It’s officially been a year since I started writing about the topic of social media. When the thoughts poured so aggressively they commanded I record them. I experienced a tipping point. A magical moment that led me to “the unfollowing.”
So far I have yet to look back.
Summer Made Me Do It
I like to say that summer is my jam.
In addition to the freedom from work, I feel a kinship with the sun and the sweat. It makes me feel carefree and hopeful.
I started putting thoughts down on the laptop around this time last year. I wrote a lot in that first 6 months. Stuff that has yet to be sent to “press.” Though in this year I never stopped having daily observations and social media topics I wanted to research, I experienced some hiccups in the process. But, as comes with the summer, that carefree feeling has returned. It’s commanded me to return to just writing.
Here’s some of my thoughts from last year’s June vacation at a family cottage in northern Michigan that are still relevant to me today.
The Unfollowing
The blog name “I’m Not Following” came to me on a jet ski ride with my husband and a couple of our kids. I was free at that moment. I was in the moment.
It seems that’s when our profound thoughts come to us.
I can’t recall all the times I’ve been driving with some good tunes, in the shower, or hanging with friends, when thoughts come into my head. Then, I’m frantically trying to remember them long enough to write them down before I forget.
A friend of mine told me about a whiteboard she installed right outside of her shower. I understand why. When thoughts pour in, thoughts deemed important, and when you have a brain that doesn’t hold on to them long, you have to use whatever means you can to keep them.
I had been thinking about the “problems” I have with social media for a long time now. Then, without much effort, I had an entire notebook filled with thoughts. I was on a mission to solve the problem.
“I’m not following” came to me as a light bulb above my head on that jet ski ride.
What It Means To Me
Unfollowing meant that I was done following the norm. Specifically, I was done following along being on social media at the cost of “living my best life.”
The verb unfollowing meant something too. There were some platforms that I knew I would find valuable enough to keep active. But they had to be personalized to work for me. The action I knew that was best for me was to unfollow the newsfeeds.
That’s exactly what I did.
The action of unfollowing felt sort of mean. Even posting, when I don’t actively check other’s posts felt hypocritical. But that was what I no longer cared about. I knew that in keeping the platforms active I could check on loved ones at any time. And in posting sometimes I could give them the choice to view mine as they felt as well.
Minimizing to Maximize
The unfollowing wasn’t about shutting people out of my life. It was about maximizing the relationships that matter.
No relationship matters more than our relationship with our self.
My realization, or really, admittance, that it was the newsfeed that was bringing me down, was everything. The noise, the overstimulation, the abundance of thoughts that came with the posts and the photos. The way it brought confusing thoughts about people I knew. How it made me second guess my own esteem.
Using social media without filtering out the noise makes it hard to follow our own path. Posts on popular platforms seem to all blend together. Photos follow the trends.
Maybe I’m just too stubborn to follow the status quo, or maybe I’m smarter than I think. But I know one thing for sure, a year has gone by, and fighting against the current has been nothing short of great.