As indicated in my previous post, I have very little spare time. There is so much going on, in fact, that I have very little to write about in my very few moments of spare time. This season has presented me with a fresh challenge: to do less rather than more. It goes against my nature but I have come to terms with it.  The question is: how do I meet this challenge?

One of the first things I have done is identify the priorities of the day; this is followed by reducing or eliminating anything that would distract from them. Social media has hung in the balance during this evaluation phase. It is essential to my  business and it certainly is a useful means of keeping up with the happenings in the lives of other people.  It is also convenient for keeping others updated on the events of my life without having to make individual contact with everyone. On the other hand, it can be the ultimate time waster as I scroll and click and browse and watch.  In many ways it is information overload to my already saturated brain. And after I finish scrolling, I rarely feel uplifted; it is more common for my heart to feel heavy as I see the parts of people’s lives that they want me to see: the pristine homes, the trendy clothes, the vacations, the new purchases, the perfect day. I am often left sighing about what I don’t have or can’t do or won’t see. This does nothing to add to a serene home or a peaceful heart.

I also feel a pressure to post. If it’s Instagram, I feel like I need to post every day with a million hashtags so that I will boost my following. I find myself comparing my following with others or my pictures with others and there I go again with feeling dissatisfied. There seems to be an element of social status on Instagram; if you don’t have a cool feed then you won’t have a large following and if you don’t have a large following you’re not cool. With Facebook, there’s an element of social obligation. People are friends because they want to know what’s going on in my life and if I’m not posting regularly I’m letting them down.

I realize that I could be reading a lot into this and I may also be stepping on some toes by broaching this subject. I also know that there is a growing frustration with social media. We are seeing that it does eat up much of our time – time that could be spent reading a book, playing a game, writing a letter, making a phone call or (*gasp*) stepping outside our front door and striking up a face-to-face conversation with someone.   People long for authenticity and let’s face it, that’s hard to come by on social media. People long for community, but we have to admit that the community found on social media is shallow and impersonal – you can’t borrow an egg from a friend on Facebook; you need a neighbor for that.

What it comes down to is that we fear invisibility and insignificance. We want our voices to be heard and our thoughts to count. On our accounts we are the center of the virtual universes we create; our followers see what we want them to and if we don’t like their comments we can delete them. It is not so easy in a live conversation on our front porches, is it? But truthfully, that is where true relationships and true change comes about: in person. When I weigh out a quick peek on Facebook with reading a story to my kids, which choice will have the lasting impact? And what will benefit my children the most, seeing me typing out a political post that they can’t even read yet or listening me engage in a thoughtful conversation about worldview at the dinner table?

The sands of time are sliding, ever sliding. I am seeking to maximize each minute: in conversation, in correspondence with individuals, and in lingering without the distraction of thinking about what I’ll say on my next Facebook post.  How we spend our time is a personal issue between us and our Maker. I know that many in my readership seek to use social media as a platform for sharing Christ’s truth with the world; I applaud and am grateful for their efforts. Personally, as I spend less time on social media I am  finding more free time than I expected and am now seeking to invest this time into individual people rather than the masses.

How would you rate the benefit of having social media in your life? Could those benefits be gleaned from other sources as well?