Recently, I put time limits on my Instagram.  I realized that the amount of time I spent scrolling photos and crafting my posts was … absurd?  Embarrassing? Just too indulgent.  All of the above.  So since I have no will power whatsoever (and especially at the tail end of 2020, a year rife with challenges) I decided to give the power to my iPhone.  I get the ‘5 minutes remaining’ notification a lot.  And I hit my limit pretty frequently.  Sometimes, in a fit of self-pity and frustration, I tell my phone to ‘ignore limit for the rest of the day”.  I always feel bad about that the next day.  But at the time it feels essential.

Who have I become?  What has our world become that we all ‘create’ our lives through social media instead of living them?

I toy with the idea of leaving social media altogether and then worry about missing updates and the ability to be in touch with my relatives and friends I don’t see as frequently.  I have family on multiple continents, in many time zones.  I don’t want to miss them.

But I also want to just live.  Without worrying about how it looks, or how to present it, or what the anonymous world of social media will think.  We don’t really talk anymore, we hear news in sound bytes and memes ….  There isn’t intellectual discourse.  There’s no time.

I have a week or so to decide the fate of my social media identity.  I go back and forth.  I waver.  I feel afraid.  But I hope that once I make my choice, I feel at ease. (And I stick with it!).

IG: simplygwyneth