I’ve been on social media since Facebook allowed non-college students and according to Facebook that was October 13, 2007; more than 16 years ago. I’ve been on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter since April 2009, when most tweets were about having lunch or coffee with someone and no one could have imagined “live tweeting” Arab Spring, the Supreme Court, or a Taylor Swift tour. I’ve been on Instagram since there were about seven filters, no video, and influencers were not a thing.
I have almost always enjoyed social media. There is satisfaction in connecting with old friends, making new friends, finding likeminded people, debating with not-likeminded people, requesting prayer for friends or family, haranguing sports teams, and messing with Texas.
Some people can do social media in moderation; I don’t seem to be able to moderate. As a result, over the last couple of years or so my participation in social media has become counterproductive for me. After Elon Musk bought Twitter and began his move toward whatever X will become, I had already decided to leave it. But go where? Most people I know are on Threads, but I am hesitant to pour a lot of effort into that platform since it’s another planet in the Meta orbit. How much more personal information does Mark Zuckerberg need from me, anyway?
Mastadon is too hard to connect with people. Not many of my friends seem to be bothering with early Bluesky (perhaps due to limited invite codes). Spoutible seems the refuge of former-Twitter leftists, the flip-side of one memorable Right Wing exodus to Gab and Parler.
Ultimately, though, it is less about the fracturing of social media (specifically Twitter) than about me; the Twitter fracturing portended my reckoning. I am the person who is practically addicted. Or maybe not practically. And though I’ve taken “social media fasts” as long as a month, sliding back into my old habits is all-too-predictable and tiresome.
I have experienced the dwindling attention span resulting from heavy social media use. I have recognized it for a while, but convinced myself I could overcome it. I cannot and I am tired of pretending I can.
I want my brain back for what’s left of this earthly sojourn.
So, I’m leaving social media, mostly. I’m not deleting my accounts, but I’m deleting the apps from my phone and checking them will be rarely rather than constantly. I have work responsibilities using social media, will keep the messaging channels open, and will promote my blog content from time to time (subscribe now!) so deletion is impractical.
I’m not dying; just leaving. Mostly.
In his great book, How to Inhabit Time, James K. A. Smith writes, “’What do we do now?’ is one of the fundamental questions of discipleship” (p 9). Later he quotes Olivier Clément: “’Eternity is oriented toward time.’ It is most acutely in the liturgy of the church that ‘time is revealed not as an opposition to eternity but as the vessel chosen by God to reveal and communicate the truth of eternity’” (p 78).
My next tattoo will read memento temporum; memento aeternum. (Latinish shorthand for “remember you are temporal; remember you are eternal.”) Even if I live to be 100, the time is short; but eternity is long. I want to better use the remaining time allotted to me on earth to reveal eternity and more fully explore and answer that question for my own discipleship, What do I do now?
fides quaerens intellectum
Hey, while you’re here, coffee, or a donut, or coffee and a donut would be deeply appreciated!
