Why Quit Social Media?
kimnjed
September 29, 2020
Oof. This is a doozy to write. Ha! But, I just have to be me and be real and honest with you, just as I’ve attempted to be all along this journey. There’s no point in trying to be someone or something I’m not. I just don’t have it in me. 😉
A couple years ago I started really disliking how attached I had become to social media. I didn’t like the comparison game I allowed it to incite in me. I didn’t like the time I wasted on it. I didn’t like the demands it made of me to give “all or nothing”. If you want to do well at running social media for a nonprofit you can’t just “kind of” do it. Because of the all-powerful algorithm, you are bound to posting very frequently, or your posts go on the wayside, missed by most people and buried under the next political debate.
I bemoaned the need for social media and wanted to quit, just for my own mental health, but felt I had no option to opt out because of Wide Awake. We HAD to be on social media or we would become obsolete. That’s what I told myself. So, we stayed, even though I often didn’t feel good about it.
Over the past couple of months I’ve been deep-diving into all aspects of tech and how we, as a family, interact with technology (By tech, I mean screens and devices. We’re still okay with washing machines and lightbulbs). Tomorrow we’re concluding a 30 day screen detox as a family and it has been really cool. During our detox Jed and I used screens for our work, but as a family we did zero screen time. We said no to tv, movies, video games, and browsing online. But we said YES to playing tons of games, yes to evening conversations on the couch, yes to just being together and yes to fighting boredom with things besides screens.
During the detox I’ve spent a lot of time educating myself on the impact of screens and social media on our society today. I’m a mom of teens, so I don’t get to turn a blind eye to these things. I need to know what is happening online and I need to be savvy about it. I went into the education aspect of it with a desire for a game plan for how our family would move forward at the month’s end, but I came out with so much more.
Like I said yesterday, social media can be great. Some of our boys’ lives have literally been saved because of the reach of social media. Wide Awake has been on social media since our beginning, and we have experienced great friendship and wonderful blessing from people we have met via social media.
But, Friends, there is so much wrong with social media. So so much. Sex trafficking and pornography and hate and incitement of fear is right at our fingertips. If we at Wide Awake value every human life, and if we believe in bringing dignity and hope, how can we rely on social media to relay our message? Social media can be great for some, but honestly, it greatly benefits a very few and brings great harm to many.
When I started to feel that gut feeling, that prodding from the Holy Spirit that we needed to change course and share our message in a different way, it scared the heckouttame.
A glimpse of my stream of consciousness: I mean, isn’t that like non-profit suicide??? How can you even have a successful non-profit if you aren’t on social media??? People will think we’re some kind of fanatical crazy people. People might think we’re lazy. No one reads emails anymore. People will forget about us. People will forget about us. People will forget.
I’m still battling many of those thoughts as I sit here writing to you. A big part of me is so afraid of what this will mean for Wide Awake- BUT I know that I know that this is what God is asking of us. He is asking us to do things HIS way and not our own way. He is asking us to redefine success. He is asking us to rely on Him for our provision- and not Instagram and Facebook. He is asking us to trust Him to bring us the helpers we need. He is asking us to allow Him to be our provider, our friend, our source, our encouragement, our reason. He wants to be all those things and when He follows through on His promises He will get all the glory. It won’t be because I posted at 1:00pm Monday through Friday. It won’t be because a post had a beautiful photo or a high engagement. It will be because this is God’s work and He is for it. He is FOR US and He will complete His work here in Ukraine with or without social media.
So, we are choosing to trust, even when it may seem ludicrous to some. It’s okay if you don’t understand. We can still be friends. (Just not FB friends…hehe 😉
The work will continue here and we will continue to faithfully share the joys and the pains- just in other ways. I hope you will join us because it’s gonna be AWESOME.
PS: I was thinking of doing a post with resources I learned from on this journey. Would you be interested in me sharing those in a future post?
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Hi Kim, yes please to sharing what you found, that would be really helpful! Thank you, loads of love to you guys! Thanks Cat
We love you too. I will definitely compile the resources and write about it soon.
Yes, please share your resources. 🙂
Will do!
Yes, please share resources and pics with Superman.😬😎
Yay! You found the blog!!! 😂😂😂
You’re right. You can trust God with all that stuff. Jer 17:5 What matters is that “GOD sees” (Gen 16:13) – and hears, and answers, and provides, and leads.
Yes! Thank you. You are always such a wonderful encourager and voice of wisdom.
I love your heart/s, you continue to inspire. I wanna flyover again…..love you sweeties❤️
Love you Vic 🥰
This follower still reads blogs (when I get an email reminder) and emails, so keep ’em coming! I’ll miss the surprise blessing of your family’s beautiful faces in my FB feed, but I get and affirm your reasoning! Peace, Julie
Thank you so much! I love that encouragement. Bring it on. Ha!
Yes, please on resources! So proud of you for coming to this conclusion and trusting that God doesn’t need YOU to be on social media to accomplish His work with Wide Awake. (When we say it like that, it sounds kind of silly, huh?)
Yes! It sounds completely ridiculous. Yikes. I will compile the resources and write about them soon. 🙂
Yes please on the resources! And so happy to get all the latest happenings through the blog!
Great! I will compile the resources and write about them soon. 🙂
Kim, I love your heart! I’ll be praying for you through this transition. I’m grateful for your encouragement to continue to seek the Lord in sifting through our perceived “needs” in the area of technology. It feeling like a non-stop thing for us….
I get you! This past month of tech “detox” has been so wonderful for us. And I feel like we were already pretty low tech…but the call to quiet down and listen is strong. So, here we go!
Love it my friends!! God is so good, I cant wait to see how He provides!
Thank you Jory! It should be interesting…hehe 🙂
Welcome home! I’m too old for social media, so email and blogs are where I am! I, too, am proud of you for your careful, well-thought out decision to follow what the Holy Spirit is prompting for you. I know it will mean great blessing for your family and for Wide Awake.
Love you all,
Donna
Thank you Donna! I needed to read that message ❤️
I have never been on social media, for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, and have always felt left out when it comes to updates from organizations I love (like yours!). I am thrilled that you will be going back to blog and email updates and look forward to reading about all the amazing things God continues to do through your family and your team. You will not be forgotten!
Thank you so much for that wonderful encouragement. I feel nervous about it, but also excited. God will get all the glory in it, that’s for sure.