Facebook and social media can be addicting.

Studies have actually shown a similar activation within the brain as with drugs.

Yet many of us aren’t necessarily addicted to, let’s say Facebook, as we are wasting time.

How do I know I’ve had too much Facebook? By my attitude.

First off, there’s a valid reason for social media, especially with us thirty-somethings, like myself.

My friends and family don’t live near me, and, further, as a mom with two active children, who wants to devote real-life time to them, I don’t want to spend my day texting and sending photos individually—so I turn to things like Instagram and Facebook to connect collectively, to help further relationships I value that might otherwise stall, and, frankly, to save some time.

This said, I know that I’ve been on Facebook too long when I begin to feel catty or mean.

For me—I’ll be honest—this doesn’t take long.

I have a short window of patience in general, and too many cheesy “my family is perfect” moments or “look at how we still get to hang out as a couple despite also having small children” type pictures just get under my skin.

And, yes, I realize this is a reflection of my own wishes for dates with my husband or friends to chill with or for whatever that I think I desire or need—and this is when I know that I need to hop back off-line and back into my actual, living, breathing daily life.

Because happiness is not created through candid photographs or a new, cute top—not that I don’t also love sharing these types of experiences on social media or find them completely invalid in general.

Happiness is breathing into—not through—the life that we currently inhabit and finding joy there; finding a spark of something beautiful, even when feeling depleted, or moving forward, or changing courses, or staying the course.

Happiness is not found on Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook—and when I begin to question just a hair too much the beauty that resides in my own waking life, that’s when I know that it’s time to do these things instead:

1. Sleep.

I love sleep. Love it.

And now, as a parent who never gets enough, I appreciate good sleep too. So, please, let me share this with you:

Leave your phone outside of the bedroom and, for the love of God, go to sleep rather than peruse Facebook. It will be there tomorrow, trust me.

2. Exercise.

Most of my favorite yoga and Pilates workouts and podcasts are an average of 20 minutes long. The next time you’re on Facebook, notice how it easily eats up at least that much time.

Also, I can bring some free weights upstairs from my basement gym and press out a few strength-building sets within a 20-minutes time frame too.

Point: moving our bodies makes us genuinely feel good—inside and out—and it’s free and device-less and less time consuming than patrolling Facebook.

3. Read.

I hadn’t planned on reading the new Harper Lee novel, but, against previous plans, I decided to.

Yet, last night, when my teething baby wouldn’t fall asleep and after a day of fussiness, I found myself in the rare position of putting my feet up for a few minutes with nothing in particular to do; with no company, since my husband was now roaming the house with our active, mobile child and my oldest daughter was already in bed.

I, likely more by habit than anything else, picked up my iPhone to peruse my social media and read online news—you know, luxurious activities that I took for granted for many years B.C. (before children).

And then I look over and see Go Set a Watchman on the arm of the couch where I had wisely placed it an hour or so beforehand, perhaps anticipating such an evening’s experience.

I’ll admit putting my phone down wasn’t as easy as it should be, and that I still did snap an Instagram picture of the book in my lap before turning it off.

But I did, and I’m so glad—and, let me offer: it was extremely satisfying to carve out a little chunk of this book to have read—much more so than I could have predicted.

4. Another good thing to do: read to our children. 

I’ve noticed that since I had my second child, that I can never read to my oldest as much as she voraciously craves it. Even five minutes of reading to our kids instead of being on our phones might make more of a difference than we can imagine.

5. Talk on the phone.

Okay, so I’ll own up to not liking to talk on the phone for the most part, but, more than this, it’s just not something I’m either capable of doing, or willing to take the time to do, as this takes time away from my kids in a life that already seems to be moving too fast.

I’m generally doing other things, like reading…and keeping the busy baby safe—you know things like that.

Still, sometimes I’ll be on Facebook—God, I must sound like a huge dork right now. How many times have I mentioned Facebook?

Here—Facebook, Facebook, Facebook! Let’s throw it in a few more.

Anyways, I’ll see a friend’s name and think how it really has been forever since we’ve actually talked. Or, more often, I’ll think of my parents or a friend who isn’t on social media at all, and, at times like these, I decide to make a phone call.

