Social Media and Me

I just needed to put this out there. I'm in a love/hate relationship with social media. I love it because it gives me contact with people I don't get to see very often, allows me to keep in touch with family that is far away, run my challenge groups, see my friends kids grow up, run my business, etc. Lately though I feel like I want to check it 1000 times a day. Any one else like this?

Maybe you children are fighting with one another for the thousandth time today (maybe I'm exaggerating but today this is what I feel like it has been and it is only 8:30 AM). You've tried separating them. You've tried time outs. You don't want to get angry but you can feel your blood boiling. I want to give myself a time out. As soon as I do I end up on my phone scrolling social media.

A said to me today I am going to take my phone outside in case I get a text. Uh oh. What am I teaching here? That that little ding is more important than our play time. That that email is more important than one on one time with them.

Look at these statistics:

From: http://kiwicommons.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/obsessed-with-facebook11.jpg

I love seeing all of your pictures and learning about your lives. I just need to spend more time paying attention to that which is right in front of me.

So here is my new plan. I am only checking my email and social media sites three times a day. I've been checking once in the morning, once at nap time and then once after ABC go to bed. That is it. I have to schedule all my things on my to do list during that time and just get them done. I cannot spend hours scrolling through as there are too many more important functions to complete in a day.

I set myself a timer and cannot stay on any longer than that. Once the timer goes off I am done for that part of the day.

I'm hoping by putting time limits on myself my daughters will see that they are more important than anything else to me. That I value my time with them.

Any one else up for a challenge? I know some cannot of this because of work, but how about this. For one hour each day we will shut the ringers off on our phones and spend an uninterrupted hour playing with our kids. No surfing the internet. no TV. No radio. Just playing with our kids.

I know when I focus on the girls days go much more smoothly. There are less fights and we all have fun. Here is to a summer with more family time and less computer time.