My interactions with computers go back to the 80s. (I was under 10 at the time, my mom was attending the local college and hanging out with computer geeks). We had a home PC with green type across a black screen: I played “King’s Quest” and wrote programs in GWbasic. Mom got a Prodigy account and I had my first access to social media. I loved the idea that I could speak to a person and not know where they were or who they really were. The mystery excited me, I could hardly wait for the dial up tone to finish its squawking. When I went off to college, I brought a computer with me, to stay connected to my friends and family. Mom and I communicated through a BBS and I’d write e-mail letters to my friends. I mean letters: there were no pictures, anywhere. It would have cost too much bandwidth!
I setup a MySpace account right before I moved out of state with my ex-husband. It was my main way of staying connected with friends I was used to spending a lot of time with and would miss terribly. Eventually, Facebook took over MySpace territory. Of course, the spouse was not fond of my interest in social technology. He especially despised early Twitter: when tweets were sent in the form of a group text. He didn’t like me being connected to people. Someone might get close enough to see through the cracks and he couldn’t have that.
When I first left him, I dove into social media. I had spend so much time restricting myself, while I was with him; he didn’t like me to be on social media “too much,” and he got to decide how much was “Too much.” Now that I only rely on myself, I developed something of an addiction. I knew I had arrived back at addiction station, because I found myself scrolling through the same list of posts over and over again, but not even really reading it. I wanted to change that behavior, so I made an equally satisfying replacement behavior: I opened my Kindle reader instead of my social media accounts. Before I knew it, I was reading when I was bored or waiting, instead of mindlessly scrolling. I didn’t fully retreat from social accounts, but if I noticed myself being “mindless,” that would be my cue for a change of activity. I also had to grow my resilience: gradually decrease the time it took me between noticing and acting.
Yes, I still post. Yes, I still check. I also started being more mindful of my use. I have a nice routine in my new place. All my things have places and they don’t disappear or get moved around by a drunk person (referring, simultaneously, to myself and my ex-husband). I cook what I want to eat, and I make lots and lots of herbal tea. I do laundry and I write. Sometimes, I watch Telly. The more connected to myself, the less I need to be connected to high volumes of people. I still communicate with, and often, to select people I love, my family (both born and made).
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