I Don't Need Social Media to Feed My Soul (But I Do Need It to Sell My Books)

When I was growing up, if you didn't know someone physically, you didn't talk to them. Maybe a pen pal — and even then, probably someone you'd met somewhere first. The idea that you would spend significant portions of your day caring what a stranger you've never met and are unlikely to ever meet thinks about what you had for breakfast would have seemed genuinely strange.

And yet here we are.

I am what I've started calling an extroverted introvert, which I'm not sure is an official thing but it is absolutely a real thing. I can be very social in person. I can work a room, I can talk to people, I can be warm and engaged and present. And then I go home and I close the door and I recharge, because all of that took something out of me and I need it back.

Social media doesn't let you recharge. It just keeps going. And it wants you to keep going with it — posting, engaging, responding, performing for an audience of people you don't know and may never know, hoping the algorithm notices, worrying when it doesn't. That is a lot. That is a very large amount with a period after it.

I want to be clear: I'm not upset with people who love this. There are plenty of people who are genuinely happy doing these things and that's wonderful. If I'd been born a few decades later maybe I'd be a social influencer. I'm not entirely sure I understand what I just said, but I do know that I influence the people in my life — people I actually know and care about — and that feels like enough.

What I don't do is let people I don't know influence me without thinking it through first. Not just because they said something, not just because it's trending, not just because everyone seems to agree. I use my brain. I think that's what you have to do to survive now — be proactive rather than just reactive, which is exactly what I'm trying to do by learning all of this and building something worth reading before I throw it out into the world.

I don't need it to feed my soul. I need it to grow my business, and I understand that, and I am slowly getting a handle on it. I spend time on my phone, I do what needs doing, and then I put it down and go do something else.

Although I will say — if social media had more dancing, I might feel differently about it. I do love to dance. Or I did, when I could move a little bit better. 🐉