My Eye-Opening Experience When Deactivating Facebook

As some of you may, or may not know, I’m Catholic. March 6th was the beginning of Lent for us, and it had honestly been a while since I’d participated in giving anything up for it. I know, I know. So, this year as I sat in the pew for Ash Wednesday mass I decided that I would go through with deactivating Facebook. This would be the thing I would give up. Though I hardly ever post or share things on that platform I still use it as a way to kill time. A distraction. And it would just send me into this rabbit hole of pictures, and articles. Of drama and hate. Everyone having this need to express their opinions about every little thing, and just having to stick their noses in everyone else’s business. I found that I missed the old days of Facebook when you had very few options to select for how you were feeling and were limited on what you could share. And just like the majority of all the other social media outlets out there, Facebook had become downright toxic. So, I downloaded my data and went through with the deactivation. It felt oddly terrifying and yet extremely freeing at the same time. However, what I didn’t expect out of this particular move was realizing just how much Facebook had given me this false notion that I had several friendships/relationships in my life. 

Facebook as a whole, I haven’t really missed if I’m being honest. I still use other social media platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram so maybe that’s why? Though these are limited in time, and not used daily I still have an “outlet”. The reason why I don’t feel like these others are at the same level as Facebook is because of how seldom I actually use them. Twitter is how I keep up to date on TV shows, movies, books, and some of my favorite bands or celebrities. I follow some organizations or causes that are dear to my heart too. My blog automatically posts to my timeline, but I honestly don’t get much out of Twitter. Tumblr is where I reblog/share quotes, pictures, and GIFs. I don’t interact with others on it, and my desire to spend time on the app comes and goes in waves. For real, it sat without any use for over a year once. So, I don’t use this particular platform very often. Instagram is probably the runner up behind Facebook. It’s actually an app that I’ve considered deleting because of how crappy it can make you feel about your life. Instead, I went through my “following” list and deleted over a hundred people. And that was just the first round of deletions. However, even now as I type this out I know that I’m just making excuses. Baby steps, y’all. But my Facebook use was a daily thing. Sure I may not have posted much, and I may not have interacted with others that often. But I was constantly opening and scrolling through it. Anytime I was bored --> Facebook. Anytime I heard an ambulance, fire truck, or police sirens --> Facebook. Anytime I or someone else wanted to find out about another person --> Facebook. And then there was the stuff that I didn’t want to know about still splashed all over my feed. By the time I ended my day I just felt annoyed by it all. So, why was I still using it? I told myself it was because of family and friends. It’s how I “kept in touch” with the people in my life. But really, that was a load of bullshit. I could just as easily get their numbers and keep in contact via phone calls or texts. 

After a few days without Facebook, I noticed that I felt bored a lot. I’d end up logging into one of the other apps and using them to distract myself. I’d quickly scroll through the feeds before telling myself I needed to do something more productive. After five days without Facebook, it dawned on me that not one single person had tried to contact me. By day seven I started thinking about how many of my “friends” I actually thought and wondered about. And to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot. That’s when it really hit me just how little I actually interacted with others, face to face. How I felt like I had so many friends based on comments left when I would post on my timeline, the likes on my pictures, or the messages I would get. The friend count number displayed on my profile. In my real, day -to- day life I see maybe two or three people off of my friends' list. Not including my parents. And even those aren’t consistent unless you count coworkers. So, all of this got me thinking about my lack of true, meaningful, relationships. I don’t have a core group of friends close by. I do have a group spread all across the country though. I’ve tried getting to know other moms at birthday parties or school activities, but it never goes beyond that. There’s no one I can call up and say, “Hey, let's do lunch!” or “Let’s grab dinner.” I even went through my phone contacts list which verified all of this. Now, as I’ve gotten older I know that I tend to dislike being around a lot of people for long periods of time. My idea of a good time usually consists of yoga pants, a hoodie, and watching a favorite show. I’ve grown so accustomed to going home and having someone there that I truly believed was the only person I needed in my life that I didn’t really bother making an effort to get to know other people. And at my age, in such a small town, all of the “circles” out there have already been established. Tribes are full and busy. It becomes harder to find like-minded people that are in the same phase in life as you are who are willing to make time for someone new.

