Why I stay on social media

Sometimes, increasingly, I want to leave social media entirely. It can be an unpleasant place, and mindless. But as I’m scrupulous in how I navigate my newsfeeds I mostly avoid the worst. I engage little beyond my own accounts, which I know sort of defeats the social side of social media. But it keeps me from being dragged into swampy territory I wish to avoid where the opinionated, the bigoted, the needy wallow. It can also be a tedious place where too much time gets wasted. And I dislike the performative, fatuous nature of much of it.

When I feel the strongest urges to leave, it’s surprising how timely it is that memories pop up which remind me of the good that social media can bring. This morning Facebook did it again with a post I made on 27th August 2012. It was on my personal profile as I was yet to have any public platform.

We were at the end of a five week stay in France and heading home to the UK. I posted some photos for friends, saying what a lovely time Susie-Belle and Renae had enjoyed.

Susie-Belle’s first year with us was complete, we’d adopted her in August the previous year. She’d just enjoyed five weeks in the place we now live full time. Back then it was still our holiday home and we were working hard getting things in place for a simple, peaceful life here with the dogs.

I was in the middle of a terrible time with my family which still had a couple of years to run of intense unpleasantness. Through it, Susie-Belle and Renae were my constant positives. They were helping me in ways only now with the passing of time can I properly appreciate. Back then I believed, wrongly, the help was far more one-sided, as I was helping Susie-Belle recover from her years in the puppy farm. How little I appreciated at the time what she was doing for me when my human family was failing.

I was in the earliest stages of writing my first book about her. Now I’m writing my fifth. A book which is revisiting a difficult, dark time in my life. But it was also a time when Susie-Belle and Renae brought essential joys. Every day they kept my problems in perspective. And now those day to day moments kick up social media memories which bring smiles.

And on with social media I go.

Susie-Belle’s life has touched many via social media and her legacy, the charity Schnauzerfest was born on it. It continues every day to help dogs from terrible backgrounds and social media is essential to that. So I stay, cherishing the memories and making it work for me the best I can and not the other way around. And mine it for memories which may or may not make the final edit of my next book.