Isaiah 61:1 “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”
Hello. My name is Donna, and I am a social media addict.
It all started innocently enough about 7 years ago. I joined Twitter to follow the happenings at my church. Twitter led to Facebook and now Facebook has led to Instagram. Isn’t that how it is, the light stuff leads to the heavy stuff. I was slow to enter the world of social media. I did not like the thought that everyone everywhere could have a glimpse into my life. However, the thought of reconnecting to old friends and staying connected with family won over any concerns that happened to come to mind.
At first I did not spend much time looking at social media. It started with just a few minutes a day. I would log in look at the post my friends had made, do a quick update and then log back out. It was fun to reconnect to so many people. It was fun to see pictures of kids that I had only imagined in my head. It was nice to chat with others that I had not spoken with in so long.
Then I got sick and had several surgical procedures within a few months. I had weeks of recovery time with nothing to do. So I sat on social media all day. At the time I did not have a “smart phone” so when I was away from the house I had no access. It was not a problem. I did not feel the need to be connected. However, when I got my new updated phone the first thing I did was add social media apps. As days turned into weeks I became almost like a prisoner in the world of social media. Every moment I had free was spent surfing through the post, the pictures and the links.
I am not saying all social media is bad. I am not saying I am quitting social media. I am not discounting the meaningful connections that can and have been made using social media. All I am saying is that I am trying hard to spend less time on social media.
I have stopped looking at my phone all the time. I have started spending less time on the computer and spending more time doing other things that matter. I no longer grab my phone or laptop right when I wake up, in order to see what was posted while I was sleeping. Most days I do not even look at social media until the afternoon. I still spend too much time doing these things, but I am slowly and steadily decreasing the amount of time I spend on this habit. I have turned off most of my alerts and don’t jump every time my phone beeps to see who is saying what to who. I am busting out of social media prison.
It’s a shame that we waste so much of our time doing things that, in the end, won’t make a difference in our lives or the lives of others. We waste hours lurking behind social media not having real interactions with anyone. We waste hours trying to post the perfect picture to our Instagram accounts. We tweet about everything. All these things do not matter. What matters is the real relationships. What matters is what we did with the time we were given. What matters is the impact that we make on others.
Do you need to bust out of social media prison?
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