So, what exactly am I trying to say, you ask? Find your people, y’all. Nourish those relationships. Join that book club. Say yes to a girl’s night. Check on your friends if it’s been awhile. Put your phone down and listen. Volunteer to watch a friend’s kid(s) so that they can have some alone time with their partner. Try that fitness class you’ve been curious about. Schedule those lunch plans. Be open to including others in your circle and extend invitations. Because as awesome as it is to have a partner that’s your best friend in life it’s also good to have friendships outside of that. Otherwise, you end up like me: getting a whole weekend to yourself, never once changing out of your PJ’s, and counting down the minutes until your child gets back home just so you have someone to talk to. Yes, let my current situation serve as a cautionary tale for you. I think for the most part I handle being on my own pretty well. Though there are times when I wish I had someone I could call up even if it was just to have a simple conversation, or to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Maybe even a running buddy? And then there are some days when being alone can make me feel really lonely. During those days I feel like my anxiety gets the better of me and it takes me a lot longer to push past my depression. I eventually get there and start to feel better. But I think it would help if I had a few good friends here that I could lean on from time to time. Not knocking my BFF's either, I know they'd be here if they could. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is don’t shut people out so quickly, okay? And if you ever feel like re-evaluating some of your relationships/friendships just deactivate your Facebook for a while. Shit gets really real, really fast. 

📷: Google image search

Social Media & How I'm Feelin' About It

I have a friend who lives in another country, and every once in awhile they would deactivate their social media accounts for a few months. I would only hear from them via email to assure me that they weren't hurt, or dead. Once they resurfaced they would always tell me how much better they felt. And I used to tell myself that they were so much more self disciplined than I could ever be because I had no idea how they went without being able to "keep in touch" with others. I mean, can you imagine not being able to open up an app that within seconds would be able to show you what everyone else was doing? What they were sharing? Learning about the current news, and happenings in your area (or globally) in mere seconds? I mean, what? Why would you want to give that up? 

Well, I now understand some of the reasoning behind my friend's decision. Lately, social media has been a total life suck for me. Draining, depressing, and anxiety inducing. I open up Facebook to see some of the dumbest shit ever. People arguing over Trump, and the Democrats (I mean c'mon already). People name calling, or creating conflict just because someone disagrees with their opinion. A lot of passive aggressive racists remarks. And then some of the most juvenile responses that are supposed to "counter" the hate, but instead just reinforces that old saying --"pot calling the kettle black". Unfortunately, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's still the friends that want to announce EVERY little detail about their life, and that includes spats. Break ups, and all of the depressing quotes they feel the need to share, HOURLY.  Then there's the stuff you know they're going to regret the next day even before you get to the second sentence. For example, I once saw in a series of posts that a friend decided to agree to a threesome (two females, one male), and then shortly afterwards they were pissed because the guy decided to spend more time doing the other chick rather than her. An hour after that proclamation we were all informed that it wasn't the guys fault, it was hers because she was needy, so everything was okay. He was back to being the perfect gentleman in her eyes. Then, we have the days when everything that happens in our small town (as well as the surrounding ones) gets broadcast over the internet in local groups. Sometimes, the stuff that's getting spewed around, or even just debated is really ridiculous. Everyone is already in everyone else's business enough as it is when you live in a small town. Now, we get the play by play in local groups that everyone feels the need to share as well as put in their two cents. It can be extremely annoying. And I wonder how the hell everyone has all of this time to be sharing everything that they do. Then, I realize I'm the idiot that's opening the apps in the first place. Even after I know the feelings I'll get by doing so. 

But the most difficult thing for me to admit is how much time out of my day that social media really consumes. I feel like I get sucked into this rabbit hole. I comment on this post, then I click on that link, and that leads me to like someone's photos. And before I know it an hour has passed. An hour I could have used to do something more productive. Or spent with my daughter. Or blogged. OR finally fit in that workout I always complain about not having the time for. You know what I mean? And this little time suck happens several times throughout the day. All of it adds up too. Now, I know some people have no issues with social media. Some of you may even like sharing hourly. And that's cool. You do you, boo! However, I know that all of this causes me stress, annoyance, and anxiety. I even did a little experiment once where I deleted my Facebook, and Twitter apps from my phone for about three weeks. And I noticed that I didn't go online to check it as often. I also didn't automatically roll over first thing in the morning, and check my accounts. This actually improved my mood at the start of my day. Though lets be honest, I'm not approachable until I've had coffee. I also noticed that I didn't spend a lot of time looking at my phone. My headaches weren't coming around as often. And to be honest, sometimes being out of the loop can be good for you. It's a way to reset your battery, if you will. And I felt pretty good during that time. I felt like I had spent enough time "offline" that I could go back to it without getting sucked back into my previous habits. Sadly, that only lasted about a month. Then, down the rabbit hole I went again. 

