Convicted, Again

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I felt it this afternoon, after I spent an hour refreshing my Instagram feed and pinning nonsense on Pinterest. It was a heavy weight on my heart. You of all people should know not to live your life like this. I winced at the thought. After post after post after post of how I have been convicted of living my life well and not wasting time, the realization hit me square in the jaw.

                  I will always be passionate about time and life and how short we live. And I am trying to understand how to properly balance social media, sharing life, and actually living my life. Going out in public kind of freaks me out sometimes, because the hundreds of people around me are sometimes all on their phones or devices. I sort of see myself mirrored in them. And I also see strangers who have forgotten what their purpose is.

                  For me, social media like Instagram and Pinterest are addictive because they make me feel like I’m actually doing something productive. They make me feel like I am doing something worthwhile and meaningful and keeping busy. But in reality, they are sucking away my precious time and acting as a drug because I like to be distracted, I like to look at pretty pictures, I like to laugh and comment on my friends’ friends witty comments.

                  So for some, they’ve got this whole social media thing under control. They post meaningful posts and only get on the internet so many times a day. Whenever I see them, I just despair because I don’t know where to start simplifying my social media life. Delete altogether? Just stay off? Fast for a month? And then there’s the question of how often to post? What to post? When?

                  I stumbled across this blog post by Gretchen Saffles, and it strummed on my heart strings and softened the despair in my heart. Goals. Goals for social media are good.

                  So I am praying and mulling over goals for social media: goals that I want to post by, comment by, and live by.

                  Do you have any thoughts about social media and how (or even if) it’s affecting your life? Have you set any goals for social media?