“We who live in quiet places have the opportunity to become acquainted with ourselves, to think our own thoughts and live our own lives in a way that is not possible for those keeping up with the crowd.” -Laura Ingalls Wilder

So here we are in the crazy, also known as 2020. I’ve written my thoughts on the inconsistencies/lack of scientific evidence with mask wearing, and how mainstream media has made this an apocalyptic election year like no other. This summer as I shared a differing viewpoint from the Black Death narrative, my content was abruptly taken down from Facebook as “misinformation” which could be harmful to its users. This is baloney stew at its finest. And it happened not once, not twice, but at least three times. The censorship was so blatant that it just became comical.

By now we are in month 8 of this emergency, where we were asked to “flatten the curve”. We are now in month 8 of governors overstepping their exercise of power to control how far apart we can physically be from another human being, what we put on our faces, turning us all into robotic germaphobes. I feel like there needs to be a disclaimer now any time I talk about this: it does not mean you never wash your hands or practice basic hygiene. Use the common sense God gave you which does not require a government babysitter. But back to Facebook….

Well, after this happened a few times it was clear that only one kind of voice can be heard on this platform. Along with bias censorship, I realized it wasn’t good for me personally to see others photographing themselves masked up. I would rather see your smile, your actual face. Also, I want to focus on the relationships I have in my small circle rather than scroll mindlessly through a couple hundred people I’m acquainted with. More depth, less breadth.

So over a month ago I pulled the plug. Ironically a few weeks later a documentary on Netflix titled The Social Dilemma came out detailing the realities of Big Brother aka Social Media. I don’t have Netflix and do not plan to because they have other disturbing issues, but I saw the trailer and that was enough. It had everybody in a frenzy for five seconds and then I guess forgotten about? The truth is we love to see what others are doing, even people we don’t know very well. Yet what we see posted on social media is not their real life either. I like seeing beautiful well crafted pictures too, but it is not reality 99% of the time. To be sure, we should look for God’s beauty and His blessings all around us every day! It’s just that not everything is Pin-tresting all the time or every snapshot of our lives needs to be documented online.

This has been a good lesson for me to learn too truthfully. I’ve been naive in not considering the long term effects of “liking” a post, commenting or posting myself. Just by being on a website or Googling is information collected for future marketing purposes. Of course, as a “commoner” my posts on Instagram and Facebook are not making headlines, but they have data on me (and you) just the same and can wield its use if ever convenient.

This is not a push for anyone to jump off the social media wagon. That is a personal decision. I also understand some choose to stay on Facebook, Instagram (which I deleted as well), and the like, to stay in touch with friends and family spread out across the world.

Like the quote from Laura Ingalls Wilder at the top of this post, I crave quiet in my world. It’s not that I will ignore current events or people, but this year in particular has been very loud and toxic. Facebook unfortunately feeds that and for most, this platform has become the virtual water cooler. So as a personal decision, I took myself out of the noise. There is enough to keep me busy anyway since we made the decision to homeschool (a story for another day). I just wanted to share with you reasons I think are good enough to bow out of FB.

It’s interesting I am using a tech tool in order to explain the dangers of it. Technology isn’t the devil and has redeeming qualities, hopefully like this blog 🙂 Yet especially as Christians we have to be cautious. Go into these social vortexes with eyes wide open if you must enter at all. The tin-foil hat conspiracy theories aren’t far fetched if they’re true like The Social Dilemma shows us.

Censorship and cancel culture are dominant which is why so many won’t speak up. I don’t want to be a part of something that doesn’t even tolerate an opinion different from the main narrative. Considering how influential these tools are in deciding how we think, dictating how we feel and what we do is a red flag for me too. It might be too little, too late but at least I don’t have to provide any more data for Facebook. As long as there is freedom of speech for this little blog, you’ll find me here.

Grace upon grace,

April