When my youngest child was about two, I turned off all my phone’s Facebook notifications. Back then Twitter was still bearable, so I lingered there a little while, but it didn’t take long for me to quit social media entirely.
It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, but there are some things I miss. The biggest and most obvious was staying up to date on the lives of people I hadn’t seen in years but still cared about, but I also missed the writing. A tweet is definitely not an essay, but the process of writing both is remarkably similar. And just like with my essays, sharing my little thoughts, jokes, ideas, and meditations publicly was much more fulfilling than keeping them inside my head, even when the audience was small.
Writing an essay may be similar to writing a tweet, but it is also a whole lot more work. Crafting a good essay was often a weeks- or even months-long process, and after having kids I simply didn’t have the time or spoons to keep at it. For a while I was still able to write smaller things through social media, but that was one of the things I had to give up when I quit.
Recently I was going through some of my old tweets and Facebook status updates, and I noted wistfully that many of them were quite good and that I missed writing them. That’s when I finally realized what should have been obvious years ago. I’d been thinking I couldn’t write tweets anymore because I’m not on Twitter, but a blog post can just as easily be 140 characters as 1400 words, can’t it? (Did you know I have a blog? You should check it out!)
I won’t be microblogging exclusively. Now that the kids are in school and becoming more self-sufficient, I’ve had more energy to devote to the big ideas, too. But as a way of dipping my toes back into the water I think tweet-length blog posts will be a great way to start.
One last note: I’ve disabled comments for now. I remember moderating and replying to them to be far too much like social media–lots of investment for very small or rare returns, yet addictive enough that it’s easy to spend hours on. If you want to comment or reply to something I’ve written, I encourage you to put something about it on your own site! (Even if your site is just your Facebook page or YouTube channel.) Pingbacks are still enabled, so I’ll likely see it.
To everyone taking the time to read this, thank you. See you out there.
