Freeing: Why I Closed My Facebook and Twitter Accounts

I did something very freeing, very liberating today.  I closed both my Facebook and Twitter accounts.  This is something I had mulled over for months and months.  I felt they were both huge distractions and in many ways futile.  The internet has its' uses and so does social media, but in the end a lot of it lacks depth.  

How many people are really friends on social media?  In real life it's difficult to gain genuine and honest friends that will sympathize and walk life's journey with you, be there when you need them. I gave much thought to this, and began to wonder why am I on here (Facebook and Twitter)?  My reasons were not good enough to keep me on. 

Social media is an outlet to procrastinate even more.  It helps to feed the ego on many levels.  I'm not eager to stroke anyone else's ego, and I want mine to be under control, so I'm not running to have mine stroked.  I don't like what these sites do to people in a lot of cases. It contributes in its' own way to the deadness of present day existence.  This "fast food" "get it while it's hot" thinking applied on social media really affects the brain in negative ways, I believe. It causes a kind of attention deficit disorder.   In the end we get less and less done the more time we spend on them.  Even if we're not posting regularly or just remain mute, lurking in the background, we're rushing to see what someone else is saying, doing, or posting.  I just don't have the time anymore.  For those with this kind of spare time and it doesn't tamper with their brains in a bad way, I applaud them.  

If you post important information, how many really read it and digest it?  I've noticed my reading online.  It's not as deep and thoughtful as when I'm reading books.  I do a lot of skimming to be honest. Even the majority of the articles I post on Twitter and Facebook I skim through more than actually read them.  

My personal thoughts that I post?  Who really cares in the end?  People read and move on in a herd or solo to the next quote, rant, piece of advice, junk reasoning.  It all goes up in a puff of smoke and is soon forgotten in a matter or minutes if not seconds.  

While I'm playing around on social media I could be finishing up and starting new magazine queries and sending off poems.  In the last four years I've started writing two books.  Both are on the shelf now along with my ideas, just collecting dust.  I'm going back to MY books, MY ideas.

I started to evaluate where I want to go with my writing offline in the last couple of months.  I think I have what it takes to become a very good writer.  This is not only my opinion, but this has come from some other people for a long time now.   Sure I need more polishing in the craft, but I feel I can get the rust off with diligent work and by staying focused.  I want to get paid for my work.  Social media is in the way at this point.  Plus I don't like the idea of wasting my time and enriching even more the rich owners of these sites all at the same time. 

Facebook will always be there to go back to if I want.  However, I really wish they would offer the option of erasing accounts permanently.  Perhaps I will go back to Twitter before its' expiry date in 30 days, but I plan to be frugal with my time on it, on both of them.  

It's  past time for getting busy and fanatical with my work offline. If I'm blogging on here, I can express myself more broadly.  I will get a smaller audience, but blogging is cathartic for me.  If the audience isn't honest, it's fine with me to just write for myself.  Still with blogging I will not go overboard.  I will keep my time minimal, posting once or twice a month as I have been doing all along.  I continue to heed the advice of a Facebook friend who is an author and used to write for The New York Times (I wouldn't want to work for that outfit though), to "stay away from the blogs if I want to be a serious writer." She's old enough to be my mother, and I've read one of her books which I really liked. It had a literary quality to it.  

Sure, in today's brave new world of writing, the internet's importance cannot be overlooked.  I respect that, and I will use the cyberworld to my advantage.  I will continue to utilize it and post my thoughts, but I will never use Facebook and Twitter the way I once did.