Consumption

It’s finally happened to me. Social media has consumed my life and my time. My time is what I’ll never get back. Time I could have used being creative, like writing or reading.

But here I stay. Constantly checking for likes and comments on something I just posted. I am addicted to the positivity of it all. I keep my feeds light. No drama here. It’s why I like it so much. It’s like a drug and I keep feeding myself all I can handle.

My writing starts lacking. I don’t read like I would like to. And I don’t seem to be present anymore. I can’t put my damn phone down for five minutes and listen to what someone has to say. Frankly, it’s rude. And yet I still seem to do it. It doesn’t care.

It’s my new addiction and I have to treat it as such. I’ve been addicted to many things. I’ve learned two ways to quit something. One requires enormous will power. The second needs your will power, but at a slower pace. I’m talking about cold turkey and weaning myself.

I can’t quit cold turkey. I’ve tried. It was a worthless effort. This time, I’m going to try and wean myself off. I have given myself time frames. I can look at my phone once an hour and I can be on each of my social media feeds for five minutes each. That’s 15 minutes each hour. Seems reasonable, doesn’t it?

Okay, but can I pull it off. At the moment, I am on my phone… wait… I should tell you when I’m not on my phone. Each hour of the day, I’m probably off of my phone for five to 10 minutes of each hour. That’s 50 to 55 minutes of social media screen time each hour. That’s a lot!

I have to quit. I have to leave it alone. I have to set my standards to a reasonable amount. I can’t quit altogether because I have too much going on and lots of people like to hear from me.

Another thing I like about social media is the acceptance I receive. Praise and acceptance. Not something I got a lot of growing up – especially the being accepted. At least that’s how I perceived my life. Others might say something else.

So let’s see if I can do this. Let’s see if I can take my baby steps to lowering my screen time and focusing more on what I love and that is to write and read.

I’ll keep y’all posted. Thank you for reading.

If you’d like to keep up with Lilian, you can visit her website at lilianvale.us There, you can sign up for her monthly newsletter. Have a great day!