Hi Matthew,
I want to ask a question, but didn’t catch your email address. Could you please post it here, in a reply?
Thanks!
Diane
Matthew·
- Alissa·
Love this! Thank you. I have been yearning for an excuse to back away from social media, but I always feel obligated to maintain more of a social media presence. Blah! Thanks for justifying my deepest desires! ?
- Jenni Enzor·
Thank you, Matthew, for another great talk! I’ve been weaning myself off social media this year, and I’ve noticed a huge difference in my productivity as a writer. I’ve been trying to attend in-person events instead of participating in online communities, and yes, I feel like I’m more part of a real community. I’ve also found that I write better when I go somewhere (coffee shop, library, etc) where it’s harder for me to be online.
- Sandy Perlic·
I especially liked you likening breaking up with social media to a break-up in real life – meaning it’s not necessarily out of your life altogether, but you no longer have an intimate relationship with it. Some compelling arguments. I appreciate you formulating your thoughts so well, and providing so many resources. Well done!
Deleting apps has helped me, but I do get caught up with scrolling on the computer sometimes. All of this is great advice!
This is great! So much good information and so many excellent ideas. I need to give this a try.
- Kasey·
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for this fantastic talk. I’m an American expat living in China right now, and I’ve completely eliminated Facebook and Twitter from my daily life (mostly by virtue of the fact that they’re banned/blocked by the Chinese government). Your talk is powerful, because I’ve personally experienced your first and second contentions in my day-to-day writing life. I find I have more time to write now, and I have less anxiety, both creatively and otherwise, because I’m not on those platforms anymore.
I’ll challenge your third point a bit, however, because though your claim is that social media specifically mimics the community we desire online, you tend to conflate other online communities with social media communities in your supporting statements, and then suggest breaking up with all of them in favor of real-life communities. In China, its almost impossible (or at best, rare) to connect with other English-speaking writers. There aren’t many of us here, and we’re pretty spread out (many of my students had never seen a non-Asian person before they met me).
I’d amend the statement to suggest that communities that exist for a very specific purpose are significantly healthier forms of online engagement, this WriteOn Conference notwithstanding. Though I seek out IRL interactions as often as possible, I find that writing without any access to online English-speaking writers for feedback and support is equally untenable as feeding the social media beast. The difference is that most writerly communities that I participate in online aren’t geared to reward you in addictive ways, and are narrowly goal-oriented.Thanks again for the discussion and the citations (I have a wealth of literature to peruse this coming week).
Cheers,
Kasey
- Matthew·
Kasey,
I’m glad you found a good bit of this to ring true—and I love your elimination of Twitter and Facebook. I desire to do the same daily. And you make a good point about isolated by language, which naturally prohibits IRL communities with English speaking writers. That’s interesting wrinkle to work through, one which makes online communities with specific goals deeply helpful. I think you’re right: a delineation of “social media” and “online communities” is necessary here, and would help separate the chaff (SM) from the wheat (goal specific communities). And I especially agree with your addendum: “communities that exist for a very specific purpose are significantly healthier forms of online engagement.”
However, I’d still argue that even those communities lack what Turkle refers to as the genuine nature of raw, unfiltered interaction. And that’s where I’d say pushing deeper, if possible to phone/skype calls inside those communities to creep as close to IRL interaction—to move from digital to the real world. My example of Dave was essentially what you described—we met in a goal-specific writing group, then began messaging, then texting, and finally phone calls. That has been hard, time consuming, but deeply rewarding. I hope you’re able to find a handful of such writing friends as you’re in a rather isolated environment, and that it’s deeply rewarding both professionally and personally.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, some really good wisdom here. Best of luck to you in your work!
- Featherpen·
Love this! Thank you.
- Danielle Freeland·
Thanks for your thoughts Matt. I really loved your perspective.
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