Evaluating Social media & Communitaction In General

[LittlePebble10]

First off I totally apologise for the double thread. My computer glitched when I hit the tab button. Via input exited the text and the next button press posted it. Laymens terms are not my best. Sorry.....

 

Ok More so.....

I have a praise report to this first. I done my norm for June and did a detox of Face Book. With it being Pride month I find it personally necessary. Things went well looking at the bigger picture. I was able to overcome a lot of things. I hit some low moments, but my therapist and social counselor noticed improvements. I decide on aultimately deleting my Face Book. I want to stick with forums like this one. I am on Furbooru, Derpibooru, and Furaffinity for posting my art. The provided custom filters tools have been really helpful to my goals. I slipped up here and there though. In the long run it appears that my positive attitude is being noticed by others. 

 

The one thing that is making this difficult is finding other ways to keep in contact with people. For me Google and Yahoo is really difficult to keep up with. They keep changing things around when ever I get the hang of things. Which by the way this is the story for everyone I assume. I suppose my biggest component to this problem is making a commitment. I want to cut away things I know I cannot handle. Yet, some of them such as email is not exactly possible. I would love to throw out my cell phone and replace it with a mobile hotspot. Than I would build my own portable media device with a raspberry pie.  The only problem with this is losing text and call. I would be limited to email. However, there might be a Linux based system that could do texting. 

 

My primary question is within this context.... "How do I disconnect myself from social media and things where I become anxious and depressed?" I am also open to others providing their stories. So long as things stay on topic don't hesitate to add them. Your not hijacking this thread if it stays on topic. 

[BK1110]

Some people or accounts I have just had to stop following. But I continue on Facebook and Twitter. Each day I post and share Bible verse and apologetics information, and as I scroll I'm on the lookout for friends or others posts that I feel led to reply to with some small seeds. I have had to accept that I will probably not see people come to Christ this way, but at the very least I can be one voice willing to engage with them with respect, listening to them, and not lowering myself to their common complaints about how Christians treat them and their views. Perhaps that is just one small seed planted that God can grow according to His will down the line.

[ayin jade]

20 hours ago, LittlePebble10 said:

My primary question is within this context.... "How do I disconnect myself from social media and things where I become anxious and depressed?" I am also open to others providing their stories. So long as things stay on topic don't hesitate to add them. Your not hijacking this thread if it stays on topic. 

Maybe I missed it, but what about social media upsets you when you are anxious and depressed?

I battle depression (I was diagnosed years ago with dysthymia). What I do, is avoid the news until I am "prepared" for it. Almost like having shields up to protect myself. Perhaps you should keep in mind that when you are vulnerable, you need to disconnect until you feel strong enough to reconnect. Dont go to social media without your personal "shields" Avoid the interactions that most upset you and seek out the ones that do not upset you or least upset you. 

Something I do to keep from sinking into depression is to get outside at least once a day, even if it is just to sit in the park for half an hour or so. I find that being stuck inside makes things worse for me. 

Something else that helps a lot is to spend time in the morning, or any time of day, just praising the Lord. I find it uplifting.

As far as anxiety, and I feel it in stressful situations, psalm 23. Reciting or singing it (ted pearce has a song version of it, and Im sure others do too) helps me. 

I hope any of what I said helps, whether its you or someone else.

[LittlePebble10]

1 hour ago, ayin jade said:

Maybe I missed it, but what about social media upsets you when you are anxious and depressed?

At Large

Asking questions is always a help to me. Gets me to think a tad bit deeper and no one really asks an exact question the exact same way. A lot of my therapist in the past would be very vague as if they did not read any of my writing at all. My newer therapist was a writing teacher so that has improved. I must also mention coming back here was better then continuing with my FB browsing which seemed to be a habit at night before June began.

Yet, here is my take on Face Book. As you may have seen my craft is multi-fauceted in that it has many craft skills within. From sketching, wiring, to actual wood craft, and needle craft for a decorative finishing toutch. Needless to say I have many connections to different crafters. Fur-suiters, minimalistic computer builders, and synthesizer builders just to name a few. Every craft has its dark side on the internet. With it being Face Book any type of censorship whether it be user-maintained or admin/mod-maintained is frowned upon. 

I sort of bite the bullet and put up with their voices against all sorts of hot topics. It was getting where I could not really take any of them. Although I found my circle of Christian-furries to be the most helpful. Even their own struggles provided me veiwpoints to overcoming my own. Which is a big reason I created a personal blog on my FFIC website. It was in hopes I could neavigate to my calling of Art, Writing, and DIY-music as the outlet of friendship. While some hit the contact-me page not all the ones I wanted actually reached out. In all honesty this is not a let down. In actuality I would not know where Google gets their statistics on Wix. It could very well be all of my friends who read my content. Yet, not having the time to leave a note. Its this that brings me hope that when the stats of my website go from a nagative intiger to a positive intiger and percentage shows me what God promised me.

Yet, I accept any outcome regardless because I could not handle all the secular veiwpoints that got extreme. Such as forcing artist to do LGBT works simply because the artistic expression of the consumer is thought to be more important then the artist/crafter in question. Like you illustrated?

1 hour ago, ayin jade said:

Something I do to keep from sinking into depression is to get outside at least once a day, even if it is just to sit in the park for half an hour or so. I find that being stuck inside makes things worse for me. 

In Short

This is the reason for doing away with FB. There are times I would be up late at night just scrolling through. With things like Art forums, tech forums, and spiritual forums there is no scrolling. Instead there is a wait time necessary for people to respond. This wait time is helpful for me to actually get away and do things that I otherwise would not if it be Face Book. Like getting to sleep at night when I already am having trouble getting home 10pm and bing up past midnight. I appreciate everything the admins and mods do on these smaller forums. When its a server in the basement and its simply a hobby people take their websites very responsibly. Sometimes more so then a comercial based website such as Face Book. So even if anyone feels their small hobby of a server in their house for a forum may not seem like much.... It means everything to me.