Well Iowa, It’s Been Real

Have you ever woken up and said "I need to do something different?" Have you ever wanted to just take a break from doing certain things? That's a situation I've been finding myself in a lot recently. Sometimes it's good to take a step back and go about things a different way, even if it's only for a little while.

That's what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future. No, I'm not talking about taking a break from the radio show, I'll be there tomorrow. I still have the opportunity to talk to you on the radio or on the app. Where I won't be talking to you as much is... on social media. I'm taking a break from these.

Yesterday (April-4) I made the choice to delete social media from my phone. I'm not exactly sure why but lately social media has been so draining, at least on my feed. Other than the occasional funny meme, I swear all I ever see or read are people fighting or arguing about things they won't care about the next day.

For good and bad, I'm a pretty annoyingly positive person. Unless something really bad happens, I tend to normally find some kind of positivity when it comes to just about anything. For some reason, the constant flood of arguing or seeing the terrible things people say to each other on social media is starting to drive me insane.

I would also like to mention none of this has been directed to me, at least to my knowledge. I'm talking about the general population. It seems people have zero qualms with saying god-awful things to someone over the internet and I don't really understand why. It seems like everyone is the meanest person in the world when using their fingertips or a keyboard to type a message to someone else. I guess I'm just kind of over things like that. I've always believed that if someone can only say something terrible to someone else over the internet and not to their face, they should probably just keep their comment to themselves.

Social media can be an incredibly powerful tool and it has done a LOT of good in the world, even if you think it hasn't. It's connected family members, helped people better their lives by allowing them to make tons of money, helped raise money for countless causes who need it, it's helped small businesses advertise, and it's helped people find lost pets. The list could go on and on.

The sad part is that every incredible story, you see or read on social media, it's surrounded by absolute nonsense. I'm convinced people should have to pass some kind of test to be able to use social media.

No one really knows how much time they have on this earth and for the time being, I'm taking a break from seeing how horrible humans can be to each other on the internet. I will still have Facebook but I've made the choice to strictly use it for work purposes. Heck, social media is probably how you found this story.

Social media isn't all bad but it has reminded me, way too much lately, how cruel humans can be to one another. I don't really want to live my life like that thinking people suck. I like people, and I want to continue believing most people are pretty cool. Check out this person who named their pet cat White Lion Stripe Tiger. How awesome is that? Can we see more of that on social media?

I'm sure I'll eventually work my way to having to apps back on my phone but I'm taking the rest of April off.