Although, depending on where you live, it might not feel like Easter was just here (we even had snow this week), the celebration of Our Lord’s death and resurrection has come again. I hope yours was a time of peace and renewal. In my church it’s customary to give up something during the 40+ days leading up to Easter, and so this year I decided to take a break from… social media.

Now social media is a big part of my anime blogging, so this meant putting a significant hobby of mine on hold. No blogging (except for a couple of First Impressions I promised TWWK), no Twitter, no Pinterest, etc. Not even Discord. I was off cold turkey (though, given the weather, the turkey was not likely to be anything but cold).

At the outset, this was actually a welcome change for me. I’d been feeling unsettled, distracted. With four kids, I already have enough people demanding my attention and time; why put myself at the mercy of smart phone notifications, too? With all the notifications tuned off and my apps closed, I began to feel a sense of peace.

By the time Easter rolled around, I still felt more peaceful, but I also missed the real human contact that is possible with the anime online community: that is, you! Surely, I reflected, there has to be a way to find the best of both worlds—to be connected but not chained, to make social media an obedient servant rather than a tyrannical master.

So what I’ve hit upon for now is simply to keep notifications off. I’ll check Twitter and WordPress throughout the day, but it’s on my terms and without the constant “ding ding!” of digital whack-a-mole. And for now, I feel at peace.

How about you? Do you have any suggestions for balancing social media in your life? Let us know!

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negativeprimes

Dr. Steve, aka NegativePrimes, was introduced to anime while working on his Ph.D. in literary studies, when the local anime club showed Naruto’s fight against Zabuza and Haku on an auditorium big screen. His favorite anime series include FMA: Brotherhood, Erased, Snow White with Red Hair, and Gate, and he also enjoys computer programming, gaming, and technology. Where he finds the time for these, after prayer, work, and raising several children, remains something of a mystery.

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