(Time for first(ish) of the month. In honor of the first day of school craziness, it’s a bit late like everything else this week. Happy September!)
I was picking up my farm share yesterday and I got a peek of a friend who was there with his daughter in the midst of the sunflower forest in the lower fields. She was holding a little bouquet of cosmos, walking in front of her dad, telling stories. I heard snippets as I picked cherry tomatoes and zinnias in the parallel rows. There were details from the first day of what I gathered must have been kindergarten, but also just an ongoing commentary on the flowers in her hands and those towering all around her, the herbs and the painted stakes that defined them, the cherry tomato rows that had intertwined so tightly that only someone that little could get through them without pushing the vines back. At one moment we came upon each other, and she stopped talking for just a moment so she could take me in.
Her dad piped up from behind her. I think he’d heard me laughing at her ongoing monologue from the next row. “She narrates her whole life.”
I know what that’s like. I’ve always told a story in my head through the day, through the night, and every space in between. I suppose that’s how I started writing–so I could get some of the words down and out of my head to make room for more of them. I’ve seen both of my girls pulled to narrate each and every moment, and they both seem to find some calm in the process of writing it all down.
I know there are a lot of different conversations we could have about social media. We choose to participate or not, or we do so willingly or with a heavy sigh. Sometimes it’s for work, sometimes it’s to keep family in the loop, or sometimes it’s just to feel more connected. We can curate, or report, or comment. In its best moments, I think social media has the ability to stretch our community far beyond the limits of those we meet in person. It makes the world smaller, and it can make our support network much larger. And I think most of us have tools we like (for me, instagram), and tools that don’t feel as natural (twitter, where I usually feel like the awkward girl in the corner at a party).
But my question today is pretty specific. I’ve been thinking about how we tell stories. For me, I think the process of being present in the moment and creating stories from those moments has fundamentally shifted with the ability (and, I’ll admit, sometimes the pressure) to constantly report on each social media worthy event. Sometimes I find that instead of actually being there, I’ve already fast forwarded to shaping it into a brief sentence or one image that I can send out into the world for feedback, support, criticism–whatever comes. I don’t have any answers about this, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on how social media is (or isn’t) shifting the way you experience and narrate your way through the world. How does all this add to your life? Take away from it? Or if you’ve decided to disengage or not participate, what brought you to that decision?
Thank you, as always, for participating. These conversations have become my favorite posts of the month.
Occasionally I teach workshops, and I have one coming up this fall. Join me and stellar novelist 
You are not alone in wondering about these questions. Did you see this in the NYTimes? http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/disruptions-more-connected-yet-more-alone/
I did! And I have to say, of all the links that have come to me since I posted this last week, this one is my favorite.
With the country’s first hospital-based Internet rehab program opening, there is definite room for discussion here, as well as personal reflection for each one of us regarding our Internet usage. I just read an article about the rehab program, and it pointed out that, “Some studies have linked online sharing to a release of dopamine, the same pleasure–inducing chemical emitted by the brain when a person ingests some highly addictive drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine.” That type of “high” is not real and is certainly brief.
You can read the full article here: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/03/now_theres_rehab_for_internet_addicts_newscred/
The salon article is pretty scary. But when you say the high from online sharing “is not real”- I’d love to hear more. Do you think the rehab program is based on a faulty idea of this new addiction?
Your question, Alana, takes me back to many years ago, when I was traveling through Europe on my way home to America from a tour in the Peace Corps in Somalia(!)–I was so busy photographing all the wonderful buildings in Florence, Italy when I realized that I was seeing Europe through a small screen and missing fully experiencing the real thing. So, with the technological tools many of us now have at hand, we tend to record every single living moment, reducing it to a screen which miniatures our lives and separates our attention from the actual experience (and the friends we’re with). My guideline would be to try to really live the moment, celebrating the community of friends and family by being truly present, and perhaps taking a couple photos as part of the fun, when appropriate. To use the tech tools to connect instead of separate. Otherwise, we’ll end up asking ourselves “where was I when LIFE happened?”
