Leaving Social Media

Well this is an exciting day! I've deactivated all my social media accounts - Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram...they're all gone!

It feels like such a relief. This is something I've been working up to for a while now.

Social media started out as something I didn't 'get' when I first heard about it. Back in 2009 a colleague was checking her Facebook and I asked why? What's the point? The answer was "to see what everyone is up to."

I still couldn't see the point, until I got my own account and started connecting with long lost friends, school chums and colleagues, and adding new friends, contact, getting into groups...it was unstoppable.

When I got my first smartphone in 2011 it was unstoppable. I spent so much time on social media, and much of it was pretty stressful.

I soon realised that people weren't very nice when they were talking to you from the safety of being behind a screen, and it could be difficult to get away from people you no longer wanted to associate with (like ex boyfriends) if you had contacts in common.

Looking back I can see that I wasted far too many hours, thanks to the Facebook "endless scroll" and that has cost my business and my real life social life dearly.

What personal contact do we really still have with people?

How well do we really know our 500-3000 "friends" anyway?

Probably not very well at all if we are truthful.

I've thought about leaving social media before, and even deactivated my Facebook a couple of times. Each time it was blissful. The peace and quiet, tbeing able to think, read and take quiet time without the constand distraction of notifications was heaven, but I got sucked back in.

This time I've decided not to.

For the past couple of years, I have been working in social media marketing and I completed a professional course to bring me up to a high level of competence. The problem was, part way through I realised that I didn't actually like social media or how the marketing was targeted. It all seemed to manipulative, intrusive and inhuman.

Social Media gives me anxiety, it affects my mood in very negative ways and I'm through with it.

I'm certain that I'm not alone in this, and if you feel it is affecting your life too, then I would encourage you to join me and quit!

I will add the caveat that you'll still find me on OnStellar. It's a very quiet, peaceful and so far friendly social network, and yes notifications are OFF! I'll stay on there for nos because there are a few people I want to be connected to, and it seems to be a mostly non-toxic network!

I'll be focussing more on sending email updates, snail mail (yes, you might get a nice surprise in the post from me!) and writing updates and articles here on Angel Wings Holistics so stay tuned.

If you haven't already joined the mailing list, the link is at the bottom of the home page.

I can feel that many people are disatisfied with soclai media and feel it negatively impacts on their lives. I sense that a backlash is coming, and people will soon start to leave and reclaim their real lives.

As humans we crave community, we want to be seen,heard, loved. But social media is not the way to do that - it is to community as aspartame is to sugar. A toxic, artificial alternative, that might just give you cancer - a cancer of the soul.