Social Distractions

I hate Facebook.  Okay, that's a lie.  What I hate is what it does to me.

Being who I am, I use Facebook and other social media to engage in debate.  I enjoy both expressing my views and honing my arguing skills by getting into it with others.  Unfortunately, since I'm not in the room with people who respond and I have to wait for them to come back online, I tend to get a bit edgy when there's a pause.  It makes me want to check over and over so that I can reply with my witty repartee and demonstrate just how much I enjoy the cycle.

Of course, this makes writing a novel hard sometimes.  I know I should be doing another 1,000 words for Onyx, but I can't concentrate unless I know what that asshole on the other end of my rant said.  Therefore, rather than get deeper into my next chapter, I find myself checking in on Facebook far too much.  I can't prioritize, and that keeps me from finishing.

(Facebook is the pink elephant in the room)

Yes, it's a sign of immaturity, but dammit, I need to make the other person see my point, and he or she can't see it if I'm writing a novel...even though my book writing is what I really want to do for a living.  It creates a cycle of not doing what I must, and it really annoys me.

I should knuckle down and put forward what's most important, and that's writing my new book.  That's challenging.  I'm not as bad as I used to be, but even then I could focus on what was important instead of wondering if the person I was engaging in a useless political or religious debate said something I should respond to.  Truth is that none of us are going to solve the problems of the world by arguing on Facebook, but getting my work ready to publish might actually make a difference in my life.

This would be easy to solve if everyone would just acknowledge I was right...or if I just ditched the childish bullshit.  But where's the fun in that?