Updates from the Social Media Detox. Also a word about what's good.

Okay I cheated a few times, glancing at the news and then immediately wishing I hadn't, but no hops onto social media, except to look at an update from a group I belong to, when I noticed I had 68 notifications, which I am proud to say that I ignored.

I realized I spend a lot of time clicking on my phone out of habit, and if I'm not looking at social media, I'm looking at something else. The quality of sleep I had according to my Fitbit, or the status of my reserves on my library card, or the weather for the next five days.

To combat this ding-dong-y impulse-clicking, I've sprinkled books and magazines and reading glasses around the house (ie. the bathroom).

Which helped me read three books and listen to three more.

Also, I painted the master bedroom closet and it's so beautiful and pristine and fresh-smelling and orderly that all I want to do now is stand inside and admire it.

And I called a friend I hadn't talked to in three years and we talked for two hours and vowed never to go so long between catching up ever again.

And I organized the linen closet and binge-watched the show Fleabag, which is hilarious and brilliant and heartbreaking, and discovered a new restaurant with my husband and toured a place downtown called the Idea Foundry, where you can play around on 3-d printers and laser cutters, and I took my mother out to lunch and I wrote 8655 words on my book.

A few days ago, I did a presentation for my writing group on goals and inspiration and lost myself in the making of it-- tallying up all of the writing I'd done over the years and what did it all lead to and why have I chosen to spend my time mulling over ideas and writing draft after draft and submitting and collecting rejections and returning to my laptop to start all over again, story after story, which may or may not ever go out into the world...

After the presentation a man in the audience raised his hand and asked if I thought all of those books that never sold were any good. I think what he was implying was that if I thought the books were good, why didn't I just go ahead and publish them myself?

I stammered a little about how I'm more interested in traditional publishing than in self-publishing, but now I wished I'd tried to answer the actual question,

if I thought my books were good.

Putting aside the fact that the question is kind of snotty (I mean, yeah, I think my books are good. WTH?), it also assumes that the end result of a book, as a thing that can be sold and earn money for the author, a thing that can win awards and appear on a bestseller list--is why writers do what they do.

And maybe it IS why some writers do what they do.

It certainly is nice to have a book on a shelf, an award sticker, a royalty check, but in the end, if you're a writer, you're going to sit down again after your book is a finished thing and you're going to begin working on the next story and the next and the next.

So here's the real question:

Is this a good way to spend your time?

In this world of social media and never-ending news, a non-stop whirl of entertainment specifically designed to grab your attention and keep it, a halt in that whirl, a willful pause to sit for an hour in front of a keyboard is an act of defiance

and joy.

Take my phone. Please.

The joke over the summer around my house was me misplacing my phone (a daily, sometimes, multiple-times-per-day occurrence). Whenever it happened, my daughter would sing the line from that glorious Lizzo song Where the hell's my phone?

Then we'd do the iPhone Find My iPhone search and a buzz would come from under the couch cushions or buried deep inside my purse and everyone would laugh and I'd say something like, too bad I can't glue my phone to the side of my head so I can keep track of it better, sort of like in the novel Feed, by M. T. Anderson, where people basically have their phones implanted in their brains.

(It's no joke, Mom, my son told me recently. That's totally the next step in phone technology.)

My son is also the one who told me that our dependence on our phones and on social media in general is similar to the addictive feeling we get from gambling.

I believe him. Each click on a website -- checking Likes on a post, searching for funny memes and videos -- gives us a little surge of endorphins, just enough to keep us clicking, and just enough of a charge to ignore the fact that most of what we're digesting is silly or stupid or in many cases toxic and evil. Side note: we are now, in this country, getting a real time civics lesson in how government propaganda works.

(Don't believe me? Reread the passage in 1984 where the main character is told that Qasem Soleimani has always been his country's number one enemy. Um, I mean the passage where he's told that his country has always been at war with Eastasia.)

I don't want my phone attached to my brain.

I don't want it in my hand all of the time either. How did something that didn't even exist for me ten years ago become such an addiction?

The answer goes back to the gambling thing and it's why I'm glad I don't live near a casino. But here's something funny: I do live near a casino. There's one in Columbus and I don't even know exactly where. I don't have to be a slave to my phone.

I don't have to continue to consume media passively and uncritically either.

Anyway, this month, as an experiment, I'm setting aside my phone-- for everything except it's original use: talking on it. (and okay, texting/messaging, because it is the only way my kids communicate with me). I'm also limiting my time on social media.

If you need me, call me. I promise I will answer the phone.

If I can find it.