A question of out there

Over the past eight months, I have been questioning my relationship with social media. I nearly wrote ‘use of’ but deleted it as, increasingly, I feel social media uses us, not the other way around. And the more I read about the effect it has on our brains, the more I feel this to be true.

An example. Yesterday, I opened Instagram to check in with what the people I care about are up to (I want baby pics, toddlers doing that funny little run they do, cats and pups and all the animals, holiday snaps, incredible views, celebratory cakes, meals they have eaten and books they have read, all the profound and mundane stuff of life). In the time it took me to find twenty posts I actually wanted to see, I had seen more than double that in advertising and been given previews to more than double again in reels by complete strangers. Opening the stories at the top was worse and when I finally pulled myself free, I’d lost thirty minutes and developed that futzy feeling in the head that I get when I’m on instagram for too long.

I don’t like that futzy feeling. I prefer the feeling of mud and earth and good sky and being able to concentrate for longer than 30 seconds.

Me at Morville. When I garden, I really garden…

I gave up on Facebook a long time ago, merely keeping the account open for work purposes and slowly removing any images and memories so that I have them stored on my computer, for me, not for the whim of Meta. Twitter…just, no. And I do have a Bluesky and Pinterest account, although neither have been particularly active.

I recently read this post by Caroline Crampton and this one by Helen Lewis, both lamenting the time wasted trying to use social media effectively for book sales and promotion. Trying and failing, they both felt, and both felt a different way was necessary.

Quite a few people suggested I get a Substack, and then retracted their statement when they saw how many Substacks there are now. I nearly started one called “Another Bloody Substack!” but someone else beat me to it. And besides, I don’t feel I want to charge for merely writing about my day, my reflections on the world. I chose to blog or journal for the fun of the writing; if I put a price on that, it would become another chore, another piece of work. It would consume time that I prefer to give to my creative work, including my creative writing. Also, I have the same feelings about Substack as Caroline and prefer to keep my writing where I have control over it, namely here and in my newsletter.

The Giant’s grave in Penrith

Which brings me to another problem with social media. Your content is at the mercy of the algorithm. Not just in terms of how many people see a post, but also the very existence of your account. The charity I am a trustee of has had its Facebook account locked twice on an apparent Meta-whim and had to waste weeks pleading, offering our first borns and conducting full moon sacrifices (or whatever esoteric ritual Meta felt like making us enact) until it was reinstated and we were warned to never again do the thing we hadn’t done in the first place.

So many people I know have created beautifully curated and thoughtfully captioned Instagram accounts only to lose them without warning and never get them back. I really really hate the thought that I could lose everything, all those images, all those memories, at the flick of a metaphorical switch. It makes me reluctant to post anything, and anything I do is drafted first on my computer so I always have a record.

So what do I do?

I suppose that, really, honestly, this post is basically one long plug to sign up to my newsletter. Ha! Hands up who saw that coming.

The stream at Newstead Abbey last November. Oh November…in the midst of this four-month-long drought, I am missing you more than usual

I like to think of my newsletters as monthly dispatches from my imagined but perfect woodland cottage. In there, I talk about trees, old stones, allotments, myths, art and books, things I have found, things I have made. There are funny little drawings (sometimes) and flash fiction and snippets from the book that may or may not ever see the light of day.

Last month, I talked about my love of raspberries and how to make the very best raspberry pudding sauce; there was a daft sketch of the place that the book is set in, a 300 word flash fiction, some images from my dry and dusty allotment (despite this, my bean game is strong) and a tv show recommendation. September’s, a current work in progress, the continuation of the neolithic burial site research, courgettes and the overwhelm, needle felting progress and autumn plans. It will go out on 7th September, in time for the full moon, so there is still time to sign up.

The fact is, I love to words and the act of writing. For years, I blogged, wrote and read before becoming disconnected from it all (major life events have a habit of unmooring you from the things you love) and now, having come back to it through the sheer magic of putting pen to page, fingers to keyboard, eyes to page, my life feels calmer. Richer. Fuller.

Miss Mabel and the toe beans

In truth, I am an introverted old soul and, for me, the performative aspect of social media does not sit well. I prefer something less…public, more introspective. Thoughtful and thoughtfully written. Something that ushers you in as a friend, gets out the mug and the tea you like, offers you cake.

Where would the world be without cake? This is a rhetorical question, requiring no answer other than the sharing of a recipe on a scrap of paper, marked with tea and crumbs.

If this sounds like a corner of the internet you would like to be a part of, head to the contact page and sign up. I hope to see you there.