Hiii!
It is late Tuesday night as I type and the more I think about this post the more eager I am to get it written down. I am not sure when I will actually post this but hey. Here goes! This has been pondering on my mind for quite some time and I think the lead up to Christmas is the right time for me to really take a step back. From what you ask? Social media. Why now? Because I am in too deep and I don't like the person I am becoming.
Shock horror, gasp! OMG! I know, right. As my husband will tell you, I check my phone A LOT. I love to browse most social platforms, my favs being instagram and Facebook. I do use Twitter every now and again too. Not sure if Pinterest counts?! Anyway, I digress, I feel like a huge chunk of my life is being taken up and perhaps taken over by social media and I don't like the way its going.
Not very often now do I sit at the dinner table without checking my phone. Not whilst I am eating, but waiting for the kids to finish or whilst they eat their pudding etc. I just get bored and it has become a bit of a habit. I'll say 'Oh i just need to check if so and so has emailed back.' or 'Oh, Mrs Perriwinkle is having a moment, I need to check they are okay'. I am now screaming at myself IT CAN WAIT!!! I'll pull up in the drive and before I have even turned the engine off I grab my phone to see what i've missed. And that is pretty much where it stems from, my massive gigantic FOMO issues (Fear Of Missing Out if you have no idea what I'm talking about). It isn't that I sit there posting all the time or tweeting every 5 minutes, it is completely for being nosey. I like looking at what other people are up to and I love to see other peoples outfits of the day or their make up routine etc etc. After all, we all live for inspiration through other people. No matter what anyone says, you got your idea from something someone else has done or said, and that is totally fine! That is how we live, that is how society works. You see something, you take a bite of it and make something grow. But actually that can become an obsession, and I have let it take over too much. I have an addictive personality, I get way into stuff and I want that to stop.
However, there is a huge part of social media that I hate. Things pop up in my news feed that I don't want to look at, that I don't want to read or listen to. Pages telling me how to raise my children, or somebody telling me the best way to make a freakin' pizza, and because I am a worrier and because I over think things, it makes me feel like a shit person. I know I am not a shit person, I know that I do the very best I can for my family yet some article that is telling me I shouldn't teach my boy a certain thing and I should let my daughter be independent, gets into my brain and takes over my train of thought. I can't keep living like this and I should not let this affect how I parent, how I view things or even other people.
However, there is a huge part of social media that I hate. Things pop up in my news feed that I don't want to look at, that I don't want to read or listen to. Pages telling me how to raise my children, or somebody telling me the best way to make a freakin' pizza, and because I am a worrier and because I over think things, it makes me feel like a shit person. I know I am not a shit person, I know that I do the very best I can for my family yet some article that is telling me I shouldn't teach my boy a certain thing and I should let my daughter be independent, gets into my brain and takes over my train of thought. I can't keep living like this and I should not let this affect how I parent, how I view things or even other people.
I don't want to be strapped to my phone anymore and I feel like if i don't just cut all ties with all my personal social media accounts, then I won't ever reel it in in the long run. I have this you could say, awful, obsession with over sharing. I am honest with everyone I meet, I share every detail about myself to everyone I talk to and I chat chat chat chat. I feel like I have reached a point in my life where I no longer need to do that anymore, and I am not even sure why I did do it in the first place. I am not trying to change myself, I am just trying to dull it down a bit. Enjoy things as a family just the 5 of us, without sharing it with the world all the time or telling someone. I don't need to share my whole life with people and I don't need to know what everyone else is doing 24/7 either. And I am okay with that now. I'm over it, and I am so ready to call it a day. I feel like the deeper I get into social media, the more I think about stuff, and I worry about my own life. Knowing full well that so many people I follow are fake, who tidy the one segment of house they are photographing or make stuff up their kids have 'said' to sound like they have THE most perfect child in the world. I know that as a society we are letting reality slip through our fingers and the more I think about how my children will feel in 10 years time, or less, the more it really does scare me. I don't want them to feel that pressure or false outlook on life and what example am I setting to them if I am doing exactly the wrong thing?! What do they see when they look at me? I do not want them to see the Mum who is staring down all the time. I need to be looking up, and soaking it ALL up!
Of course, I need to stay on all of these social platforms for my business. I don't think I will stop blogging either as I don't do it very often and I enjoy the creative side of it and it is a good way of family to catch up with what we have been up to. But hey, there is a thing called a phone and the sole purpose of it is to call people. Let me do a bit more of that and a little less of the social media. But I won't be on Facebook / Instagram / Twitter for personal use. If I could, I would delete all the apps but alas, I do really rely on it for work! So if you see me about and I am checking my Facebook or Instagram for no reason whatsoever, slap me and take it out of my hands!
Here are a few snaps to end the post from last weeks bonfire night and Hallowe'en!
Char x