So, I was thinking of taking that previous little experiment a step further. I've been thinking of deactivating/deleting my Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat accounts. Or at the very least removing the apps off of my phone. I'd like to keep my Instagram account active in order to post photos from time to time. Seeing as how I already seldom post on that account I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to keep it. But one thing that I wanted for this new year was to focus more on being in the moment. Sure I'd love to document it through pictures. But maybe not so many, and not to share across all of my accounts. I want to spend more time doing stuff that I like rather than worrying so much about what the rest of the world wants to burn itself to the ground over that week. I also feel like this will help out a lot with my anxiety. 

Now, all of this is much easier said than done for me. As I stated earlier, self discipline is so not my strong suit. And I am slightly addicted to my phone. So, whether I'll be able to do this for a week, for a few months, or even just for a day will remain to be seen. It's still one of my goals though. One that I hope I can implement at the end of this month. Have any of you ever done a "social media cleanse"? Anyone ever deactivate their account for awhile, and notice an improvement in their mental health or well being? I'm hoping this is something that I can stick with, so wish me luck! Let's see how long I can last without posting, or sharing something on social media.

A Privacy Issue

I got onto Facebook, originally because my friend Melissa had moved off to go to college and it was an easy way for us to keep in contact. Then, I started using it more. A lot more. I posted a lot of pictures and updates throughout my pregnancy as well. A lot of it was hardly ever kept as private though. I also have two blogs (this one and another), that I have kept up with for awhile. I wanted to be able to share with family about what was currently going on in our lives. From jobs, to milestones. But then I started reading a lot about people who go in and take pictures from other people’s site and pass them off as their own. How child pornography can be made by photo-shopping a photo that was stolen from someone’s blog. And the list of crappy things can go on and on. Needless to say, this did not settle very well with me at all.

After our daughter came along, she became the most important thing in our lives. Protecting her is a number one priority. Now, I really love the blogging world, and I didn’t want to give up keeping in touch with friends over pictures so, I switched up all of my settings. On Facebook I only keep a limited number of Emery’s pictures up, and they are all set to private. Reserved for close friends and family. No one can tag themselves in my pictures without my approval first. On my blogs, I hardly ever post pictures of my daughter’s face. I disabled right click, disabled search engine, do not advertise (now you know why I don’t have many followers), and I’ve also watermarked all of my photographs. I knew it wasn’t a sure thing that someone couldn’t get around all of that, but I was making it that much more difficult for them if they could. And up until Sunday, I hardly ever show video of her on any social networking site despite having them loaded on Vimeo for when I want to share them by email to family.

Emery and my husband where “singing” duets in our bedroom on Sunday, and they were getting down. I uploaded the video, and after talking to my husband I posted one video (of the three that I had taken), onto Facebook. I limited the audience to JUST family and close friends because they are the only ones I feel needed to see it. Now, on all of my albums I always post for people to please not tag any of my pictures that they’re not in themselves. And to please not share the pictures without my consent first. Especially those of our daughter. I don’t know what everyone else’s privacy settings are, and I’m not trying to control their Facebook’s, BUT I am asking they respect our privacy wishes when it comes to our daughter. It’s already happened once where some creepy old man (a friend of a friend) tagged himself in the pictures I had up of Emery. The whole thing was sketchy, and now I’m really trying to avoid this happening again. After making a big deal about it, and announcing on Facebook my wishes I assumed that everyone KNEW how I feel about this certain issue. So, when I posted the video I did not post the heading of it as “DO NOT SHARE” because again, I assumed there was an understanding. Today, I have come to regret that decision.

Someone went and shared the video. Not only that but she went onto my Vimeo page and shared another video without even asking me first. I understand that some of our family and friends get excited, and they love to see the new pictures that I post. And that’s exactly why I share those memories with them. But, I always expect them to respect our decisions. This isn’t the only time this person has done this either. It’s actually one of a few reasons (her tagging and sharing all of my pictures), why I had deleted her off my friends list in the past. Now, I can’t keep everyone from posting pictures of Em. In fact this person has pictures that SHE has taken with her own camera of my daughter that she has posted. So do several other friends and relatives. I don’t say anything to them about the pictures because those are pictures they have taken. I have asked some of them to please make them private from the public if possible but I have never asked any to take them down or not take pictures of her anymore. I understand that I can’t do that. It’s not my place. But when it comes to my things, I have every right. So today I wrote an email asking this person to please take down the video’s. I stated my reasons privately, and I’m hoping she doesn’t turn this into some huge drama filled problem. Which trust me, it is a possibility. :(

