My “breakfast thoughts” segments is one of my favorite sections on the blog, where I write out my thoughts while having breakfast. Sometimes I get personal with the details shared, other times I discuss sundry matters, and today, it’s a bit of both.
My table is set in a quaint manner for two, I’m having a variety of English biscuits with tea. Thanks, Andy for the setup! My readers know a beautiful set up of English tea is always up my ally of breakfast choices.
Ok my thoughts while I munch on breakfast!
I’ve had thoughts on my relationship with social media and how the platform have stayed triggering anxiety for me. By the way, there are numerous things making me anxious lately, for example, an uncompleted task, delivering a product to a prospective client with hopes that nothing goes wrong, angst on what to eat, career choices, and now, I can add Instagram and sometimes my blog to this growing list.
In moments like this, I’m thankful to be a millennial who had ample time to grow up experiencing life without digital pressures and adopted social media platforms like my blog, when it was less laborious to pursue intrepid dreams online. There is something about the fast churning and consuming nature of Instagram, and other social media platforms that rile and trigger me to no end.
For Instagram, I want to believe using the business feature, where I get to see all the insights on how people engage with my content, increased my anxiousness. And on weeks when I am busy with other real-life issues and do not bother to upload content, I get back to something new or to the order of things changed. The urgency these platforms create is deliberately pushed by their algorithms, that put you at the back burner if you’re not churning out content regularly.
There is no joy in claiming something as burdensome as ‘anxiety’ by personifying it.
This urgency is very problematic for me because social media is time-consuming. Similarly, when you use the platform for business or content creation, you see yourself spending countless hours losing yourself to creating content for a rigged system. Compound this with the knowledge that your work may never yield the necessary income, compared to the time spent adopting new ways or features to keep your followers engaged- that is a recipe for anxiety or anxiousness.
At this point, it’s nice to highlight that creatives are doing an amazing job churning out constant content in fresh ways. It’s imperative that when you see people consistently put out content, engage with it, because it takes a lot of time, brainpower, and overcoming anxious thoughts to get that content out.
For instance, since I’ve gotten more consistent posting on my blog, I’ve been more anxious about the content I put up here and the metrics. I think the problem is in the metrics, but again, I’m learning to put the work out there, because someone is definitely reading it.
That said, I’m learning ways to balance my time on the platform to support my efforts and give me maximum impact for minimum use. Additionally, I’m back to using other social media platforms that seem to be doing right by the structure of their algorithm, Lookbook and Bloglovin come to mind.
It’s a funny oxymoron that Facebook for me provides this balance while pushing their sister brand Instagram in an opposite direction. Then, Twitter is where everything seems melt, chaotic but life isn’t too mimed, even though there is the increasing pressure of being professionally astute or contradictory to gain clout.
Part of the ways I’ve handled anxiety recently, is by deliberately removing the word ‘my’ when trying to narrate to people that I struggle a lot with being anxious. There is no joy in claiming something as burdensome as ‘anxiety’ by personifying it. Reading physical copies of books and doing more non-digital things has helped me to manage anxiety- there are more things I want to expand on, but my time is limited.
A final thought, I still love creating things on social media- simple and complex- I should learn the ropes to get my Instagram popping again, cos truth be told, the platform can sometimes be gratifying. Anyways, shoutout to Pinterest– it’s my next social media platform I intend to conquer.
Ok, I’m done eating.
