Why I Don't Use Social Media

I'm a writer and an extrovert and love people; however, I'm not on social media and have no desire to be. Don't get me wrong. I don't care if other people are on social media. It just doesn't interest me. About six or seven years ago, I used to be on Facebook. But then I realized how much time I was wasting by being on it. Looking at photos of people who I used to go to school with and hadn't even been friends with. Checking to see if someone had written me. I was in fact obsessed. So with the encouragement of a friend who was anti-Facebook (I'm not anti-Facebook) and my own realizations, I deleted my Facebook account. My Mom was shocked but got over it. She doesn't have an account herself but knew how obsessed I'd been with Facebook. I know who my real friends were and decided that texting, e-mailing, calling, and getting together whenever it was possible was more important than being (in my case) an obsessive Facebook user. I could choose who saw photos of my birthdays and knew when I was going on vacation. My ex-mother-in-law had all the time in the world for Facebook but forget about e-mailing or calling me. It's sad when some people let social media interfere with more important priorities. According to a New York Times article entitled "Facebook Has 50 Minutes of Your Time Each Day. It Wants More" published on May 5, 2016, there were a record monthly 1.65 billion active Facebook users and that people spent 50 minutes on Facebook, Instagram, and other Messenger platforms. The 18 to 34 demographic, millennials in particular, are the most active (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-the-rules-of-audience-engagement-to-its-advantage.html?_r=1). Do I miss Facebook? There were slight moments when I did; however, there weren't enough of those moments to make me want to create another account. Yes, I'm a writer but choose to let my thoughts be heard on my blog. LinkedIn is the only professional networking (social media-esque) site that I belong to and it's more work-related than anything. Do I feel like I'm missing out by not Facebooking or tweeting? Spending hours looking at photos of people who I'm not close to or posting my own photos on Instagram? Not at all. I'd rather be reading, writing, watching Netflix, or hanging out with my real friends or family. To tweet or not to tweet? I'll leave that to the birds.