Who the hell is obsessed with their phone on vacation?! Uh…that would apparently be me. In the real world, I was on vacation alternating between sitting on the beach and sifting through my social media apps. I was mentally not present, existing in the under belly of a second world.
Searching for that perfect post, my ultimate purpose of existing in this underground was to find something new to entertain my own second world community. That is the ultimate responsibility of any social media-ite. What’s troubling is I realized that for years I’ve been constantly evaluating everything that crossed my mind throughout my real world day as a possible post to pass on to the second world. Sometimes an original thought/experience. Sometimes a soon-to-be overly shared meme. Sometimes I’m lazy and just repost or share. You would think being on vacation would be so satisfying that I could put the second world on hold. Nope.
Writing clever little posts is just a kindergarten version of what I truly like to do…write. But, the obsession with the creation of a new post is making me stop short of bigger goals: my blog and a book I’ve been trying to write for 5 years. I’m wasting so much time reading and posting to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, I’m not spending anytime thinking or writing about anything in depth.
So it ended a week ago.
I removed Facebook and Twitter from my phone. I kept Instagram because it’s the only app my wife and children all use. I don’t like Instagram, and only follow my family and a few friends, so I will spending very little time on it. I’m already seeing that I spend a miniscule fraction of the time I was on the others.
I will not rejoin the others until I stop thinking in terms of “should I post that?” every minute of the day. Since removing the apps from my phone, I’m not looking at my phone all day but I do still catch myself thinking “I need to post that!”
I know there are positive aspects of social media but they are not outweighed by my desire to freely think through something instead of finding a way to format it into a post and being done with it.
I want to absorb and ponder. It is so superficial to think in terms of how to word a thought instead of pursuing the thought for deeper meanings and application. Instead of immediately passing on a thought, I want it to affect who I am. I want things to cause me to evaluate what I’m experiencing. Then, I want to share it with other people face to face. I can’t help but think this is making the best of what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 5:15-17, “Be very careful, then, how you live–not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
I have to get rid of the noise in my head. How can I process and understand what the Lord’s will is if I glean life solely for the purpose of posting?
I want to strive to be better.
After I Think About It... 