I know it’s been awhile but I’ve decided not to apologize. I’ve been doing that my whole life. Apologizing to journals and diaries, as if they missed me while I neglected to write in them… No. Besides, how pretentious would I be if I were to apologize for not blogging in three weeks; as if people are checking their computers every day, pushing the refresh button time and time again, hoping for some sort of glimmer into what I’VE been up to, ready to hang on to MY every syllable. No, I think not. That’s stupid.
But since you are reading this, I want to take this precious time to share something kind of important to me. Social media.
Actually when my Mom told me I should start a blog, it was a comment following a conversation about social media and my thoughts and standards that apply to it.
See, I’ve changed me ideas about social media in the past few years. Let me tell you the story.
I got a facebook in 2007. Back then, the status update option read something like this: “Sharon Duke is: (fill your thoughts, emotions and activities at will.) So I did.
Sharon Duke is: going to bed! Night night facebook!
Sharon Duke is: Bored! Someone text me!
Sharon Duke is: Excited to hang out with my friends!
And so on it goes. I was all about it. I got a twitter in 2010 and an instagram in 2012 and I continued to follow the trends of doing what people with those accounts do. I got into facebook drama status battles, over things that are so stupid, I would be embarrassed to share with you.
I tweeted so many times a day, and followed celebrities, fascinated by the lives they lead that are so much more interesting than mine.
I instagramed pictures of situations that made my life feel and look so special! Midnight runs to fast food places! Books I was reading that made me look sophisticated. Fun nights with friends watching movies.
I did all of this and never thought another thing about it.
Then I went on a mission trip to Arizona where I turned in my phone for a week. That week, I realized something. Because of my phone, I think about important stuff a lot less. More importantly, I think of God a lot less.
In Psalm 1, the writer talks about how “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, or stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scorners, but HIS DELIGHT is in the LAW OF THE LORD. And in that law does HE MEDITATE DAY AND NIGHT.”
During that week in Arizona, the thought of meditating on God day and night was brought to my attention in a whole new way. It was so easy to think of God and the beauty of his creation around me. I was so thankful for the meaningful, uninterrupted conversations that happened with other people who had stories to share and life experiences to tell. When I was alone, instead of filling the time with updating myself on all that had happened in the mediasphere, I could thank God for things, and think on things that had happened during that day. I fell in love with the freedom that something as simple as giving up my phone for a week, could bring. When I got my phone back, I didn’t turn it on for an hour. I really almost didn’t even want it back. When I finally turned it on, the notifications started arriving and suddenly I felt pressure for the daunting task of checking each one and replying to each message and finding out what had happened while I was gone.
Within a few weeks, I was back.
Other trips and opportunities came for me to separate myself from my phone and the media world, and the same thing would happen. Two weeks in Spain were wonderful, and again, I wished I could have just left my phone there.
I actually gave my final speech in my freshman year of college on persuading my class to stop being on their phones and social media so much. I even called out a girl who was on facebook during my speech.
Slowly my views on social media started shifting and I starting thinking harder about them. And then the turning point where everything changed came.
I was in Tipitapa, Nicaragua over Christmas break in January of 2013. Our team was circled up for what would be one of our last group times of the trip. As we were talking logistics and other preparations, our team leader, Tyler, threw out a warning to us. Our first stop in America was going to be Atlanta, Georgia.
“When you get to Atlanta, I just want to remind you to be careful not to hit that social media wall when we land. It will be so easy to get all caught up in everything you feel like you missed on facebook and twitter and whatnot.”
And then he made the most simple yet kind of great statement. “I mean really, what have you missed? Pictures of people’s lunches for 10 days?”
Yes. That’s exactly what I missed. Except, in that moment it was as if my eyes were opened to the ridiculousness of it all.
In that moment I made two decisions.
1. I would question everything I put on social media and put as little as possible.
2. No more food pics.
One seems completely insignificant to the other but both pretty much were game changers to me. One represented the weight of all that I do on social media and one represented how stupid most of it was. I mean, who really cares to see what I ate for lunch? Am I trying to convince people I’m Rachel Ray and I have the food arranging skills of a chef? That I am special because I can cook all for myself? WHY!? It all seemed so silly.
