met some of the coolest people.

I’ve had some amazing opportunities.

I’ve found a way to distract myself from depression and anxiety that doesn’t involve drinking or eating myself into oblivion.

There is some good that has come from the time I’ve spent online.

A lot of good.

But I’ve also spent way too much time on things that haven’t mattered and aren’t helping my soul.

Balance is definitely key when it comes to social media.

Spending too much time on there can eat up your soul.

Spending too little time means you can’t connect and meet more people who might be interested in buying, or at least reading, your book.

This weekend I decided my soul was more important.

Now, this isn’t an announcement that I’m leaving social media, never to return. It isn’t even an announcement that I’m taking a break (even though I’m taking a small one that doesn’t involve going cold turkey but does involve backing off a bit). It’s just me sharing some thoughts about how social media has changed so many of us, how draining it can be, and how it steals a little part of our soul when we get too wrapped up in it.

I have seen people change as they become more popular on social media.

They’re more willing to compromise their values and morals as they become popular.

They often seem to be more interested in gaining followers, pats on the back, and overall attention than they are in sticking to their beliefs on a variety of issues. I get it. That shot of endorphins when someone likes a post or a lot of someones likes a post is addicting. Been there. Done that.

I have just decided I’d rather be unknown and poor than have to pretend I am someone I am not, to completely overshare every aspect of my personal life, or to compromise my integrity to get those likes.

The bottom line about my relationship with social media is . . . it’s complicated but I have my lines drawn and I intend to do my best to stay within those boundaries.

Despite dire warnings of my demise if I did so, I deleted Facebook

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

When I Googled how to delete my personal Facebook account permanently, many sites warned me how much I would regret it, but this weekend I finally pulled the plug on Facebook. In other words, I deleted my entire account (gasp!) and plummeted myself back into the dark ages. If you’re reading this on Facebook, it’s because I set up an account in another name and also added my husband as an administrator of my page so I can still share my blog posts but not operate a personal Facebook page.

Here is what one site said when I looked up the directions to delete my account: “Deleting your Facebook account is a serious decision, so make sure it’s something you really want to do. Whether you like it or not, social media is ingrained in society, and your Facebook profile can affect friendships, job prospects, and social opportunities. Remember that there are also ways to secure your Facebook privacy settings., if that’s your particular concern.”

The site really sounded like a Facebook propaganda site. They certainly wanted to be sure you knew how much your life is going to suck without Facebook. Still, there were other sites that encouraged me to pull the plug. One of them featured an article by a working professional photographer who deleted all his social media accounts to increase his creativity. He had been warned the move would sink his business financially but instead his business increased because he was actually networking the old fashioned way – in person and by handing out business cards.

One of the only things I will miss about Facebook is being able to harass my dad online and share photos with friends, but, to be honest, most of those friends stopped talking to me a long time ago, and maybe because social media has made us much less interested in actually interacting with people. Or maybe my friends stopped talking to me simply because I’m annoying. Whatever the reason, I don’t actually have any friends I talk to regularly anymore. I noticed a couple of them also started talking to me less when I wasn’t on social media as much as I used to be. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess?

The thing is, the idea behind Facebook is to keep people in touch with each other. Instead, I now have less friends than I did when I hopped on the site ten years ago. I have also lost friends because of Facebook. Those friends either didn’t appreciate my political or religious beliefs and told me so (in comments or messenger because, hello! No one actually talks on the phone or in-person anymore), got annoyed at something I said or did online (who knows, they just stopped talking to me), or I suppose thought anything they needed to know about me they could read in my wall and didn’t need to actually talk to me.

One relationship ended because of this blog after someone in my life actually read one of my posts (very rare), took offense to it and told everyone else about it and completely misrepresented what the post was about. And where did they see about the blog post? You know where. Otherwise, they never would have bothered to read my blog.

Only a couple of my friends from college speak to me. I can’t even recall the last time one of them spoke to me without me making contact first. Only one friend from high school now speaks to me, once in a while, and she doesn’t as often because she and her husband recently started their own business (and they’re really good at it and busy, which is awesome!).

I realize the two above paragraphs sound like whining and I don’t mean it to be. If you could hear my tone, you could hear that I am more of the mindset of “it’s simply the way it is”, instead of a lament. These are simply the realizations I came to while trying to argue with God that I still need Facebook. When these thoughts came to mind I felt almost as if I was being reminded that communication by writing really hasn’t strengthened any of the relationships I have had. If anything it has destroyed almost all of them.

All this is to say this: leaving Facebook really won’t affect me that much. While it did help me to pretend that I’m not as alone in life as I really am, the family and friends I once talked to on there no longer speak to me. What’s left are fear-mongering articles about a variety of issues and twenty thousand screaming political rants. My nerves need the break and I’m looking forward to it – even if it does mean feeling the crush of loneliness even more.

I read a recent article by someone who quit Facebook because it was making him feel lonely. He said his friends felt they were being real friends by liking and commenting but that they rarely saw him in person.

“They (my friends) had stopped doing these things because they truly believed they were playing their part in maintaining our friendship by “liking” a post, commenting on a post, tagging me in a post or worst of all just lurking around my posts knowing what I was doing but not even interacting with the posts. My “friends” believed they were still being good friends. That made me feel lonely. I longed for true human connection with these friends. I wanted authenticity. I wanted honesty. I wanted true friends, warts and all, bricks and mortar.”

His last paragraph is what I’ll leave you with because it is along the same lines of what I’ve been thinking and feeling. And it’s why I’m hoping I can find some real, lasting friendships in the future.

Nat Duncan writes:

“It may be morbid, but lately I’ve been imagining my funeral. A simple coffin (empty because I’ve left my body to science) with my friends all gathered around it, dressed in black, all holding a single red rose, and tearfully saying “I only just yesterday liked one of her posts” “oh I haven’t seen her in two years but I loved her Facebook rants” “I will miss commenting on her posts” “I met another Facebook friend through her” “I didn’t even know she was sick, I just saw she was still on Facebook” The curtain closes – and they all update their Facebook status (not to the intensity of Bowie’s passing but with some poignancy) to ensure their “friends” know that they are here, with me, being real friends.” – source: The Sydney Morning Herald.