Agreed. I was just at a concert tonight, and half the audience was watching through their phones. I think it’s getting increasingly difficult for people to actually be there when life is happening.
I agree. I have noticed that people don’t know how to engage during intimate moments. Instead of jumping in and enjoying where they are and who they’re with, they pull back behind their various digital media devices. Our family has chosen to limit our exposure to media (including cable/satellite tv) and instead focus on how we can enjoy each other by playing games, working together on crafts and hobbies. we also cook together! It makes for a much more satisfying family life! We have one tv in our home and it is in my bedroom, so it only gets used for family movie nights (on dvd or netflix) once a week or less!
To me, this seems complicated. Most of my close friends and family are far away, so I use various ways to keep in touch with them. My husband is very connected to technology and spends a lot more time on the computer/iphone and social media than I do. I am sure I spend more time than I need to on it. I think the ideal that I try for is to recognize that social media has its place and there are good things about it, but to try not to let it take the place of real connections and real moments.
We are family of five – me, my husband and three teen boys. None of us live our lives through social media. We post occasionally on Facebook. The boys sometimes tweet or put a picture on Instagram. You’d never be able to tell much about our daily lives though because we don’t have our cameras out for every moment and we don’t share every, single thing that happens.
Our lives simply aren’t that interesting and we value our privacy too highly to put more than we do on the internet. Our 15 year old son has attracted an internet stalker – a 46 year old man who showed up at one of his track meets this spring (there is no such thing as privacy in the running world as every meet is made public). This made us even more cautious on social media and I will never feel the same about i.
While it can be nice to share certain things with family and friends, I think it’s very important to be present in the moment and not thinking about how to capture the moment in a photo or sound bite.
I’ll just touch on one facet that I find interesting. My pre-teen girls have Instagram accounts (that I follow very closely). I have a rule that they can only follow or be followed by people they know. They have their close friends that they interact with regularly and then there are acquaintances whom they might know through a friend or they may share a class with, etc. I’ve observed that they’re very comfortable interacting with the acquaintances on Instagram but if we happen to run in to them somewhere face to face, they barely say hello. It is usually fairly awkward. I try to get them to engage a little more in those situations but it’s usually to no avail.
Fascinating. So in this case, the community from social media might actually hinder the building of face to face community?
It’s Rosh Hashanah, so it’s the first of Tishrei. I know it’s not quite the first of September that you were going for, but you still got it in there.
I’ll take it 🙂
I think that social media sites can be great, but I believe that people have started to live on them instead of in their own lives. I have often found myself, when I am in the depths of social media, doing things so that I can report them on Instagram instead of the other way around. When I come to realize what I am doing, I feel a little out of place and I feel like I am being sucked in. I then will have to take a break so it doesn’t become my life and so I don’t constantly have a phone in my hands. I think they are great in moderation! By the way I have been HOOKED on The Homemade Pantry, I read it like a novel at times. I don’t have an oven right now and it’s killing me. You rule Alana.
Thank you, Tori!
In many ways, social media causes me to censor myself more than I normally would during in-person interactions with friends and family. I find myself only sharing things that I know will be appropriate for everyone in my life, because there is no distinguishing the separate social groups (family vs. close friends vs. acquaintances vs. old friends vs. work friends, etc). I end up avoiding a joke I would love to make on Facebook to a handful of people who I know will get it, because it’s definitely not the kind of joke I would make to my old college professor, or my cousin in Ireland. But at the same time that I feel censored, there is a sense of being more curated, too. I don’t experiment as much with what I share, or share everything that I like or think or feel a connection to, but I make sure what I do share is really representative of how I feel, what my interests are, what I think is beautiful. And it’s bizarre to feel like this online collection of status messages, comments, and links are a real representation of who I am to the world, but I guess it is.
I have mixed feelings in regards to social media. It’s great for keeping in touch with friends and family but there comes a point when one needs to step away from the screen and really live in the moment, imo. Sure, the technology is great but I think I’m going to make a more conscious choice to take in the world around me and put down the phone. Great topic for discussion Alana!