I hate that this may seem very extreme to some people. Some might even question why I even still blog if I don’t want to share video or pictures with the world? But the fact is that I do love blogging. I love keeping in touch with our family and friends. I’ve been able to visit with family in Mexico that I haven’t seen in years, thanks to Facebook. And this is the ONLY reason why I keep one. My blog, is my blog. I don’t just write about my daughter I write about me. My feelings. I share only the parts I feel are necessary. There is a whole world behind this screen that many of you will never know about, or even get to see. I will always be open and honest, I just won’t spill every detail of my life on here. And that’s because I feel it’s best that way. I extend that courtesy to every other fellow blogger too. I don’t go around sharing or taking pictures from other blogs without giving credit or asking first. And I never use anyone else’s personal pictures of themselves or their family. That’s just how I roll. And I’m sure many of you are the same. I wish the world weren’t a nasty place. I wish I could post, upload, and write about everything in my life without fear of it being stolen, taken out of context, or used for someone else’s filthy habit. But the world isn’t like that. And I’d rather be safe than sorry.  

My Addiction

I am without a camera (except for my phone) for a whole week. Eeep! This is going to be hard. LOL! Can you imagine a whole week of capturing NOTHING your child does? *serious face* Yea, I’m not kidding. My camera is pretty much glued to my face. But, last week my sister-in-law asked if she could borrow it, because she and some friends were going to see this K-POP show in New Jersey. I said yes. Then I thought about it, and started kicking myself in the ass for it. My camera was about to go to New Jersey without me, and to a concert. A pretty huge concert. The idea of my camera being tossed, or possibly trampled on by a bunch of girls dressed up like dolls...oh crap. Still, I had already said yes. So, on Friday morning, I dropped it off for her. Now, it’s not like a Canon Rebel, or a Nikon but it was a gift from my brother (and it was a bit expensive). This is the second one my brother has given me, the first one was stolen, so I’m a bit protective over it. But, my husband told her to take care of it, and if anything happened to it she’d either have to pay for repairs or replace it. Hopefully this will be a good lesson for me. One that involves me not being so attached to material things? I dunno, I just hope she takes care of it.

Speaking of material things, and what not. I know social networking sites aren’t “material” but they do take up A LOT of my time. Before, I used the excuse that we didn’t have internet at home, so I wanted a snazzy phone that would keep me “up to date”, and “in the know” of all things cool. I also wanted to keep refreshing my Facebook page just to see what everyone else was doing. Stalker, much? In my defense, it was my only connection to the outside, social world at the time. Still, I became addicted (you probably are too, admit it) to all of these social sites and blogs. Twitter, tumblr, blogger, wordpress, google +, parenting communities, Facebook, instagram, etc. etc. I realized, not too long ago, that quite a few things were really taking up a lot of my time. The above mentioned, definitely contributed to this. Well, now we have the internet at home and my phone is still getting the majority of the use. Laziness is the reason. I would rather check my phone than turn on my lap-top and log on. This has been a pretty big excuse for me to NOT delete any of my social networking accounts AND to not get rid of (but continue to want to upgrade) my already snazzy phone. So, I’m going to put myself through a test cleanse. I deleted my apps from my phone. *GASP* I will either have to use my mobile internet or actually log on to a computer to use them. After a month, the ones I use the least (if at all) will be the ones to go.

Don't get me wrong, I love technology and I love keeping up with everyone. I love blogs and reading about how others are living. I like posting on people’s walls, and getting to see new pictures! And I absolutely LOVE seeing what Rome has to say on a daily basis. He’s my secret husband. Shh! But, some of these sites I don’t use nearly enough to really justify keeping my accounts. Not only that, but it's taking time away from my family, from working out, and it just puts more of our information out there. I won’t be giving up my phone anytime soon, although we are down grading on minutes because we don’t use nearly as many as what we’re signed up for, but I will stop using it as much. If I’m not willing to get on the computer to check it, then I really don’t need it. And if I don’t use it, or miss it, I can probably go without it. Here's to my cleanse!

Enjoy your Saturday everyone!!

p.s. I'm replacing some pictures, and taking others down.

Hoping to have all of my images on one site, 

so I don't have to use photobucket, and picasa anymore. :-)

Sorry if some of the images disappear in the mean time. 

Privacy

Privacy, privacy, privacy. Such a hard thing to really be serious about, especially when you have a blog. Even more so when you have these social networking sites, that make it “oh so easy” to share with friends and family (and the rest of the world).

Last year I found that some old, creepy man, had tagged himself in pictures of my daughter on Facebook. That’s when I started really looking into the privacy setting for EVERYTHING. Blogging, Social Networking sites, and even applications. This is the reason I have right-click disable. Now, I know there are some sick people out there, and some that even just steal things for fun. So, I disabled the links that way no one could click through on any images of my daughter. I’m sure some genius out there can get around the disabled right-click but it makes it that much more of a task for them. Then, I started to watermark all of my pictures. But, I knew that if someone out there really wanted to, they could figure out a way to steal them and to remove the watermark. But I felt as if I had taken all the measure I could with the knowledge that I had to keep them from being taken.

