My Social Media New Year's Resolution

If I think really hard, I can remember a time when there was a world without social media. A time when if you wanted to let your friends know what you did that day, you picked up the phone and called them. A time when letters were written and envelopes were mailed packed full of pictures of your kid's piano recital. It's funny how in just a few years the world as we know it has drastically changed. And even stranger, the world our children know will only be one consisting of the rise of technology.

I always like making New Year's Resolutions. I don't always keep them, but I think it's a good time to assess the past year and what changes I want to make. I've thought about getting rid of my Facebook and Instagram accounts a lot over the past few months.  I know, I know, it's crazy talk.The rare times I do talk to someone who doesn't engage in any kind of social media outlets, I always find myself thinking, "That's so weird. Why do you even have a smart phone?"  But I started to really take a look at how having constant access to social media affects me and my family. When I look at other people's Facebook or Instagram, I often find myself feeling like my life is lacking somehow. Someone has a nicer car than I do, their kids have nicer clothes than mine do, they get to travel and do more fun things than me. It's kind of like being in a bad relationship that you just can't bring yourself to get out of. And what's even worse than how I often feel when I see what other people are doing, is how I portray my own life to be. The pictures that I take where my hair is frizzy or my face is pimply get quickly deleted. If I take a picture of the kids at our house, I make sure to crop out the pile of dirty clothes laying in the corner. And I do all of this with the hope and anticipation that I'll get some "likes" or some nice comments about how pretty I am or how awesome my family is. The truth left me feeling kind of icky. What kind of role model am I when I try and teach my kids that their self worth comes from their loving actions and morals when I'm kind of, sort of relying on other people to make me feel good about myself?

Now I'm not saying that I'm going to get rid of the social media outlets that I do use on a daily basis. I came to the excuse conclusion that keeping in touch with loved ones that are far away is a good reason to keep Facebook and Instagram. But when my phone is full of more pictures than my photo albums are, I know it's time to make a change. So my Social Media New Year's Resolution is to actually use my camera (and not the one on my cell phone!). I'm committing to taking pictures and writing letters to send to loved ones. I'm committing to getting on the phone and calling my friends, or better yet, setting up a time to meet with them and talk about life in person! And I'm committing to emulating the values that I desperately want to teach my children and realizing that how I feel about myself, doesn't have to come from a nice comment on a picture that I took 50 times to make sure it looked just right (:

So if you don't see my pictures as much on Facebook or Instagram, just know that my face is still zitty and my house is still messy and my life is just perfectly the way it should be- whether or not my cropped, filter used pictures are on your screen (;