On unplugging

(I swear, I hate clickbait titles but my brain could not help but think of at least fifteen horribly punny titles for this post, all of which I threw away. If you just love puns, shoot me a line and I will tell you a few of them or contact you next time for a good title.)

For a while now, I've played with the idea with unplugging from social media. People I respect and admire have done it, and report unrivaled productivity and unperturbed hearts from the other side of the veil. What has kept me from making the leap is (the valid and relatively noble) argument of "I don't want to lose touch with loved ones and family members... I don't want to feel disconnected." This is not a bad urge...

I am coming to believe that for me Instagram and Facebook are numbing the symptoms of my real problem.

The urge to be connected, to be up to date, to be engaged and involved is a good one. That tickle in the back of head saying "I haven't heard from John in a while, I wonder how he's doing" is a great thing. I am slowly understanding that my current response to this tickle... flipping open Facebook to reassure myself of John's overall health and relative good fortune isn't adequate Who actually puts the state of their heart on Facebook? What if John really needs a faithful friend right now?

I am going to turn off notifications. I'm unplugging... so that my heart can finally plug in. I am in no way damning Facebook or Instagram... I'm going to continue to pop in now and again to share cute baby photos or wish folks happy birthday... or share verbose and virtually useless rants like this one. I just don't want to render numb my God-given need to connect and bless you with a shallow sweep over your profile picture, a quick laughing face reaction to your most recent post, and gallivant off into a storm of cute cat videos and 30 second cooking tips.

So let's grab coffee. We haven't talked in too long.