Hi there! Hi!

I took a month sabbatical from social media. I am so sorry to say that it improved my mental health about a million degrees. I could honestly leave it behind entirely except it also disconnected me from important actual updates (like in-person social events, all news reports, kid school updates, etc.). I wish it didn’t exist at all so we all went somewhere else for these updates. I wonder if there is an AI tool that can troll through it all and extract just what I want from it. (I am currently on the market for an AI virtual assistant that will read the dozens of emails per week I get from my children’s schools, activities, church, my group activities, and all the countless newsletters and updates that is 90% fluff and 10% stuff I can’t ignore. Drowning in content, send help, etc. etc.). Interesting results of this social media sabbath – these are observations offered without judgment:

• I wrote almost 10,000 words of a new detective novel – and still going. Besides the sheer hours saved in a week, I think skimming social media and processing all of that content drained a lot of brainpower that this sabbath gave back to me. Also – deciding what to post and what not to post did scratch a creative itch. Eliminating that outlet for creativity gave space for other creative endeavors.
• I finished a needlepoint I’ve had for six months. Instead of scrolling insta while watching tv or listening to audiobooks, I sew. I’m an anxious and nervy gal, I need to do things with my hands, but I ended up working on a physical thing rather than consuming my usual virtual things. (I still play too many phone games, but one step at a time).
• I’ve started scrolling LinkedIn a bit so I had to delete that from my phone too. It is boring af and I spend ten seconds on there before closing it, but that impulse to seek out a feed and then read it was very strong. Akin to reading the cereal box while eating your morning breakfast – just give me something, anything at all.
• I still take pictures and videos just as much as I ever did, but didn’t post them. I didn’t miss posting them, really. I do love having them. I didn’t miss seeing most other people’s posts either, except that people in my real life presumed I saw things in social media and didn’t share them other ways.
• I’m far less anxious about politics. However, when I check in via my trusted news channels (NewsNotNoise by Jessica Yellin, BBC, etc.), I find that I have missed things I need to know. It is correct for us to be anxious about politics right now. We need to be taking very active steps – guys, you can’t get the Covid vaccine at CVS in the entire state of Louisiana (and 26 other states) because of RFK, Jr.’s stupid CDC shenanigans. In New Orleans there’s lead in our water supply but our legislators are debating chemtrails and just passed a law to make ivermectin over the counter – this is batshit. There are real life, immediate detrimental impacts from this authoritarian regime that make my children’s and my neighbors’ physical bodies more at risk and we have to be shouting before we’re all dead. But how much can one brain absorb?
• My world got smaller and more local. For good or for ill.

For now, these apps aren’t going back on my phone. We’ll see whether and how I incorporate them back into life going forward. It was a nice break, though.