Social Media Junkie

Once upon a time, I had three little kids. I told them, “Whatever social media platform you join, I’ll be joining too.”

This wasn’t, I told them, so much so that I could look over their shoulders constantly. I had no desire to do that. 

I wanted to see what their social media presence looked like from an outsider’s point of view, and I wanted to be there to see what the zeitgeist of that platform was like; to see what they were exposing themselves to. 

This was what I told them and myself. It was true, as the saying goes, “from a certain point of view.”

I had other, less parentally driven, motivations, too.

Reason #1 – People Watching

The primary reason was that I’m a social media junkie. 

I love learning the ways people go online to share their lives and what’s going on in them. I’m an inveterate people watcher.

In the real world, there’s little I like more than getting a cup of coffee, sitting in front of my computer, and doing what many people would call eavesdropping on the conversations around me. 

I don’t do it to be rude. I consider it research. As a writer, it’s good to study the ebb and flow of conversation. You also never know where that next idea is going to come from. 

In the realm of social media, watching TikTok videos or cruising Threads serves much the same purpose, though at least in those cases people are aware they are sharing their words.

My worlds are populated with characters that carry with them facets of the people I’ve seen on social media. Again, it could be a turn of phrase I hear, or a person with a unique journey through life that I want to immortalize. If I see something interesting, “I’ll make you famous,” to quote Young Guns. 

Reason #2 – Making New Friends

The journey of a person like me can be a lonely one. I’ve always felt, as a writer and someone who’s probably on the autistic spectrum, on the outer fringes of what’s considered “normal society.” 

Social media opened up a whole new world for me. 

I’ve made quite a few friends over the years through various platforms, ones I count as real as the ones I’ve made in “meatspace.” Some have become as close as family. 

There was a time where that concept would have seemed foreign to many, even to me. Now, it’s simply true. There are quite a few people I’ve never met in person that I keep up with digitally for whom I feel a closer kinship than those I can have coffee with tomorrow 

I don’t forsake relationships with people geographically close to me. Far from it. These days, with everyone being as busy as they are, even those people seem to be easier to keep up with online, though I have started to make efforts to meet with those people face to face when I can.   

Reason #3 – Marketing My Stuff

Finally, and perhaps most obviously, my status as a social media junkie has always been partially in service to getting the word out about my projects. As I stated in a previous blog post, selling books in person is my strong preference. Even that practice requires having a strong social media presence.

To that end, I have a mailing list to let the dedicated fan base know when I have an event coming up. I also talk about those kinds of things on the various social media platforms I’m active on.

And that’s probably as good a place to say that, as much of a junkie as I am, even I have to limit which platforms I’m active on. These days, Threads, Blue Sky, Facebook, Substack and Instagram get the most love (AND MY LANDS ISN’T THAT ENOUGH?!?!). 

YouTube and TikTok get less attention. Making videos takes a lot of effort if they’re going to be any good, and most of the time I don’t have the mental gas to make that happen. But there are a lot of archived videos there to check out.

Blogging is also a sort of social media, I suppose, and I’m planning on being here more often than I have been in the past. Long form posts like this may have a better place elsewhere, but I can control this space better. And it won’t go belly up unless I want it to.

So, until I decide to check into social media rehab, you’ll find me somewhere on the latest platform for one or more of the above reasons.

Your Reasons?

What about you? What are your faves? And why can’t you quit them? 

Sound off in the comments.