Several days ago I removed myself from Facebook and Instagram. The announcement of my departure on both platforms was met with mixed responses: a little sadness, some disinterest, and a bit of envy. Several friends asked if I was going to continue writing. Given that I’ve been very active in several Facebook groups, and that I’ve blogged about the importance of musicians maintaining a social media presence, this departure surprised many people (including myself).
I didn’t leave because I was cyber-bullied, experiencing a reduced sense of self-esteem, or developing a social media addiction. And even though it would have been a great reason to depart these platforms, I didn’t delete my accounts because of the shameful revelations Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistle blower, made public last week. I left because the unending posts, interactions, and (self-inflicted) exposure was draining my creative spirit.
Some people can maintain a high level of involvement with people on social media platforms without sacrificing their creativity, but I can’t. I hadn’t known why I was so restless and eager to avoid getting online until I remembered that I’d had (and deleted) a Facebook account years ago, and then took a five year hiatus before I opened another one. In the interim, I wrote my novel, The Waco Variations, as well as multiple articles for publication—all while working full-time as a performing pianist and instructor. When I returned to social media, and started filling most of my spare moments with news feeds and updates, my writing suffered. I began skimming rather than reading, multi-tasking too much, and stopped engaging deeply with the world around me. My mind had no chance to wander. My creative spirit needed slow reading, deep immersion in reality, and lots of moments of mental wandering and wondering. It needed a quiet world without so much chatter, hype, and involvement in other people’s emotional lives and political leanings. It needed me to stop spending my energy on people and things that didn’t enrich my life, and focus instead on true, real encounters with those people and activities that feed my soul.
This isn’t a #antisocialmedia rant, and I’m certainly not going to tread the tired path of writing rhapsodically about how spiritually evolved I feel now that I’ve unshackled myself from these platforms. I will say that the first morning after I made my decision, I woke with more energy and enthusiasm than I’d felt in a year. I no longer feel rushed and distracted. Best of all, the creative ideas that eluded me this past year are coming back now that I’ve unplugged enough to listen to them. Leaving social media has, in effect, allowed me to reenter my life.
And so, in response to the friends who asked, yes, I will continue writing. In fact, I plan to do more of it, along with taking time to listen to the rain hit the window, drink in the reds and golds of autumn leaves, and let myself become absorbed in the moment-by-moment real world around me—beautiful, ugly, pleasurable, painful, possibly boring, irreplaceable, everyday life.
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