To a real, live person.

No, not texting—a phone call.

Trust me, this is good for us to do, even if it is quickly becoming outdated.

6. Write something.

Writers and bloggers—this is especially true for you. However, writing in a journal is also something that can be wonderful for all of us.

And it doesn’t have to be a spill-your-guts blank book. It can be simple and refreshing and rejuvenating to jot a few easy thoughts that pop into our heads—with our hands and a pen. (But if you are a writer, prepare for your best work to leak out this way.)

7. Don’t multi-task.

Multi-tasking is a myth. It really is.

No one can multi-task well—we’re actually just doing everything poorly.

Speaking of Facebook (ha!), I know we all have at least one family member who has to share the latest, awful news story featuring things like people being killed…right after posting to Facebook.

Dramatic, sure, but it’s absolutely true that we need to focus on the task at hand, whether it’s concentrating on eating a gooey peanut butter sandwich or driving a car.

I’m not saying that Facebook isn’t worthwhile in its own right.

It’s wonderful, for example, for moms like myself who rarely have actual adult contact during the period of a day and for connecting with long-distance friends and family—but it can also be detrimental to life rather than beneficial.

All I’m suggesting is that we notice when it’s becoming something that doesn’t add to our lives or, equally importantly, to our day.

I didn’t write this post to be condescending or to suggest that these aren’t things we can’t all figure out for ourselves, or that we don’t already know we should be doing.

No, this is intended to be a reminder that it’s these seized and ignored opportunities—like a 20-minute yoga practice or a book read to our child—that end up making up the stories of how our lives go.

Maybe it’s the high volume of times I’ve used the word, but is it ironic that it’s called Facebook?

Because I’m discovering that I would rather turn off my phone, at least from time to time.

I’d rather smile out here in the real world, with the people who matter the most.

I want to make my story go the way that I want it to; to look the way that I want it to, in real time.

I’d rather do this than co-exist within a largely fictitious story of one-dimensional pictures and stream-lined plots.

Photo: Flickr/Taking a selfie.

The post How to Know You’ve Had Too Much Facebook & 7 Things to Do Instead. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

My husband said to me yesterday that it’s called Facebook and not Assbook—because everyone is putting their best faces forward.

Yet, here’s a “real-life” story:

I go to the zoo all the time with my two daughters. Together the three of us ride the carousel, eat snacks at a picnic table and ooo and aaah over animals (and sometimes ewww too).

On the carousel, for instance, I sling the baby and help my oldest child onto her seat of choice (usually the ladybug). Rarely—okay, never—do we get told niceties when the girls are behaving.

We get a small handful of “aren’t they cute” gazes, but, in general, not much attention. (No one, for example, comes up and high-fives me for trying to be a good mama—even though, frankly, that would be welcomed.)

Yesterday, however, I lost my cool a few times. I was physically tired (not that I’m making excuses), and my baby was unhappy (teething—she’s allowed excuses) and my oldest daughter was just in a “trying mom’s already limited patience” mode (or so it seemed). I got plenty of nasty glares. I’m not making up the handfuls of attention that my normally under-the-radar, currently under-the-weather threesome received.

On the carousel, there was a grandma and her granddaughter behind us. She commented, not unkindly, on how the baby wasn’t too happy being in her carrier instead of on a merry-go-round creature. (Normally she loves being eye level with her sister, but, yesterday, that woman was right—she was ready to go home.)

I said something back, along with a smile, “Yeah, it’s barely 11 in the morning and my patience is already used up.”

She awkwardly smiled and quickly looked away—back to fake smiling at her grandkid.

Now I’m not one for unnecessary drama, rudeness or even over-sharing. That said, sometimes people don’t know how to deal with someone being genuine and not fakey polite. (I guess I should have awkwardly laughed back at her—hahahaaa!—and quickly looked away myself after her initial commentary.)

It must be nice to see 30 seconds—or, generously, five minutes—of someone’s day and life and make a judgment.

Actually, yesterday made me a better person because it was a wonderful reminder to not make my own snap assessments of other parents and children when we’re out at the zoo on a better-mood day.

In 30 seconds we can’t see how someone slept that night—or that week, or that month.

