A creative group I'm in was lamenting about the perils of social media and how it wastes their time. So I provided my perspective and outlined how I use social media....
I'm disabled and almost entirely housebound. Social media is my lifeline to everything - it's where I meet up with friends in groups, where I get and offer support, where I worship, where I share my art and poetry, where I fundraise for charity, where I campaign for issues, where I hang out for a laugh etc.
I visit groups and pages and utilise hashtags with purpose, just as you might visit places and people. I never just scroll through my timeline, that makes no sense to me - I think that is what people often do and it can definitely eat up your time.
I control my use of social media, it doesn't control me! I have NO notifications from any social media on my phone or iPad. This means I'm never distracted by pings when I don't want to be online.
Instead of seeing social media as a problem, I think we need to understand it and manage how we use it for the benefit of ourselves and others. Nothing in life is simply good OR bad and that's the same for social media.
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