Dissatisfaction and unease had crept into my day-to-day. Everything else being equal, I could only guess the culprit was my online time had become less of a conscious choice than an unconscious habit.
I awoke to my Facebook feed, and actively consulted and contributed to it throughout the day until I fell asleep.
At first it was exciting, but some years after I began, I noticed something was off. While I loved being more in touch with relatives and with friends and coworkers from past jobs, schools and locales, there was a growing unease I sensed in my spirit. Was it fear of missing out? Was it a bit of jealousy? Was it being slightly bored?
Finally, I landed on the answer. It came down to time. My training as a broadcast news producer for radio and TV newscasts and documentaries helped me identify what was going on that felt so off.
Hours and minutes are the currency of a news or video producer. A producer uses time segments to plan a television newscast or a documentary project. We use a “wheel“ of 30 or 60 minutes to plan and execute a news program.
My mental wheel while on Facebook was full of holes. I sensed a problem, but I didn’t know that I could do something about it.
My feed on Facebook was full of material I would never allow in a newscast or consider newsworthy, joyful or interesting enough for me anyway.
Finally, it hit me. Because of my experience handling time as a material in my work, I knew what to do: I had to cut.
Just as news producers had to cut sections out of reports or parts of a program, I had to edit my own use of time. I had to decide what to remove, and what should remain of my Facebook time and experience.
Changing my media habits was a decision I made to improve my daily life.
In the past I had quit biting my nails to improve the appearance of my hands. I had quit smoking tobacco when I realized my health was affected. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I quit alcohol because I learned the sugar in alcohol didn’t help my efforts to become healthier. I decided if I wanted to improve my media use, I needed to quit Facebook.
Here’s what happened when FB and I called it quits. I immediately noticed I seemed to have more time for other more joyful tasks and activities, such as cooking, reading, exercising, or being with friends in person instead of online.
Five or so years into my no-Facebook life, I have finished a novel, landscaped my front and backyard, produced videos, been in a friend’s play, had a Readers Theatre performance of my own play, and with a friend, co-founded a zoom writing group that has fed my creative life beautifully.
It may not be for everyone to quit Facebook cold turkey or even to quit all together. But my other experiences quitting taught me that all or nothing usually works for me.
For you, other approaches to moderating media use, including setting time limits or for business-related purposes may work equally well.
For now, I will continue to measure my media use habits by what the no-Facebook experience has taught me: Real life, face-to-face (even on zoom ) experiences with the myriad degrees of information of eye twinkling, stirring shoe soles and nuances that feed the moment’s richness are worlds apart from digital flatness and limits. Being with another person brings me the sense of joy, learning and connection that I find most rewarding.
When you think of your day-to-day media use experience, what parts are most enjoyable and which simply gobble up your valuable time without giving you joy?
For yourself, or as a parent and caregiver to children, tweaking, or editing your media use may be worth exploring and experimenting with.
For one, you may gain more time in your day. More importantly, however, you can model for your family helpful ways to become active rather than passive media consumers by teaching them to direct and drive their media use instead of having it direct and drive them.
