Not Been Back Yet

New Year's resolutions have never been my approach to personal upgrades.  Not January 1.  Not 1 Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, my Jewish New Year.  Yet this RH enabled a convenient demarcation point.  By tradition, really by Jewish Law, the electronic devices shut down for those Festival days.  I opted to extend my break from social media indefinitely.  Two months have elapsed.  Facebook gone.  Twitter rated X gone.  Reddit restricted to r/Judaism and r/JewishCooking.  Not totally, just the interactive portions.  I share some of what I've written or podcasted onto FB, once to Twitter.  I do not open it to see responses.  If an email, intended to lure my retina back to the screen, suggests a comment of condolence, I check it out.  Perhaps I should also convey sympathy in the right circumstances.  But now past Rosh Chodesh Kislev, or two months beyond RH, I remain free of FB and Twitter.  Reddit Judaism I've returned, always with a timer, always restricting my comments to those that another poster would find helpful.

I miss almost none of this engagement.  FB has a site where travelers through America ask for guidance.  I had become a Top Contributor by recommending places for visitors to prioritize when visiting either my region or places where I have previously lived or traveled.  It does not compensate for the clutter.

On Twitter, many authors whose items I read have established a place to receive feedback.  My comments are limited by word or character counts.  Remarks of others are predictably partisan.  And the author almost never responds.  Email has been a more effective way to prompt exchange, even if only thanks for reading.  Understandably, somebody who writes a key article for a publication with a circulation in the hundreds of thousands will find a very cluttered email box.  Nearly all the authors now no longer disclose their direct contact information.  

Still, two months into this initiative, I feel more in control, as well as physically stronger for other reasons.  FB still sends emails trying to lure my log in.  Many fewer than my first two weeks away.  If it hints of condolence I pursue it.  Otherwise it gets deleted unopened from my email inbox.  This seems to be the best way to avoid the damage that global social media has created.