G’day, my name is Matt Fradd and this is Ascension Presents.
Today I want to share with you why I decided to quit social media.
Now you might be thinking “You didn't quit social media, Matt!
You have three Twitter accounts and one Instagram account and two Facebook pages.
Are you crazy?”
I do have all of those things, and they're still running.
But I don't run them.
I decided to hire somebody to take them all over.
I had him change all of the passwords so that I could no longer get in.
I flirted with just shutting them down for good, but many people told me that they were doing a lot of good
and so I found a middle road.
So I no longer use social media at all and it's been really great.
So I don't know how you are with social media... maybe you can use it responsibly.
Maybe for you it doesn't get in the way of your most cherished relationships.
Maybe it doesn't suck away all of your time and talent and energy.
But for me it just felt like it was getting to that point.
It felt useless, like a net negative.
Like, yeah, I get to see some fun things and click on some links
but more than anything it was just a waste of time.
That it's less of a newsfeed and more of a poker machine.
It is intended to be addictive so you will stay on it,
so that you can see advertisements, so that Twitter can get paid.
And when you think about it, how many people are even seeing your tweets and Facebook messages anyway?
Some people.
But I think I've got, like, 25,000 Twitter followers or something
and I share something and it might get seen a few times, maybe not.
And I just thought, “This is a waste of time and I don't want to do it anymore.”
I'm tired of having online Twitter debates with people that go nowhere.
I'm tired of seeing vulgar and stupid things from vulgar and stupid people.
And I don't want to do it. So I quit.
So — as I say — maybe you're different to me, right?
Like, maybe you can moderate the amount that you use Instagram and Snapchat
or whatever else it is that you use,
and you think it's not a problem, that it's actually a blessing to your life.
I think some things can be beautiful and some things can be distracting,
but both beautiful and distracting things can FEEL entertaining, if that makes sense.
Beautiful entertaining things: good. Beautiful distracting things: not necessarily good.
17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal once said that all of men's ills
can be traced back to the fact that he doesn't know how to sit alone in a dark room silently.
If somebody walks towards you and you don't like them, what do you do?
You walk away from them.
What do you do when you don't like you? When I don't like me?
Same thing.
We escape ourselves by plunging headlong into a myriad of distractions,
thereby breaking up our interior life.
And thereby not having to reflect upon ourselves and our desires and our unfulfilled desires
and what we love, and what we hate, and what the future holds for us.
This is why, I think, we don't like adoration incidentally.
I mean, I know we “like adoration” but many times I'll go to adoration and think
I'd rather be in a coffee shop, I'd rather be in a used bookstore, puttering about.
I know I shouldn't WANT to but I do want to. Why?
Because I don't like myself and in adoration I have to be with myself.
And again, don't be quick to show me sympathy because I'm actually trying to accuse you by accusing me.
I think you're like me a lot more than you realize.
So how do we stop doing this?
How do we stop plunging headlong into these distractions
in order to avoid having to be with ourselves?
We stop distracting ourselves.
And that can be painful at first.
One of the ways I've decided to stop distracting myself, and to be with myself,
is to get off social media.
And not only to get off social media,
but now something I've also implemented is by getting off the internet Friday night until Monday morning.
So I actually put my phone away.
Haha, I actually told my wife the other day, “Please hide my phone,”
and she was so sweet, she actually hid it in the roof.
That was fun.
But in not being distracted, I get to do all these other things that are beautiful,
like read books and drink coffee with friends
and play Lego with my kids and wrestle on the bed with them.
These are all things that maybe I do anyway,
but when I do I always feel like I'm missing out on something.
That I need to reply to that Twitter troll,
that I wonder how many people have retweeted that last brilliant thing I had to say.
And I just am tired of it. I'm tired of it.
I want to do beautiful interesting things. So I'm looking into beekeeping, right?
I'm beginning to pick up different hobbies, like fishing, and I want to hunt,
I want to do stuff that people used to do before they wasted all their time on social media.
It seems to me that maybe today, more than any time in the history of mankind,
people — generally speaking — are saying “I'm too busy.”
Really? Are we really too busy?
Maybe. But what is it we're busy doing? Important things that we love?
Are we engaged in beautiful activities that bring us and those around us life?
Or are we just distracting ourselves because we don't like ourselves?
I'm tired of it, man. I'm done.
So follow me on Instagram or Twitter @Matt Fradd... Or don't. I really don't care.
Now you might be thinking “Well I've seen you say some things on these platforms.”
Yes. Occasionally I'll send an email to the person running my social media and have him post it for me.
Other than that, I put saint quotes and he's developing different memes of Thomas Aquinas for me up there.
So you can still follow me, I just don't care if you do or not anymore.
It's like this weird game where we're trying to see how many Twitter followers we can find.
I remember when I had 1,000 I thought that was cool. Now I have 25,000.
Who cares? It's really a game I'm not interested in playing.
The game I'm interested in playing is trying to be a good husband and a good father, and I struggle at that.
And one of the things that isn't helping me at that is Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
And that's why I signed out.
I'd be really interested to see what you think about that.
Leave me your thoughts below; leave me a question if you want: #askMattFradd,
and I'll try to respond to it in an upcoming episode.
That's all I got to say. Cheers! See you later.