I love a bit of Facebook, so much so that it has come to feel like a naughty habit: socially-acceptable curtain twitching, inner bitch dealing out shallow judgements (ugly baby; boring - you posted that a few weeks back; oh f*** off with your philosophical whimperings over coffee, to name a few). But that's not the real problem. The issue is with my head.
I've done a bit of mediation and yoga, enough to know what's good for me and bad (and choose to ignore them at will). With a family tendency to mania and some history of mental illness on top of that (6 weeks crying in bed to be precise), the faint buzzing at the front of my head while scrolling through feed, like an electricity pylon trying to make contact through my frontal lobe, has become unbearable.
If anyone were to make an infinite book, I am not sure the best lay-out would be less than 140 characters wide and infinite characters long? But welcome to Twitter - the social media beast that has over 200 million regular users pumping out about 500 million tweets a day. The very nature of Twitter is like an Escher print stretched out over infinity and pegged to eternity: you think you've come to the end and oh no, there's another link, another picture, another follow. It's like being addicted to 2048 in the back of a family Volvo, driving around the lanes of Cornwall after a triple espresso.
In the aged 30 - 40 bracket? Single? Sans child? Then welcome to Facebook, the only social medial site that makes you feel like the whole world is 'expressing' milk at 2 in the morning and that you'll never have your own fairytale engagement with hundreds of 'likes' to reaffirm your very existence in the world.
Oh and did I forget Linked In (profoundly forgettable), Google+ (ditto) and other socialshiz.com stuff?
When I sit down to do stuff, I weigh up the sum of work put in x work got out + satisfaction. When I've used social media for more than about 10 minutes, I get into negatives. I HAVE LEARNT NOTHING. That Japanese cats sit up and beg for their food? That blah's baby is having a little sleep? (IT'S A BABY THAT'S PRACTICALLY ALL IT DOES!). That whodoyamewhatsits has had a profound thought about the world and their very existence and can't wait to share it with you? Excuse me if I just choke on my Dorset Cereal museli (the oats are actually raw) with organic semi-skimmed milk and suck deeply on my macchiato to feel better again.
Enough of the rant. The upshot is this: no more social media for me. For a bit. I go on an Arvon Writing Course next week and I want to actually write, pen on paper kind of stuff, with a clear head and I want to know if what I'll produce is better, worse or just different.
I'll let you know how it goes, oh and by the way, how are you feeeling? Statuses in a waste paper bin near you please.