My 2022 Social Media Intentions

A Month-Long Social Media Break

I led a month-long social media detox in December with over 100 other people in an effort to (1) reexamine my intentions for how I use social apps, (2) sift through how it impacts me, and (3) ultimately come back with fresh intentions for how to use it moving forward. I think taking a full step back is one of the only ways we can get truly honest with ourselves about social media’s impact on us & I learned SO much during my time away. If you’d like to join my next detox, you can sign up here and you’ll receive daily emails from me with questions & encouragement to accompany you as you take a break.

After taking December off, I’ve decided to re-enter the social media world here in the new year, but with a renewed purpose that I hope will serve others & enrich my life, too!

Here’s What I’m Doing Differently in 2022

I will be spending considerably less time on social media.

It’s kind of funny, when you take a considerable amount of time off of social media, it makes you wonder how you ever had time to spend on it in the first place! I know I am not an anomaly in feeling like life is very “full” right now with work & kids & home projects & relationships & cooking meals & reading books & all the other regular stuff that makes up normal life! I do enjoy social media and find benefit in it both professionally & personally, but not at the expense of the many, many other more important things that make up the substance of what I think is most important in this life.

I have used app time limits before and will continue to do so while also scheduling a regular day off of social media each week, a week off each month, and at least one month off each year if not quarterly or bi-annually. I so enjoyed leading the December social media detox that it makes me want to incorporate monthly breaks more regularly so that I can re-evaluate things communally with others. It was so eye-opening and fun!

I will not be sharing as much content about my kids.

I won’t get fully into all of my reasoning on this blog here, because I have now written several other blogs on the topic of internet safety & privacy regarding children (you can check them out here), but I will say that during my time off social media, I invested lots of time into researching the benefits & risks of sharing photos & information about my kids on social media. What I’ve learned has drastically changed how I’ll be doing this moving forward from how I have done it in the past.

Having a “public” account for business purposes has specifically had a large impact on these decisions as well. I want to protect the innocence, privacy, safety, and identity of my children as I best know how and allow them the chance to create their own “digital identities” when they are old enough to do so, if they even want to. I am a work in progress and learning as I go, but I am definitely not going to be sharing about my kids on social media in the same ways I have in the past.

I want to create content that serves others & serves a purpose.

To clarify this more vague intention, I want to create & post things on social media that actually benefit others! Sure, I love sharing bits & pieces of my life & the work I do that inspires me, but I want to put more intentionality into creating things that actually educate, encourage, & provide helpful resources for others. Right now what I envision this looks like is sharing content that helps people:

• learn more about photography/editing

• organize their digital & printed photos thoughtfully

• ENJOY the photos that they do take with printing tips & resources

• share their images safely online

• know when to put their phones/cameras down & just live life with eyes wide-open

• have conversations about things that I think matter

I deleted my Facebook (gasp).

I haven’t really utilized Facebook for much personal connection in a couple years now, so this wasn’t too difficult of a decision. I currently use Instagram primarily, so I decided to streamline things a bit for myself. I did have a little bit of anxiety around deleting my Facebook completely, because it has served as a time capsule of sorts for my life since I was about 14! But as I was going back through old things I had posted on FB, trying to clean things up for safety & privacy reasons, I found that it was easier to just delete my account altogether and start fresh.

So, I created a new account with the clear purpose of managing my Suzy Collins Photography business page, checking in with my Digital Photography 101 online course community group, & selling stuff on Marketplace (love me some marketplace - anyone else?!) I might also use it for joining specific interest groups as I want to. I literally have only one “friend” on my new account - my husband, ha - and I won’t be using it as a space for anything except for the intentions I just listed.

If you’ve considering deleting a social media account but feel nervous about it, check out this blog for a checklist of things I did before deleting mine to make sure I didn’t lost any special memories or login information.

I’ve been on a journey of reevaluating social media. If you’d like to read some more of my musings on the subject, you might like some of these blogs.