why i started a blog after a year without social media (during the pandemic)
Starting this blog was a huge step for me. Over the last few years, I systematically deleted almost all my social media accounts because I felt them consuming my time and energy in ways that hurt me and my friends.
I had hopes that deleting my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts would help me build my offline relationships. It was great at first, but after the global pandemic hit, I began to reconsider relying exclusively on face-to-face interactions.
This post gives an overview of why I chose to start this blog.
i want my family and friends to know what i'm doing
This may sound surprising, but some small-town folks like everyone in the town to know their business. Growing up, I found that one of the best things about a small town is that everyone there cares about you and what you're doing with your life. In fact, my whole town rightfully feels that they share in the successes and challenges I experience every day because they all contributed so much to raising me. I got to do some awesome things in elementary through high school, but these days I live hundreds of miles from the little town I grew up in and I'm moving even farther away within the month.
My whole town rightfully feels that they share in the successes and challenges I experience every day because they all contributed so much to raising me.
Further, I've lived at college for the past four years. I've made just as many friends during that time as I did during the entire rest of my life (both in and out of the university). Now that I'm moving on to the next step of my life, I realize that these people are just as important to me as those who have known me since I was born.
My older friends ask me all the time how they can keep up with my latest projects and accomplishments. My peers seem to appreciate my perspectives on life and living. I hope that this blog will provide a way for me to feel connected to my friends and family. I hope it will also provide a way for them to feel more connected to me in ways that make them happy and appreciate how much meaning they give my life.
i want to share my work
It's no secret that I'm a nerd. Worse: I'm a nerd with an engineering degree and no idea how to use it. This means I spend a lot of time working through ideas and projects that many would consider to be rabbit holes and time sinks. While they may be right, those are the kinds of things I love to do.
Just in case someone out there appreciates what I've worked on, I will share those things here a little bit at a time. Hopefully, they'll be put to good use!
i want to control my personal information
Despite my discourse above about wanting to share my life with my friends and family, I'm also a bit of a privacy nerd. I'm not worried about nefarious parties using my personal information against me, but I do like to control the information I release and what people can do with it.
For example, Facebook allows me to share almost anything with the entire world, often serving the information directly and immediately to my friends and family (just like I want them to!); however, every time I share something on Facebook, the company uses the information I share to increase their revenue from me and everyone else on the platform. This is not evil or even bad! It's simply their business model and I don't want to be part of it. I think they (and all other social media platforms) remove more value from my life than they add to it in the form of the services they provide. This is the main reason I recently left all social media platforms.
i want to try something new
I've never done this before, and I think it will be fun!
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