The year is winding to a close, and one does tend to take stock of life in general. No this is not a roundup post. I thought of writing one but then I decided against it. Just sharing a few reflections instead.
The other day I was talking to an acquaintance. She loves to talk about herself and went on and on about her new friends and all the time she spends partying. That is all good, I said. Then she said that I must be aware of her social activities because she posts a lot of pics on FB. I told her that I hardly ever checked my FB profile except to post updates of my cooking posts or stray birthday or milestones pictures. So, I have no clue what is going on in her life and that of others who rely on FB to be some sort of updates to all their ‘friends’.
That lead me thinking about social media and how its relationship has been with me in the past year. So, let’s take it channel by channel:
Somewhere down the line, I have outgrown Facebook. I truly have. None of my school or college friends are any longer active there. A load of people that I added during the peak of blogging days I have never interacted with or hardly know.
So I recently sat down and pruned my friends list. Removed 100+ people whom I never interact with. Now I am left with about 260 friends and that list is also too long. I have a feeling that I will be left with fewer than 50 in my circle in a year or two maximum.
Since I don’t log in much, I don’t really follow anyone’s updates. The one thing that has kept me on Facebook is groups. I am a part of few food groups, a curly hair group, reading groups, a perimenopause group, pinterest groups, fitness groups and perhaps some more. I enjoy genuine interaction and learn useful information there. So I guess I will keep my FB profile active as long as I am a part of these groups and have my blog pages.
Rest FB is banal. I say that with zero bitterness or anger. Like I said, I have outgrown it for social interactions.
I like Twitter. I know there is a lot of yelling and shouting here. But, I don’t really follow accounts that are ranting all the time. I mean, seriously, how do people do that day in and day out? But, I enjoy the few interactions that I have on twitter.
Again, I have blocked and muted a lot of accounts who are in perpetual verbal diarrhea mode. Also I am not too much into politics. Twitter can be enjoyable if one does not get too involved. Plus, I have a timer of 30 minutes daily for Twitter. Works well. 🙂
The one social media platform that I genuinely enjoy and engage on is Instagram. And I see myself sticking around here the most in the coming year. I mostly follow friends and people who are into food, fitness, dog and health domains. Luckily, none of the accounts I follow are very political. Because I quite hate that. Please don’t make your followers subject to your views one way or the other unless you started out as an account sharing that. Because otherwise, it just leads to unsavoury discussions.
And I love the collaborations I do here. Completely in line with what I believe in. I have done a few giveaways too because who doesn’t like a gift?
Pinterest:
It is technically not a social media platform but more of a search engine. Yet, Pinterest is of interest to me as it provides excellent, sustained traffic to my blogs.
I need to give it more time in terms of creating more pins, pinning more etc. I have been overhauling my Pinterest account in the last couple of months, and I am already liking the results. So I expect to spend much more time on Pinterest in 2020.
WhatsApp:
I am seriously sluggish on WhatsApp. I hardly open the videos that people enthusiastically forward. This is the worst platform to reach out to me because I hardly ever check the updates.
I have never understood the glee in forwards and all the debates that people get into. It is tiresome just to watch. And then the fake news which peddles on it.
Better medium to reach out would be an SMS or an email. I am prompt there.
Have I missed anything?
So, I have been pretty disciplined in terms of spending time on social media. I have Digital Wellbeing App on my mobile so my Apps are shut out once I cross the time I have set for various social media platforms. I don’t have any notifications enabled so I only see updates when I log into platforms. All these help with sanity and keeping one away from wasting time in idle browsing. I really would like to spend more time reading and hopefully 2020 would be better in that sense.
So tell me what is your relationship with social media these days? Does it bore you or genuinely make you happy? Or did you wish to deactivate and leave?
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