We can’t see the postpartum depression beginning to lift, but still lingering, like a fog, or a skipped cup of coffee so the family could have an earlier start to the day.

We can’t see a lot, if we’re being honest.

I put this picture up on my Instagram and personal Facebook accounts over the holiday weekend:

It’s a pretty picture, right?

I took it as a commemoration of my baby’s first Independence Day.

My flow-y dress is feminine and sweet and I looked at her accidentally—naturally—when taking the image, because she was softly cooing at me. I liked this photograph better than all of the other versions, so I shared it.

What isn’t visible is that I smell like the outdoors. I smelled like grass and sweat.

I was playing outside with my girls and husband in this dress and I smelled, not like floral aromas coupled with the subtle scent of baby, but of nature and my own perspiration.

Because social media is not real.

Pictures are real, yes, and they convey an awful lot of authenticity in their own rights, but places like Instagram and Facebook are warehouses for what we want the world to see, not for what we don’t. This isn’t completely bad.

During my conversation with my husband about “Facebook versus Assbook,” he said people solely put up the good stuff. Now, I know we all have at least a couple of relatives or friends who don’t do this.

Instead, they inappropriately share personal dramas and spin their lives as miserable. Usually, I “unfollow” these people, if not outright “unfriend” them.

Because life is hard enough without being surrounded by people who only wish to see the negative.

I also posted this picture on my social media sites yesterday, after that frustrating day:

I took it in the zoo’s aquarium and captioned it this,

“Today sucked, but I saw this (at the zoo). I had a husband who supported me like crazy when I felt like I could fall apart from overwhelm. I ran a mile, at ease, to clear my head. (It was my first time running in a looooooong, loooooooong time—it felt great and I can’t believe I stopped at a mile.) I had my best full-wheel/backbend yoga practice since before having a baby. I ate the best meatloaf I’ve ever heard of (that husband again). I wrote more in a secret (ssssshhhhh!) book I’m working on. And I sat in the white rocker on my front porch, holding my oldest daughter while we looked at cars. Today, the baby laughed over and over, while repeating her word of the moment, “yeah,” and she ate well and has a good “pincher” grasp. You know what? Today had some really horrible moments—but some absolutely stellar ones too. Nighty, y’all.”

I think more than actually caring to put this out there for other people to see and read, I wanted to remind myself that the day had been a challenge, but that a plethora of beautiful moments had happened too.

Life is never all bad or all good. Never. Our attitudes can perhaps be all bad or all good, but life—no. It’s not that dichotomous.

Do I think we should all over-share regularly on Facebook or Instagram about our “real-life” days? No, not really. I’ll be the first to admit that I typically scroll right past a super-long, “self-indulgent” post, and I’m sure people could say the same about what I post from time to time.

So, no, this isn’t a call for social media shares to completely change, but it is a call for us not to forget that social media is not real life.

Let’s remember this especially when we see a mom at the zoo having one bad day—we didn’t see the other, three glorious days she brought her kids in a row, without problems.

Let’s remember this ourselves—we are not pictures of idyllic perfection. We are living, moving, breathing, feeling creatures and not those ideally posed on a merry-go-round for others to admire and enjoy.

Life is not picture perfect, even if we want it to be.

I posted this on my social media sites too; this image of me in the dress that I had worn over the holiday weekend.

I captioned it this:

“You know what we can’t experience through social media? How someone smells. Scent is so huge to me personally. Vivid memories from very early on can come back instantly through a smell. Does this dress look feminine and sweet? Because I smell like the outdoors. I smell like grass and sweat. I played outside with my kids in this dress and quickly threw it back on this morning. Can you see the faint image of my coffee cup? My house smells like freshly ground and brewed coffee in the morning. This world we create online for others to see is not real, on either end. Let’s not forget to get out there and play for real.”

And, as I sit here sipping that photographed coffee from that pink mug, in the dress that almost overwhelming emanates the aroma of too-tall grass, sprinkler runs, sunscreen, outdoor barbecue, gentle summer kisses, and sweat, I think what a world this would be if we all really did try to live and be the best versions of ourselves, while still allowing space for reality.

Photos: Author’s own.

The post It Ain’t Called A**book, Schweetie. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.