Since that trip, how I view social media and how I allow for everyone else to view me has taken a 180. I keep my involvement to a minimum, posting facebook statuses only when they are very important or I feel like it might add to someone’s life as it does to mine. I only post pictures of things that I am truly excited about and can’t help but share with others. I do not comment on other’s people’s political arguments or rants, I don’t allow myself to be grouped into that. It never turns out well for me.
This is how my standards towards social media began to develop. As the past year has gone by, I have thought even deeper into it than I thought I ever would. And so what I am about to share is my biggest standard/conviction/rule towards social media. Get ready.
-When you share an experience, you give away a small piece of that experience to all who see it, thus demeaning the quality of the original experience.
For instance, if you have lunch with a friend, and during this lunch you have some very quality conversations about spiritual matters or maybe one of you pours out their heart to the other and that conversation brings you slightly closer together, great! It’s special! It was for you and that person. You can walk away treasuring that conversations.
As soon as you instagram a picture of it, or tweet or facebook something from that experience, it is no longer yours. You’ve given some of it away. It isn’t as valuable anymore. In fact, over 400 people now have shared a small piece of it with you. It’s like you made a pie and even though you and your friend got a pretty substantial piece, everyone else got a piece too. Maybe a smaller one, but same pie. When you could have took some of that pie home in a take-out box, put it in the fridge and thought to yourself later…wow that was great pie. I am so glad I got to have it. Without sharing it with anyone!
Sometimes things are just for you! Experiences and moments of intimacy and loss of words and scenes of profound beauty, they’re just for you. God created them for you. There is something so special to me about being a part of something like that, and just holding it into myself. I can think on it later and be grateful for it because, it was mine.
I remember one night this past year, when the house I was living in had a rare evening of everyone being home and not busy, so we decided to watch a movie. Five minutes in, I looked around and thought, hey, this looks fun, I’m going to take picture and instagram it. I picked up my phone and looked around again and then stopped myself. Here we were, four friends/roommates, enjoying each other’s company and laughing together. Making a memory.
No, I thought. This moment is just for us. We can have it and enjoy it and remember it without needing to tell everyone about it. It’s more special this way. This is for me.
It’s not selfish to think that.
One friend recently referred to sharing memories in this way as “prostituting out your memories”. And I couldn’t agree more. Everything you’re thinking with that statement, yes. That pretty much describes it exactly.
Now I know this blog post may seem to be somewhat of a rant, and I hope it’s not taken that way. I just really felt the need to share something that changed my life. Something that I will never go back on. I know not everyone is like this and that’s fine.
But if this is something that you would like to change, I would like to offer a few helpful suggestions.
1. Before posting or tweeting anything, ask yourself these questions. Why? Why am I posting this? What am I wanting people to think of me when they see this? Is there someone I particularly want to see this? What is my real motive? I am being honest about who I am?
2. By sharing this, am I giving away a part of an experience? Am I betraying the person I shared this memory with by turning a one on one experience into false intimacy? Am I prostituting memories and experiences?
3. Every once in awhile, go look at your profiles with the eyes of a stranger. Pretend you are someone looking at you for the first time. Is it an accurate portrayal of yourself? Is there anything misleading or trivial?
4. Ask yourself, is this just for me? Sometimes there is so much more joy in holding to something special that you got to experience. The key is to knowing the differences between times when it is and times when it isn’t. First roller coaster ride at an amusement park? Share that one. People should know that you’re 21 and can still conquer fears.
A quiet lunch or coffee with a dear friend who shares with you their heart? No. That’s for you. For you and that person. Hold tight to it and cherish it and resist the temptation to cut 400 slices of that pie to hand out to any old person who happens to be your Facebook “friend.”
And the final one
5. Ask God to help you be the person he desires you to be as well as to see others like He sees them, and to see yourself as He sees you. Having the realization of who God says you are will be a big game-changer to what you allow other people to say you are. Even more, the knowledge that BECAUSE you know who God thinks you are, there’s no need draw any attention to who you think people want you to be or who you want people to think you are. Have security in your Creator and confidence to care less of what anyone else says about you. Who can truly know someone through Facebook anyway. It is merely a projection of what we say we are. And no one is allowed to say what we are except God.
Don’t take that from HIM. It is not yours to take.
Thanks for reading this. If you made it all the way to the end, then I commend you. I really do feel so strongly about these things and hope that you feel that in my words and not just see some girl ranting on her computer at 1:00 am. 🙂
Blessings!
Nevertheless 