A few days back I told Author Mason Sabre I’d do this 30 Day Challenge with him, then I woke up with a cold. Needless to say I’m a few days behind. So where we go.

 

Day One – Five problems with Social Media

Let’s start with the biggie… time management. With social media my time management goes out the window. I feel like I need to be connected so folks don’t think I’m ignoring them. I know this isn’t true but when I login and have 20+ notifications on say Facebook you see my point. Do I need to answer all 20? No, of course not and I’m starting to choose which ones I should look at but it does take time to look over the list and see if I need to respond.

The problem isn’t just Facebook though anymore authors are on more then one social media site. I personally have a few accounts. In fact C.C. Genovese discussed this on his Facebook page. I counted and listed all the social media sites I have 9 different places one can find me. That includes my blog and website. Granted I’m not on all those sites everyday but I do check and or post on four of them a few times a day. The time I spend on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc greatly affect my time writing and quality time spending with friends and family.

I can’t tell you how often my phone beeps or buzzes from notifications so it feels like my phone is attached to my hand.

Feeling like I need to respond or at least see if I need to respond takes me away from my main job, at least at the moment, which is writing. Being so connected on social media takes my focus away from writing or editing which is what I need to focus on during work hours. Granted I also need to figure out work hours. Since moving overseas and not having a two jobs my work hours suck. Not to mention an author friend who started distracting me… (C.C.). With deadlines looming not focusing on my writing because of social media is not acceptable. You guys probably want the first and second book in the Legacy Series finished as much as I do, but with help of social media those aren’t finished. Granted its not the only reason.

As I mentioned above with time management as a result of social media, family and time with friends get interrupted. Why? Because if I’m not on my phone, checking all the notifications coming across I need to be writing and editing and if I “didn’t play” on social media so much I’d be finished with my daily writing or editing and have quality time with friends and family. This is one of the things I love about living overseas. When I travel my phone only gets internet when in a hotel room, this makes it easy to spend time with just the people I’m traveling with. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when I move back to the States. In fact it scares me. The last time I was in the States, a few weeks ago, my phone blew up with notifications. In fact, because I kept checking it and responding to messages that needed to be answered a friend got upset.

Anonymity, unless you have a pen name, social media removes ones anonymity. Yes you can choose what you post but this only goes so far. In a conversation I had last night I was discussing the possibility in actually using a pen name. Yeah I know it’s a bit late now but there are extremely good reasons to think about it. The most important is my family. Granted anymore it’s not hard to figure out which authors use a pen name and what their real names are. So is it better to use a pen name or your real name with social media. I’ll let know you. If you see my name change you’ll know my answer. 😉

The one social media I haven’t talked about yet is blogging. This too is a distraction and keeps me away from “writing” and family yet it’s a necessary evil just like Facebook, Twitter and the others. However, this social outlet gives me a place to introduce other authors, my thoughts (more so then Facebook & Twitter), reviews etc. While the majority of social media connects me with everyone. Blogging still let me be me and in some ways stay hidden. For some reason to me it’s more like an extension of my writing and not really social media. Even though it is linked to almost all of my social media accounts.

I know I blended all five problems together, sorry for that. For me though they all flow into one issue. So how do we/I stay social but keep my sanity. If anyone has a good solution please let me know.

xo