Social media has taken its toll on me. They say that when you're a writer you need to have an online presence, an internet platform of sorts, and this is especially true for young adult authors whose main audience spends approximately seven hours a day online. They will want to find you. But I find that statistic pathetically depressing, personally, even though I know I spend entirely too much time online myself. The slight difference is that I read the news and weather, job hunt, research for whatever I'm writing (which is pretty constant), and check in with a few friends on Facebook or Twitter. Kids--including my own--spend the majority of their time playing games and socializing. Both of which are fun and engaging and I don't blame them for enjoying it, but when is there time for real-life activities and imaginative play? For someone who writes BOOKS, the whole thing weighs heavily on me.
In my Utopian household, handheld gadgets would not exist. However, these days sending your kid to high school without a smart-device of some sort is like sending them without shoes--in their minds anyway. I constantly have to balance my expectations as a child of the 80's with my kids' expectations as children of the millennium. And I like my iphone, too, so I'm not exempt from the technological fold. But it's a vastly different world to grow up in. One with which I am becoming increasingly more frustrated. I know, I'm showing my age. Soon I'll be screaming at kids to get off my lawn and chanting: "When I was girl you had to buy your music at the store and rewind cassette tapes by HAND!"
I'll try very hard to not do that.
But for me, the internet has become an immense black hole of false relationships and shallow conversation. Yes, there is a lot of fun in such surface-level communication. And there is a ton of extremely interesting and educational information to glean from. These things are great. I love when my oldest looks up Hank Green's science videos or when my daughter finds characters she wants to draw. I can only humor these things for a short time, however, as one can only stand so many YouTube videos, memes, and never-ending threads of quips. This does not a rich life make. It makes a nicely contained life, one that can be looked at and shut off at will, one that can provide you all of the stimulation you could possibly want and keep you coming back for more when you realize real-life is becoming rather mundane. All false.
So, this writer is taking a break. It's not going to be easy to end this habit, but I'm usually pretty good about sticking to something once I've put it in writing. Kind of a contract with myself. I'll dutifully keep my damn platforms just in case my golden day ever arrives, but I am not going to attend to them hourly. I find it a complete waste of time to be investing in social media for no reason other than to maybe have a few hundred followers (who really don't care) IF I get a book deal. That's a lot of uncertainty to reconcile with. Really it comes down to evaluating the worth of relationships that never materialize in my off-line life. Why do I want that? When I think about it, I don't. I'd rather be putting my energy into people who do care about me, who will actually have a conversation with me that I can hear, who will hold my hand or let me comfort them. These are the people I want. The number may be far less than my Twitter account says. But I don't really want digital followers. I want true friends.
In my Utopian household, handheld gadgets would not exist. However, these days sending your kid to high school without a smart-device of some sort is like sending them without shoes--in their minds anyway. I constantly have to balance my expectations as a child of the 80's with my kids' expectations as children of the millennium. And I like my iphone, too, so I'm not exempt from the technological fold. But it's a vastly different world to grow up in. One with which I am becoming increasingly more frustrated. I know, I'm showing my age. Soon I'll be screaming at kids to get off my lawn and chanting: "When I was girl you had to buy your music at the store and rewind cassette tapes by HAND!"
I'll try very hard to not do that.
But for me, the internet has become an immense black hole of false relationships and shallow conversation. Yes, there is a lot of fun in such surface-level communication. And there is a ton of extremely interesting and educational information to glean from. These things are great. I love when my oldest looks up Hank Green's science videos or when my daughter finds characters she wants to draw. I can only humor these things for a short time, however, as one can only stand so many YouTube videos, memes, and never-ending threads of quips. This does not a rich life make. It makes a nicely contained life, one that can be looked at and shut off at will, one that can provide you all of the stimulation you could possibly want and keep you coming back for more when you realize real-life is becoming rather mundane. All false.
So, this writer is taking a break. It's not going to be easy to end this habit, but I'm usually pretty good about sticking to something once I've put it in writing. Kind of a contract with myself. I'll dutifully keep my damn platforms just in case my golden day ever arrives, but I am not going to attend to them hourly. I find it a complete waste of time to be investing in social media for no reason other than to maybe have a few hundred followers (who really don't care) IF I get a book deal. That's a lot of uncertainty to reconcile with. Really it comes down to evaluating the worth of relationships that never materialize in my off-line life. Why do I want that? When I think about it, I don't. I'd rather be putting my energy into people who do care about me, who will actually have a conversation with me that I can hear, who will hold my hand or let me comfort them. These are the people I want. The number may be far less than my Twitter account says. But I don't really want digital followers. I want true friends.
