It’s been nearly five months since I walked away from my social media accounts…and this little blog of mine. It was mid-July, and I had decided to take a month away from all of my social media outlets. I planned to return to this blog on August 15th, and then…I never did. Suddenly, it’s creeping into mid-December, and the tugs I’ve been feeling to come back to my little place on the internet have gotten stronger.
First, a confession. Did the digital detox go so well that I decided to stay off of social media for five months instead of one? Not exactly. I slowly logged back into my sites after returning from my detox. I left a few apps off of my phone (Twitter), cut several blogs I used to frequent from my go-to list, and focused on only one or two sites for my social media habit (e.g., Facebook, Instagram). I found myself rarely checking Tumblr, and only within the last week or so have I ventured back onto Twitter (and even now, I find I don’t really have much of a desire to go back to it full-force).
But in the process, I’d lost a certain desire to blog about the day-to-day things. I learned a few things during my digital detox, one of the primary being – I don’t actually need to connect with half a dozen social media outlets each day. Do I want to? Occasionally, yes. Is it nice to be able to see what people I haven’t spoken to in years are doing these days? Sure. But I’m also acutely aware that for most of us, we project only the shiniest, prettiest parts of our lives onto the Internet. I questioned the purpose of my blogging. Is anyone actually reading this thing? No one will care if I just stop, right? What if I’m sharing too much, or saying the wrong things? What happens to all of this when I’m on the job market? When I have a professional job?
It became easier to deal with these questions by just stopping altogether. I should add – these thoughts were by no means the only thing keeping me away. The quarter I just finished was full of ups and downs (more ups, thankfully) and I found myself just wanting to fall onto the couch at the end of the day. Often, the last thing I wanted to do was spend more time looking at my computer.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve received a few comments from friends about reading my blog, and even received a text message from person who’s quite dear to me asking if I was still on my digital detox. She reached out because she was preparing to encourage her group of future graduate students to use blogging as a tool to document the graduate school process (and life itself, which I often need to be reminded does not only include graduate school!), and wanted to use me as an example. I took this as the sign I needed. I blog in order to document the process of growing and learning I’ve been undergoing for the past four or so years. I blog to share that with my friends and family, both near and far, and increasingly, I find myself wanting to become a part of a community of people who are doing the same. I’m not entirely sure what this last piece will look like just yet, but it’s something I look forward to figuring out.
That novel-length blog post just to say…I’m back!
One Fine Day pdx 