What a great topic, Alana and the links are valuable.
This is such a good moment for me to consider this. Yesterday was my birthday. I chose to put my phone down. I checked FB a few times. I was aware throughout the day that I had sent a newsletter for Laundry Line Divine to be in emails at 8 am on my birthday in an effort to urge people to share the news I was posting as a ‘call to action’- a key thing in social media marketing. Not one person answered my ‘call’, even couched as a birthday present. So while people were happy to send me a message of blessing, all of which I happily accepted and feel the blessing of, the ‘call-to-action’ move on my newsletter failed. This leads me to believe that the best word of mouth- now called ‘sharing’- happens without request. That people share what they love because they love it. And that whatever I put up, whether on my personal FB page or Instagram, or my Laundry Line Divine page- it has to be freely given with no expectation of return. This does not go to the heart of your question though- what I want to say is that, I put my phone/camera down and completely enjoyed my birthday. I posted a 2 photos at the end of the day. I did have a few moments during the day thinking-oh, this would be a great post- but I stepped past those ‘narrating my life in public’ urges to stay present to the people I was with. Like most addictive behaviors, before they become entrenched in your habit life, there is a moment of choosing. And for me, as long as I can choose, as long as I feel free of expectation in what I do choose to do and share, and as long as I’d be happy with my Mom- God rest her Soul- reading whatever I am posting, I feel okay about it. This is a great topic for women who post about family life, privacy and all of that. I’d love to talk more about this with you, in person, or online. Thank you for this chance! xo Suzi
My involvement with social media would be very different had it all been around when my children were kids. They are adults now, one is working in the field (interviewing authours, as you well know), and I’m doing my own job on-line these days.
Finally I even have a business Facebook page (not a personal one though). Twitter is lovely for getting quick news and updates and since my new phone upgrade I can Instagram now. (Haven’t gotten to Pinterest yet.)
Great discussion, as always. Sorry I missed the drawing but I loved the lunch ideas (I’m getting all caught up), and sure wish we lived closer, I’d trade a kidney for some of those plums!
oy. oy yoy yoy. to quote anna: it’s complicated. my kiddos are not into social media (yet), a fact i credit to the eldest two being boys. i’ve a good friend who’s daughter’s been on facebook since she was 6.
but beyond that, what of the adults, myself very much included? and the in the moment vs. the manufacturing, editing, processing? i am so much of two minds on the matter. as someone who is terrible, truly terrible, at being in the moment, i find that a little reflection and narration is in fact a wonderful thing for me, to try to make sense of and capture where we are, right now, and put it down, before i forget. which i always do, invariably, and much too quickly. it is my scrapbook, my journal, and my postcard back home, all wrapped into one. and yet. i do force myself to push back any serious processing until later, for fear of missing the moment itself, which can calcify as soon as we put words to it. because that’s the magic of a moment, isn’t it, the pregnancy of it, the potential it has to develop twelve different ways, to open onto paths, interesting and unexpected, that will shut right down if we don’t take care to observe them, to notice them?
as i said, oy. and thank you, alana, for raising the question and phrasing it in the way you have. i don’t know which was better, the post or the post-post discussion. all good. all important.
xo,
molly
This has been at the forefront of my mind for… two years now. Before my daughter was born I blogged a lot. I had a decent following and loved the little community I had collected. But then my daughter was born and it was like I fell off the map. I think in the last two years I’ve blogged less than ten times. For me it’s all about cost efficiency. What do I have to give up, to do that other things. For the first time in a while I pulled my camera out to take an awkward “for the blog” photo moment – and it felt wrong, like I was stealing a moment that wasn’t meant to be stolen. With a newborn I enjoyed holding her a lot more than I enjoyed blogging, and it was an easy decision. Now I ache to write and document my adventures, so I’m trying to get back into it, but it’s not free. Instead of watching my daughter blow our her candles I’m behind my camera. A trade off. As for other social media outlets: I rarely find them worth my time, though Instagram is growing on me. 🙂