Allowing space

I have been going back and forth with a very serious decision recently: whether to get social media set up on my phone.

It would mainly be for travel. I used to have a laptop that traveled with me. Once I day I could log on and post the song of the day and any relevant blogs and wish people a happy birthday, but it died quite a while ago. 

Right now I am also posting political content daily through the election as well as trying to stay connected to people. That I might have times when there are a few days with no posting is a concern.

I never worried about using the laptop, but somehow it feels different with the phone.

I suppose this is partly because most people keep their phones on them all the time; something I never did with my laptop. 

It is also because of merging, like Instagram with Facebook, but probably more because Musk ruined Twitter and Zuckerberg is evil and even Google no longer has not being evil in their charter... do I really want to reinforce that connection?

(It is a teeny bit because being in school gave me a new Google profile besides the one that has everything else. That only adds a small level of complication, but does act as a minor deterrent.)

As it is, we have had things come up twice now preventing travel; maybe I just shouldn't be planning on going anywhere.

I am not saying things will never be different. For now, my phone remains mostly just a phone, that sometimes take photos. It's pretty handy being able to call or text from wherever.

While it is technically still a "smart" phone, that part pretty much never works. I know I could figure that out, and I would have to if I were going to maintain social media use while traveling.This decision makes that a moot point.

This means that when I am watching television, I am watching television. 

(I wish my sisters would do that. So often they are there but missing things because their faces are in their phones. I rewind a lot.)

When I am on the bus, I will be reading, or thinking, or watching and even talking to people.

That's not awful.

In church, I... okay, sometimes my mind is wandering rather than me really listening -- there is room for improvement there -- but I am not scrolling my feeds.

Yes, it would theoretically still be possible to be like that with social media on my phone, but it's even easier when the phone has nothing there.

It was also a choice to allow me to have days off from what I am doing, no matter how important it feels. Breaks are important too.