Get the balance right

Perhaps a fitting first post on this new ‘deGoogled’ blog site is a consideration of my engagement in social media, and where the healthy boundaries are? This will be different for everyone; have you got the balance right? I really don’t believe I have. Recognising this, I’ve already taken some steps, having walled off some places, particularly Facebook, languishing instead at quite a few Discord servers, along with some occasional Instagram, a forum or two, and a little BlueSky and Mastodon (dice.camp). So, a strongly curated series of places that allows some conversation about my gaming hobby, some tech, miscellanea, and often with people that I know and trust. Despite this, I have brought back into focus some old thinking about the amount of social media time that is really healthy for me, and the terms by which I choose to engage. You really don’t want to spend your retirement doom scrolling.

I think it would be beneficial to wind down the overall time I engage in online blather, and perhaps find the best moments in the day to click, view and participate. With the multiplicity of opportunities dangling on a typical desktop dock, it can be difficult to stay clear of the time sink icons. Still, I think a focus on just a few choice places is right, necessarily including the discussion associated with the conventions that I help to organise.

It has proven difficult to stick to my goal to only look at the news and politics on a Saturday morning. There seems to be a highly clickable despicable every single damned day. Need to double down on that goal. I think that this ‘clamour reclamation’ will be extremely positive for me, allowing some more space for family and closer friends, my own thoughts, creative endeavours, music, series, and ‘quiet reading’.

This blog has always been a strong place for me to express my enthusiasm and delight. I guess the amount of dialogue is low, except for the good folk of the Tavern, and so I get to speak forth with some good view numbers yet without extenuated conversation. So, I shall continue to write in this new place, and enjoy articulating thoughts in a positive manner. I’d be happy to engage more on the posts here and in other sites.

It amuses me that I could post this and, without some form of social media posting, no-one would see it! I sense this post is actually for me, so in some ways that would be fine.

Hope you have a good balance, and that your online dialogue adds positively to the time tapestry of your life.