social media & me, part three

it's been quite the journey.(ok i'm going to stop rhyming now.)some of you who have been reading for a while might remember the posts i wrote on social media way back when. i thought it might be time for another little post to kind of update my thoughts. :)a bit of background -- oh man i remember like it was yesterday, but really it was september of 2012. i'd had enough of constant noise that is the internet, the battling to be heard on social media, the constant pressure to add in, all the time, everywhere, to promote my business, the thoughts of but how am i going to share about this online? and above all the constant feeling sorry for myself when looking at what everyone else was doing, or when my post didn't get the requisite number of likes. does this sound familiar to you guys?so i actually quit. i quit posting, quit going on all my social media accounts, and quit promoting my blog posts. and seriously let's be real it felt like a weight lifted off my chest. i cannot say that i regret doing it. sometimes you just have to step away to actually see things clearly.when i started coming back online, i actually had people call me out. & it hurt! you just couldn't stay away. it made me feel like i was an alcoholic who'd gone sober for a while, but was now coming back to the bar for just one little drink. what does that say about our culture's relationship with the internet?? it's pretty scary.ultimately, the thing i missed was the relationships. cutting something out relieves you of all the bad stuff it brought but it also points out the good. the good things that have come my way from the internet is the community and the friendships. i've made some amazing friends who have turned into real life in the flesh friends because of connecting with them online, and i've kept real life friendships going with so many people who are far away.i think there are few things in life that are inherently good or evil and the internet/social media is not one of them. i think it's one of those things where you decide the relationship and ultimately you're going to get out what you put in. that's what i learned from going without -- identifying the bad stuff and seeing if i could change it.if you see it as a place to compete, that's what it will be (like it felt like to me).if you see it as a way to get ahead, you will probably be left feeling like you can't keep up most of the time.but if you see it as a place to connect with people you like & know to be able to help each other through this journey, it will probably feel a lot less like that. i've tried to start seeing it as a place to share things that i truly think might add something or bring joy (rather than stress) to others.practically, for me : instagram's become a way to become a better photographer. i just recently entered into the iphone age and the camera & the vscocam app are helping me see in a different way, helping me focus on different aspects of creating a photo. i've also enjoyed sharing about the books i'm loving on there. twitter's become mostly a place to text with friends who are far away.in all these places, i've tried following people i actually know & keep up with, and it's become less about 'being seen'. and i try to introduce myself more to the people i find online that i don't know but admire what they do. there are no phones in the bedroom at home... when we travel out of country, we don't buy a data plan so we can stay disconnected and present. and ultimately the long break i took helped cut the cord of relying on it & makes it easier now to be on my phone less. it just feels natural. i'd really really recommend going for a time without being connected.so much of life is online now, i get it. but i never want to lose that balance of connecting with people in real life, having face to face conversations, even just sitting and thinking during those in-between moments, not just reaching for my phone.anyway, just my thoughts. thanks for reading! if your interested in more, see my post about quitting social media here and my follow-up post here.images from my iphone/instagram while out exploring these past few months.