For years, I have imagined a future I seemingly cannot attain. One where I no longer have a need for a smartphone and don’t share my life on the internet. Perhaps I retire to a cabin in the woods. You know, that type of thing an old person raging against modern times would do. Granted, I am not old, and I have accepted the smartphone need, but what exactly would happen if I did quit the rest of it?

No one I know seems to have managed it. At least no one I hear from any more, and that’s the point, isn’t it. As Cheri points on in No Social Media Club, 30% of Americans don’t use social media at all, where are their ideas published? The only ideas I can take in are those that want to quit and either can’t (me) or don’t really want to (also me).

The fact is, I am also worried. Worried about the feelings that also disappear if I were to somehow slip out of the grasp of social media. By some chance that I lose my motivation to share my life online and interact with others, would I also share my voice? The reality is that if my motivation to share were at some point removed, so too would be my drive to write.

Would I become another person lost to the no social media club? Never talked about, unless someone occasionally remembers that person who managed to quit it all. Looked back on with the same weirdness as I remember the kids at school that didn’t have TVs at home. It didn’t matter that these families were tight-knit, much happier and actually enjoyed each other's company — the weirdos didn’t even watch the X Files!

I wasn’t around to publish before the platforms took over, and somewhere in an alternate timeline there’s a me that never started sharing things. Does he still write? I am positive my blog would die along with my interest in other peoples lives. As much as I do not write to be read, my whole blog is built around sharing thoughts and ideas to faceless people. If I don’t share with people I like, I doubt I would publish at all.