Why I'm Not On Instagram

"I'm serious," my friend says. "You need to be on Instagram. It kills me you're not on there. Like, it's to the point that if you don't get on it I'm not sure we can be friends any more." She's totally kidding about not being her friend any more but she's not kidding about wanting me to be on Instagram. She assures me I will love it. I'm sure she's right. But the trouble is, I tell her, I just can't do one more thing. Between blogging (which you all know how haphazard that has been of late), Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, I have my fill of diversions, am at my limit of the voices I let speak into my life. As good as Instagram sounds, it also sounds like another rabbit hole to fall into, another time suck when that's the very last thing I need.

These two quotes below, taken from two unrelated blogs, best illustrate my feelings on social media as of late. While I see the advantages, I am also increasingly aware of the disadvantages. Social media has added to my life, but it also has potential to cheapen it if I allow it to. I'm becoming more militant about doing whatever I can to keep that from happening. Including staying off Instagram-- that "one more thing" when I don't need one more thing. I appreciate these authors echoing what I'm feeling, and speaking up for what I've been thinking for a while. Their voices make me feel braver. It's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks that all of this at times can feel like madness... when what I want most is sanity.

From Elizabeth Foss:

I know that I write way too often about the perils of fast-moving technology, especially social media. Increasingly, I find that mine is a lonely position. The reality, however, is that, for some of us, it's all too fast. It's all too disconnected. We sit here wonderingly, while the people we love are swept along in the fast-moving tide of constant interaction and constant change. And we know that we will  be left behind. We might be able to maintain our own calm and our own capable, but we will be in that peaceful state mostly by ourselves.

...between digital technology and rising complexity, there's more information and more requests coming at us faster, and more relentlessly than ever. Unlike computers, however, human beings aren't meant to operate continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time. Rather, we're designed to move rhythmically between spending and renewing our energy. Our brains wave between high and low electrical frequencies ,  our hearts beat at varying intervals our lungs expand and contract depending on demand. It's not sufficient to be good at inhaling. Indeed, the the more deeply you exhale, the calmer and more capable you become. --from Manage Your Day to Day.

(Source: http://www.elizabethfoss.com/journal/gathering-my-thoughts-and-sighing-it-all-out)

From Allison Winn Scotch:

But sometimes, as in all things in life, it’s best to know when it’s time to shut up and reflect, and I guess I’ve reached that point. That point where I’m ready to be a listener and apply this quiet space to my writing. I’d never have imagined it but the quiet space is comforting now: I gravitate less to Twitter, away from chatter and blogs and comment sections, totally content not to document every last thing. (When and why have we become a society who documents every last thing? As if we don’t document it, it didn’t actually happen.) To instead, save some of that for me. My characters. My writing. My home life.

Source: http://writerunboxed.com/2014/10/30/introducing-myself-2/