Rethinking Social Media Time for Creatives

By Suzy Leopold

How are you doing with social media [SM] during these unprecedented times?

Is SM supporting your reading, writing, and creating goals? For many creatives, SM can be a distraction as one attempts to stay informed with issues and concerns during a global pandemic and a call for kindness and respect for all.

I notice when I step back from social media for short, frequent pauses I find more time to do what matters to me. I’m not planning on giving up on my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts completely. However, I’ve found these social media breaks impact my life in positive ways, including more reading, more writing, more creating, and most importantly more family time. I am thankful for the connections I’ve made with like minded writers I’ve met online, from trusted critique partners to friendships. 

Taking conscious SM breaks provides more headspace for creativity to show up in new ways.

I picked these flowers for you!

Social media and smartphone use are destroying attention span.

We’ve become a distracted world. Research shows our attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Research shows our attention span is becoming less. Check out the research in this info gram:

We are interrupted by notifications, reminders, and alerts almost all day long.

Often we interrupt ourselves to quickly check email messages, Facebook posts, create a tweet on Twitter, and/or scroll through Instagram. “Just checking in” derails deep, concentrated creative work and usually extends longer than just a five to ten minute quick look.

The human brain needs twenty minutes to resume and get back on task after a distraction.

As a writer, having an online presence somewhere is important for followers and a reading audience. However, one doesn’t need to be everywhere, all of the time on line.

Social media impacts our creativity in positive and negative ways.

Social media and searching the Internet can spark creativity. There are valuable emails to read, blogs to learn from, and FB posts written by like minded creatives. Many of these posts share information, inspiration, and encouragement for readers, writers, and creators.

These online communities can push your creative boundaries. However, there needs to be a balance. Spending too much time on SM can derail your goals.

The Internet and social media offer resources to writers and illustrators and can be an excellent tool.

There may be times to step away from online communities and engage with people in your community to bring fresh ideas that you won’t find on your FB feed.

Talking and reading about writing are not the same as actual writing.

“Social media groups for writers practically beg us to talk about our work, and it’s easy to spend our designated writing time talking about writing instead of actually writing. It’s important that we balance our desire to connect online with our need to guard our work time.”

Jess Townes, Co-Regional Advisor for the Kansas-Missouri SCBWI

Revisit the SMART goals you created at the beginning of the year. Make adjustments if need be. Push your writing to the next level.

For more information about goals click SMART goals. An additional post can be found by clicking more SMART goals.

I picked some more flowers for you

“Don’t wait, write. Take an hour a week, or twenty minutes a day. Or a four day retreat. If writing is something you love to do, then just do it. Plain and simple. You can do it. Don’t wait, write.”

Amanda Zieba, Children’s Book Author

Balance your desire to connect online with your need to set aside valuable time to read, write, and create.

In the comments below share a tip about how you balance your creative time with social media time to be eligible for the giveaway. If you follow the instructions, I’ll put your name in a hat and draw two winners. Each winner will receive a hand crafted bookmark painted with watercolors. U. S. Mail only.

The two lucky winners will be announced on the next GROG Blog on July 22nd. Good luck!