The whole ‘social media’ thing always seems to be a hot topic, but lately it’s been on my mind more than ever. I should preface this entire post by saying that I’m much more comfortable sharing my life on this blog, because I feel like it’s my outlet to explain myself and find others to relate to and create a little community among people I otherwise wouldn’t ‘know’ at all. I find all of these things to be extremely valuable. 

So when I say ‘social media’ I’m not necessarily thinking of this little space, instead I’m thinking mainly of Facebook, but also a little bit of Instagram and Twitter. You know, those sites/feeds that I can access on my phone and scroll endlessly through.

They all have their benefits.

Facebook allows me to keep in touch with friends and family members I don’t live near. None of my close friends use Facebook very often, but it’s always a nice way to share pictures and keep up with little things that are going on in life.

Twitter allows me to find out about interesting blog posts I may be interested in reading and it also fills me in about news events I should know about. I also find it much, much more entertaining than Facebook, even though I don’t follow almost anyone I know in ‘real’ life.

Instagram doesn’t take nearly as much time for me to scroll through as Facebook or Twitter, but it allows me to see pretty pictures and glimpses into peoples’ lives, and I find it fascinating!

And then there are the cons.

With Facebook, the problems start when people say ‘oh you didn’t know about such and such? I posted about it on Facebook!‘ This response always irritates me. I shouldn’t NEED to check Facebook to find out about ‘big’ events, in my opinion. I mean, if I find out about an engagement or the birth of a baby of an actual, real life friend on Facebook, I will not be happy. Obviously.

My Twitter feed is becoming almost non-stop promotion which is somewhat informative, but not nearly as entertaining.

Instagram… well, I just love Instagram.

I’m not thinking of giving up any of these forms of social media, I’m simply trying to figure out how to use them effectively for my personal life. Sure, I can use each of them to promote my blog, but beyond that, I’m attempting to outline a plan for how often to use social media, and for what purposes.

For instance, do I want to ‘announce’ the birth of our baby for all of Facebook to see? The Husband and I decided not to announce our pregnancy on there, because we wanted to make sure we had told absolutely all of our friends about it first, and that took quite a while! Then, by the time we figured that everyone who needed to know already knew, we were into the late second trimester and figured it was pointless to make an announcement for acquaintances. Yes, a post like that always makes people happy and gets lots of ‘likes’ and ‘congrats’ comments, but do those comments mean as much coming from people who are pretty irrelevant in our lives?

On the other hand, I do love seeing posts from other people announcing happy news, because it always makes me feel good when people I know are celebrating something!

Should I share photos of our new baby online or is that really unnecessary since 99% of my ‘friends’ probably don’t want to see even more babies filling up their feeds?

More importantly, does taking a picture and posting it on social media somehow cheapen the moments spent with loved ones? Generally, I would think this answer would be ‘no’, but if we’re out and take a picture and then need to post it right at that second to all forms of social media so that everyone else can see what we’re doing… I just can’t see that being a healthy thing to be doing on the regular.

And then there’s the time spent on browsing the posts of others. 

I will admit that I wake up in the morning and spend a good 30 minutes to an hour scrolling through feeds. It’s how I wake myself up in the morning! It’s a mindless activity and I do it out of habit. The same goes before I go to bed, although lately I’ve gotten better at reading and doing other things, instead.

I’m most guilty of scrolling through social media when I’m waiting for something. Commuting is perfect for catching up on Twitter. A few minutes before a meeting at work is a great time to scroll through Instagram to see what everyone is eating for lunch that day. You get the picture (no pun intended). I don’t necessarily feel ‘guilty’ about the time I spend on social media now, but I have a feeling I will if there’s a baby around, demanding my attention.

Actually, I do feel guilty now and then if I’m ignoring the Husband because I’m scrolling through my phone, but he’s way more guilty of that than I am, so maybe that’s why I’m more aware of the frustration it can cause. It’s like ‘HELLO, I’m right here! Put down your phone!’ The same goes for friends that I’m spending time with who can’t seem to put down their phones to pay attention to who is right in front of them, but I think this has actually gotten much better as we’ve all gotten older.

Basically, I’m all over the place on this post.

I’m wondering if you have boundaries for when you use social media and when you don’t.

I’m wondering if those of you with children love posting about them, or if you intentionally try to limit the amount of pics of them you post.

I’m wondering if it’s even healthy to think ‘Oh! I should totally post this to Instagram!’ or ‘I should tweet about this!’, etc.

I’m wondering if you post the ‘big events’ of your life on social media, and why or why not. 

I’m wondering if you feel like your real life relationships are somehow cheapened by social media.

I’m wondering if you scroll through social media out of boredom or habit or whether it’s something you truly find to be worth your time.

This is the video I recently saw that prompted even more of these questions:

What are your thoughts?

Cheers!

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