The Temptation to Disconnect

I admittedly have a love-hate relationship with social media. A former co-worker reminded me, as I was sharing the daily work that I do on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, that when I left the office 3 years ago I said, “I can’t wait to disconnect.”

Part of that was my natural inclination to compartmentalize my life. To keep work separate from family separate from school separate from my personal life. And social media is the exact opposite of a compartmentalized life.

But the other piece to that was my frustration at the negativity that pervades our tweets and posts and links. I find it so disheartening that I can tend to dwell there. In that negativity. Wondering why I even bother opening my Facebook app, day after day after day. (Twitter is a bit safer for me, as I mostly follow people I don’t know. I follow them for inspiration, and if they stop inspiring, because I don’t know them, they are far easier to delete.)

I want to shout at the negativity: WHO DOES THIS SERVE?

Who does it serve for us to publicly judge one another? Celebrities? The church?

Who does it serve for us to condemn another’s beliefs in defense of our own?

Who does it serve for us to “share” the “train wrecks” all around us?

My disenchantment is not just with the negativity, however. It’s also with the frivolity of it all. The seemingly futile. What is the point of sharing my heart and getting two likes when I can share a photo of my dinner and get 20 times that many? Do we even care any more about the heart?

But I suppose the real question here is: do I have anything worthwhile to say?

People tell me all the time that I should write a book. Sometimes they even tell me what it should be about. But I’m of that generation that doesn’t want to just do something; I want to do MY thing, and I want it to make a difference.

But even as I ask the question: Who does it serve for me to write this blog or that post or this tweet, I also have to ask the question: who does it serve if I don’t? And I already know the answer to that one: an unwritten word will always go unnoticed, an unwritten book will never change the world. So keep writing. Keep posting. Keep blogging and tweeting and posing for selfies. Because it has a better chance of changing the world than disconnecting.