Social Media has become an integral part of our lives. Among other things in our lives, it can be a distraction for a lot of us. There are times we have allowed our time on social media to replace spiritual disciplines, like silence and solitude. Or, worse, time with God has been replaced by time on the Facebook etc. As more Christ followers recognize and acknowledge this, fasting social media has become a norm. Here’s a challenge: what about fasting social media as a social media manager.
As a regular practice, people either drastically reduce their time on social media or stay away completely, over a certain period.
The Skinny On Fasting
Excuse the following, simplistic definition: fasting is intentionally going without food or other things as a way to focus on God. On fasting, one of the things John Piper says:
We are putting our stomach where our heart is to give added intensity and expressiveness to our ache for Jesus.
We contextualise this for social media, of course. So, may we starve our habit of the scrolling and double-tapping, and shift that toward God. Now, how do we handle fasting social media as a social media manager? Fasting social media as a social media manager–the practical stuff:
Delete Personal Apps
One of the things that can be helpful is deleting personal apps. For example, with Facebook, delete the personal and messenger apps from your mobile devices. Rather manage your page(s) with Facebook’s Pages app. Use the Facebook ads app to manage your campaigns.
Still on Facebook, use business manager instead of managing pages from your personal account. This means you can login by email without having to be logged into your personal account.
Schedule Posts
One of the things that could keep you on social media longer than you’d prefer is posting in real-time. Since the goal of your fast is to spend as little time as possible on social media, schedule posts for the period of your fast. With this taken care of, you will be occupied less about creating content and looking for content ideas.
This can be great in reducing the noise in our minds, to actually focus on spending time with God.
Social media manager, scheduling posts can help reduce noise during your fast (Click to Tweet)
Batch Processing
Batch process your responses. Hopefully, there aren’t nasty comments and such you have to address in real-time. Focusing on God is not only about a diary entry but also mental space as well.
Focusing on God is not only about a diary entry but mental space as well. (Click to Tweet)
If you also respond to blog comments, consider moderating comments. Also, when you respond to comments or messages, do just that and, when you are done, close that app.
Notifications
Disable social media notifications. Notifications add extra weight to your thinking and cripple productivity and focus. They can also add to the noise. Fasting (should) heighten(s) our alertness to God’s voice. Notifications can add to the noise.
Social media notifications can hamper our focus on God (Click to Tweet)
Accountability
Speak to your leader or supervisor about what you’re doing and why. If your church employed you to manage communications and social media it can be awkward telling them you’re not going to be doing your work because, well, you want to ‘focus on God’.
Talk through about what this means and looks like and the measures you’re putting into place. There might be implications for the rest of the team or church. Be mindful.
(Leaders note: your social media manager’s spiritual well-being is important. And, a focused time in seeking God will help them grow in their faith and potentially their work.)
The other aspect of accountability is telling a couple of people who will help you stay the course. We need people to help us sometimes.
Fasting social media, even as a social media manager could help you realise the extent of how you engage it personally.
Team
If you work in a team there’s some great news. Taking shifts to manage and fast social media can be an easier way to navigate some of the challenges of fasting social media.
Outro
Will you take the challenge?
Anton Bhana says
Great post Blessing! Its so hard to believe there is such a thing as fasting social media. From our early Christian life who would have thought. Its become a reality and more and more of our ‘focus’ is on the online platform. One of the ways I try to discipline myself to stay away from social media is set “internet boundaries” for myself. For example, when I go for meetings or somewhere with my family, I disable cellular data so that my focus can be on my appointment or family rather than being tempted to check my phone. I am trying to get in to a better habit in the evenings when I am tempted to just waste time by checking every app for notifications. It is a real battle when trying to focus on God because we have developed an urge to see whats going on online especially when it is work related or can move our careers forward. I actually think I need to do a complete social media detox to be honest .
Blessing Mpofu says
yes; we have to be proactive about how we manage ourselves. we have to manage use of social media (and more) . awareness of how it impacts our lives in every sphere is an important thing to keep our finger on. so much to work through, right?