My Digital Policy
Some of you might have looked for and failed to find me on Facebook or Snapchat or Tiktok or Instagram or whatever the latest social media platform emerging might be.
There was a time in my life when I watched what was coming next, duly joined and then burned many hours watching to see how I was being received on said new platform. At a certain point, though, I started adding up my time spent online and on my phone. It turned out it was about 1200 hours a year, a waking month out of every year, a full year out of every decade. I decided to cut way back. I got rid of my iPhone and switched to a flip phone. I wrote a book about it. And since then I’ve kept to a pretty strict digital diet. Yes, I am on Twitter. Not out of any particular allegiance to what can also be a toxic medium but simply because as a working journalist some degree of social network visibility is unfortunately part of the job description. I continue to favor in person interactions over digital, a phone call over a text message exchange, and reading on paper over a screen. It’s not for everybody. I don’t judge. But I try to keep in mind that whenever I look at a social media platform or an iPhone, 10,000 programmers eyes are looking back at me trying to lure me back in. I’m doing my best to stay away. I’m happy to discuss it.