Then after some “identity theft” happened with the Sartin’s my husband and I really started discussing about how much I should be posting and sharing in general. Down came a lot of pictures on Facebook. Then, I stopped posting as many pictures on this blog as well as my other blog (meant for family only). I still wanted to keep this blog up and just post a few pictures here and there. My daughter is my joy, and this blog is a way for me to share that with you, and as a way to document her life. I plan to print out this blog and have it made into a journal. But now blogger has this new “Lightbox” feature that lets you view pictures from someone’s posts. This wouldn't have been so bad if they had left the image URL hidden. But no, that’s not the case. So now anyone that views ANY image of mine can click on the link, and then right-click to save my picture. This is not something I signed up for. There is no way to disable this feature either so I’m in a bit of a pickle.

I really hate being so paranoid and I don’t care if some steals a picture of me because I’m nothing special. Hubba, hubba. But my daughter is my daughter. I don’t need some bored teenager trying to play off that she’s theirs. I don’t want some sick pervert to come across the images and save them. And lastly, I don’t want Emery to be forced into being thrown out into the internet. She doesn’t have her own choices yet and I as her mother really need to do my best to protect her. So I have decided that if I post pictures of her, they will not show her face. I don't know if I'll be taking down any of the previous pictures or just replacing them with others. But, I feel like this is a good thing to do in order to protect my little one. Plus, the risk that comes with doing nothing at all is just not worth it me. I'd rather try to be more private than throw everything out there when it comes to her. 

First Impression of Google+

Facebook is getting old. I guess that will happen with any other social networking site, in time. Remember Myspace? I officially deleted that account, but apparently Mr. Justin Timberlake bought into the company and wants to do a complete overhaul on the site. So, I might just end up getting another account if it turns out well. But now I’m getting ahead of myself and completely off topic. Any way! As I was saying, I’m getting a bit burnt out on Facebook. Literally, it seems to be a place to cause drama, overshare too much personal info, and the privacy settings piss me off. They’ll change everything up and NOT tell you. Plus, asking for my mobile number to further help my “privacy” sounds like a load of bullshit. The good thing about it though is that it’s kept me in touch with family and friends that I haven’t seen since high school. The bad things is that it’s kept me in touch with family and friends that I haven’t seen since high school.

And then walks-in Google+. Since it’s still in its tiny newborn stage I had set up my regular email address to be on the waiting list. Apparently, it goes faster if you have a Gmail account though AND if you get invited by someone already in it. So, after my invite I started messing around with some of the features, and surprisingly I actually like it better than Facebook. You put the people you follow in “circles” and when you post it, you can hide certain things from certain people. Same applies to your information! You can pick and choose who sees what! And you can disable it from coming up on search engines. Which to me sounds freaking awesome! I want to be able to share my life and updates with family, BUT they don’t always need to see all of my posts. And vice versa when it comes to friends. This comes in handy with pictures too! I blog, and you see that I post pictures on here of my little bug all of the time, but I have them watermarked AND I have disabled the links and right clicks. I know this doesn’t stop some people from stealing my pictures, BUT it might make it that much harder. So why do I go through the trouble? Why not just stop posting/sharing pictures? Well, I do like showing bits of my life, and my daughter is a major part of it. BUT this doesn't mean I want people stealing the pictures or using them. Lord knows there are some pretty crappy people out there. But Google+ is doing a great job at letting me share certain pictures with certain people and allowing me to keep the rest private! They also, tell you about the changes and EVERYTHING is in your hands. They don’t allow for things to become public and then tell you later on “oh, we made this change so if you don’t want this information shared, go to your setting and disable”. Facebook does this all of the time, and I feel like certain features should not be enabled automatically. They should give US the chance to enable them ourselves if we want them. Plus, they allowed for a lot of information to become public at one point, and I think that's kind of shady.

The only downside that I’ve seen to Google+ so far is that they allow anyone to “follow” you. They allow anyone to add you to their circles. I know that those people won’t see anything unless I allow them to, but it’s still a bit creepy. I feel like they should add an “accept or decline” type of a system. But that’s about the only major issue I have with it. That and you can’t really post or message someone. I think it all goes off of chatting. But, I’m not sure. Right now I’m using a Gmail account, but I really hope they open it up to other email formats. Like I said, it’s still in its baby stage, so I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of changes and progress come from this social networking site. So far, I am liking it better than Facebook. And I really hope it continues to impress me! 

Do you have a Google+? What are your thoughts? Are you liking it or hating it?