I love following small and / or independent blogs, so I’m slowly filling up my RSS client with as many sites as I can. I enjoy hearing diverse voices and learning about people’s equally diverse views and thoughts on things. Something that I’ve started to notice recently, however, is a lot of people virtually beating themselves up for using services or general things they’ve somehow convinced themselves they shouldn’t be using.
I’m not going to directly quote any posts that I’m referring to here, because I don’t want it to come across as some kind of attack. This is definitely not that. It’s something I’ve been guilty of myself, so no judgements here. A big one is the use of Twitter. A huge amount of people are using this service multiple times a day, for various reasons. I’ve started seeing quite a few posts, or comments just as an aside in a post however, with the authors both figuratively and literally apologisingfor using the service. They beat themselves up for using it too much, or for wasting time ‘just scrolling’. I’m starting to question why that is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you’re leaving a dog or child to starve to death because you’re too obsessed with Twitter to feed them you’re most definitely an animal and you should be ashamed. If, however, you’re a hardworking individual that likes to utilise (not waste) your time flicking around Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, or whatever your service of choice is then you go for it.
Are there potentially better uses of your time? Sure, no doubt, but you’re also entitled to use some of your free time for you. You’ve earned it buddy. A lot of people seem to be getting into a mind set of unless they’re spending time actively working towards an end goal for the betterment of all mankind and do anything else they’re wasting time and in need of forcing themselves away from the service or product which is clearly giving them pleasure.
We all need to partake in indulgences in suitable measures. I think we’d all agree with this, and there are definitely cases where someone’s social network involvement can become an issue, but for the vast majority of people trying to force themselves to cut back and away from a service due to hitting some kind of arbitrarily cap they’ve set themselves seems, to me, unhealthy in a whole other way.
Now, more than ever, we need these distractions. We need to allow our minds to ‘get away from it all’ from time to time. If you can relax flicking through Twitter or Instagram just do it. Does trying another new note taking app or to-do app hurt you in anyway? No, of course not. Lighten up, allow yourselves some enjoyment and pleasures. Give yourself a break.
