One of the prompt’s for this week’s Writer’s Workshop was to paste the last thing that you copied and then explain yourself. Here’s the last thing I copied:

“— If you do not like the way your morning toast was prepared, please press 9, and then 1, and then 1, and then hide the phone in a laundry basket.”

This is an excerpt from Toddler Feelings Helpline, a recent post on McSweenys that made me laugh enough that I temporarily broke my avoid Facebook at all costs rule because it simply had to be shared.

I’m still not sure how long I’m planning to avoid Facebook. It started as a simple and temporary self-care measure to avoid all the political / news drama for a little while and the whole time suck aspect of Facebook in general. But I kind of like not hanging out there so for the most part I haven’t been back. I still share my Instagram posts to Facebook and I’ll respond to any comments when I’m checking the school’s Facebook group for any important mom-info. But that’s pretty much it right now.

I love keeping in touch with friends and sharing dumb things on the internet as much as the next person but one thing I’ve learned over the years is that I don’t necessarily want 24/7 access to everyone’s life and random inner thoughts. I get along with some people much better offline than on and I’m sure people must feel the same way about me. I also like getting together with friends and asking, “So what’s new?” and genuinely not knowing the answer already. Tell me everything, let’s catch up. It’s more interesting.

There are some relationships that are harder to do this with – I need to remind myself to check in with these people that I don’t see very often – extended family or friends who have moved far away. But this isn’t a new problem to fix and I think I’m up to the task of trying.

So I don’t know if this is a permanent change or not yet and it’s certainly not a change that I’ve been rigid with – but I think any time that we spend being intentional about what we’re doing can only be a good thing. If I’m going to use social media, I expect to get something positive out of it and nothing less.