Social Media: Love, Leave or Reduce

Social media – love it or hate it, it’s here to stay.  Personally, I love it, well most of it and with limitations.  I have trimmed it to suit my life.

I started with Facebook – like a lot of Facebook users I initially loved it, for several years.  But then I started to tire of keeping up with it, with misinformation and unnecessary posts, the posts that say ‘I’ve had a rubbish day’ without really saying what was happening – I don’t mean to sound as if I don’t care, I really do but if you’ve had a bad day, talk to your partner, call a friend, call me!  Personally, I don’t have much patience for innuendo – I’m quite straight-talking and don’t do well with ambiguity – please, just tell me what you mean.  Also, I don’t do well with so much ambiguous information – funny how Facebook turns fiction into fact.  It took me a while to bring it back to a place where I realised I was reading things that weren’t there or weren’t happening – but I decided that, much as I knew this, I needed less of this ambiguity in my life so constantly so I narrowed it to mostly family, and overseas & old friends, for which it was a fabulous tool to see what was happening and what they were up to, and keep in touch, and also, with certain people, provide me with the funniest anecdotes that make me laugh out loud, in the middle of a room full of people …..

After Facebook, I discovered Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr.  I know that there are many more out there but this is enough for me and really I only use Pinterest and Instagram but post at the same time as Instagram to Tumblr and Flickr, as well as Facebook, as it’s a one click action.  I’m not a great poster of video and funnily enough, although I like to write and I’m a huge fan of sharp, snappy one-liners, I’m not a great producer of them so Twitter hasn’t appealed.  Pinterest and Instagram however …… I’m a massive fan.

I love imagery – a lot – I take a lot of photos and have had a pinboard of images on my wall for many years, plus many books of magazines cut-outs.  I use Pinterest to pin other’s images and Instagram to post my own – nice and simple.  I have recently gone through all 10,000 plus pins I have on Pinterest and reorganised my pins and boards so that they are more manageable and user-friendly.  I now have less than half the pins and limit myself to 100 pins per board.  It sounds like a lot but it’s actually not compared to what it was.  In this fabulous age of image, I have refined my Pinterest to a place where I will actually use it instead of randomly pinning every image that I see that appeals to me.  At the time, I always used to think, I must pin that so I don’t forget it – only to forget it as soon as it’s pinned.  I have realised that I need to be more critical.  I now have boards that both appeal to me visually and are somewhere I can just look and gaze and admire, but also I can use them – if, for instance, I want some inspiration for my bedroom, I can look at the ‘home – bedroom’ board and with a slight scroll, see 100 or less images that my mind can actually compute, rather than 346 that, by the time I get to the end of the board, I have forgotten what was at the beginning.  I have learnt to be more concise and in turn, precise.  The largest number of pins I had on any one board was 819 on ‘home – details’ and 957 on ‘wedding – inspiration’ – what can I say, I love a good wedding, love it – I’ve been married for 7 years now and I wish I’d used Pinterest when I got married and I wish I could get remarried (to the same man!) so I could do it all again but differently.  I have suggested we have a big 10 year anniversary bash, just like a wedding but smaller, but strangely enough, my hubby isn’t keen – can’t think why, never mind, there’s time still to convince him ……

With Instagram, it was the opposite – I was slow on the uptake and it took me a long time to allow me to be me and to increase the number of my own images that I posted.  I spent a couple of years worried that I was just another person producing yet another image of a plate of food, a pretty blossom, artfully arranged lounge or another vase of beautiful flowers, plus I worried that they weren’t as good as the beautiful images I was seeing.  My 13 year old nephew thinks my Instagram feed is sooooo boring   Funnily enough, this helped to remind me that there is room for everybody (his is full of footy and selfies) and there are only a very few truly unique people (in my case, unique creatives – the area I am interested in).  I spent a lot of time being both admiring but intimidated by the wealth of fabulous and inspiring creativity that is out there.  I used to think that if I posted the images I was interested in, that many, many others were also posting, I would be accused of copying, of trying to be someone else but I eventually realised that there is room for all of us and many of us are indeed similar and have the same likes and dislikes, which is why I follow people with similar passions (you think there would be a clue there!).  I have reduced the number of people I follow to around 125, and it usually only takes me about 20 minutes each day to scroll through all the new images – time that I am happy to spend on this as I love the inspiration and pleasure it provides.  I also realised that my images are good enough (for me) and that although I most definitely want them to improve, a lot, they won’t unless I keep taking them and posting them and seeing the reactions of others, plus having them somewhere I can go back to and study them to see what I can improve.

Another thing of this day and age is the abundance of digital images we have and the fact that most of them never see the light of day again.  Which brings me to my newly-commenced blog, I wanted to explore more, to see more of the country around me and the places further afield that we visit, and I wanted something to prompt me to get out of the house and do this, and to record them somewhere it was easy to come back to and revisit, and reminded me to revisit places I enjoyed – the same as my noticeboard in the kitchen covered with restaurant business cards does.  I wanted to practice writing, improve my photography, keep a record of what we’ve seen and done, and learn more in this age of social media, such as coding, scheduling, etc.  For me, it is another way for my friends, especially overseas, to keep up with what’s going on in my life.  I love blogs and follow a number of them and this is another area I have trimmed down on.  Over the past couple of years, I have again reduced the number of people I follow.  It changes from month to month but I probably spend between 10 and 30 minutes each day (although not always at weekends) reading blogs that I both follow and subscribe to and, like Instagram, this is time I am happy to give this to.  On our recent trip to Europe, our itinerary was created in most part from recommendations from bloggers that I have followed for long enough to trust their judgement and who seem to have the same likes and dislikes as I have.  It gives me inspiration and pleasure on an almost daily basis.  To some people, this might seem like a lot of time when added up but this is my interest, the same as someone who tinkers on their bike or car, or does the crossword each day, and it gives me the same enjoyment.

I should say that I have also started to reacquaint myself with the ‘old-fashioned’ styley of cards and notes.  This year I have started to buy all the birthday or anniversary cards I need the month prior for the coming month, and I have a set of elegant notes on my desk for impromptu hand-written hello’s or thank-you’s.  I still love to receive something in the mail and I’m sure I’m not the only one.  There is a place for everything both modern and traditional – room again for us all 

I think of myself as a well-balanced, confident, assertive, chatty and friendly person, with the standard amount of self-doubt that many of us have.  However, we live in an age where everything that everyone does is reported on endlessly and we have a constant stream of words and images thrust on us.  It has taken me some time to work out how I can use this in a way that works for me and this has resulted in me reducing what and how much I use in the way of social media.   I like to have room for both organisation and creativity in my life at the same time.  Both reducing and scheduling my usage (thank you Planoly) allows me to ensure that they don’t take over my life but add to my life in a beautiful and productive way, that improves my happiness, confidence and abilities, possibly in the way they were originally intended …. ?!

Will blogs end?  I think it is simply a new format, a new place to see what I have looked at my whole adult life.  I have always loved imagery, interiors, food, home, gardens, etc. but I used to watch them on the tv and in films, read magazines and books – now I also read blogs, and review Instagram and Pinterest.  I am sure one day it will morph again but as long as you allow some room for everything, there is also room for this.