#268: What We Learned Offline

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Elsie: You're listening to The Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. This past year, Emma and I both spent a significant amount of time off social media after more than 15 years of working professionally as social media influencers and running online businesses. So we were chronically online. Today we're going to share what we learned in our offline time, including the pros and cons, and how we wanna approach social media moving forward. Cool. I think this will be like a fun and different episode. So I'm excited to talk about this. This is a kind of a hot subject, right?

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Emma: Yeah, I think so. Plus, earlier in the year we did an episode where we interviewed our third sister Elise, and I'm sure we'll reference that because she was a catalyst for me with this because she also got off social media. So if you haven't listened to that, I would go back and listen to it. It's an interesting listen anyway, but it also might make some of this make more sense.

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Elsie: So the episode is number 247 and it's called One Year Without Social Media with Elise Cripe. Alright, so we just wanted to say a quick note that this week I have a lot of construction noise in the background. We're really sorry for that. Honestly, like my house is a hellhole and I cannot tell them to stop. I can't.

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Emma: She needs it to keep going.

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Elsie: We're sorry. We're trying to work around it and this is the best we can do for you. If they come and they do work, I have to just let them do it. So please forgive us and if not, you know, we'll just have a one star review is the price we pay.

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Emma: Yeah.

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Elsie: Okay. So before we dive in, I wanna share, I just had a little solo writing retreat. It was so magical. And I wanted to share about it as all my best stories do. It starts with me crying in the car, just the usual. My novel, you know, I like, this man has been through it for this novel.

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Emma: Oh, he has.

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Elsie: I love him so much for it. So this day things were really feeling difficult. I did a rewrite this year, so a page one rewrite of my entire first novel, and it was hard. I'm not gonna lie. I'll talk about it someday in its own episode probably, but it was. It's not as fun to write a novel the second time as it is the first time. We'll just leave it at that but that's just work tremendously fulfilling at the end. Tremendously difficult in the middle. So I was in the middle part and I was crying in the car and he suggested out of definitely like love and compassion, but also I think he maybe wasn't thinking that I should go to Seaside, Florida for a week and have my own little house and do my own writing retreat alone. And I cannot tell you how fast I booked that flight. I got right on it.

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Emma: She was pulled out her phone and was like, okay, honey. See you later.

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Elsie: Yeah. I just figured out how to use airline points this year and so I did that and then I got a the cheapest Airbnb I could find. Which wasn't cheap, but it was. It was the best, the best I could do. And so yeah I went for a whole week. I left on Monday and I got back on Friday. So there was three full days in there where I was just alone in the house by myself and I had my friend to take walks with and I like had lunch a couple times and like a little bit of social time, but really not very much. It was a lot of days, like many, many, many hours of working, and it was incredible. Like I can't say enough good things about like where the novel was before the week started and where it was at the end. I had huge breakthroughs and I mean, I'm not saying that like you have to have that to write a novel because I definitely think that, like I write most of my work at home right now, literally in my bed because I don't have an office right now. We just got our floors refinished. Don't worry about it. But yeah, like I write a lot in my little bedroom with renovation noises and like with headphones on, and that's fine. I don't think you need anything special or have to like, spend money to write a book, however, however, however, however, but yeah, like it was such an incredibly inspiring, like, and it was such a luxury as a mom with young kids, you know, just the feeling of being alone is bizarre to me right now in life.

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Emma: Yeah.

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Elsie: Like it's just very strange, like waking up alone, going to bed alone, being on my own schedule, staying up late.

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Emma: Even when I drive my car and there's no kid in my car, which doesn't happen very often in the week. But when it does, I'm always like, oh.

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Elsie: yeah.

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Emma: Like it's just weird. It's a weird feeling. Yeah.

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Elsie: So, yeah, I completed my second draft while I was there and got into the third, and then I was like, okay, it is moving along. I felt like so much better and more encouraged and by the end of the week I now believe that there's a chance again that it's gonna turn out good. So that is good because before that I was struggling pretty hard. So yeah, if you're writing a novel and you have a little chance to get away. If your husband makes the brutal mistake of offering you outta the kindness of his heart.

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Emma: He does have a kind heart.

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Elsie: Get right on it. Get that one. Yeah, he does. Anyway, okay, so we're gonna talk about what we learned offline. Let's share a little bit about Elise's story in case anyone hasn't heard that episode. Just to like catch us up.

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Emma: You should definitely listen to the episode, but if I was gonna sum it up, I would say Elise realized that she didn't really need to be online anymore for her work, for her business.
She could step away from that. So she spent like a year where she prepared to do that and told everyone she was gonna do it, and then she did it and now she's off and she's learned things and she's grown and it's interesting. And she also has a newsletter, by the way now. It's incredible. You should sign up for it.

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Elsie: She's kind of like coming back in her own unique way. Which I think is also really inspiring. She's like had I think almost two full years now in my experience. This is a spoiler, but I think there are a lot of pros to being online. And I think there are a lot of good things about it. And I don't think it's a black and white subject.

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Emma: No, no. At all. No.

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Elsie: But I think that having a chance to experience being offline, especially if you're someone like us, like pretty much the day Instagram was invented, I was on it every day since. Like I never logged off of it. And then last year I kind of started having these little, the first time I did it, it was two weeks and the second time it was two months, and this summer it was three or four months. And you know, just having these like longer and longer periods of time where I'm completely logged out from all social media has been like incredibly different. It's a new experience that I had never had before. And when I became a mom, I always wondered, you know, what it must have felt like for our mom raising kids in the eighties and the nineties without a phone. She didn't have a phone. She barely had a camera. I mean, she took pictures of us like maybe once a season, you know what I mean? And then it was like, most of the time she was just like, I guess present in her life? I assume. Like I don't even really remember her, like reading novels or anything. Like, there was just no escapism. Well, there's three kids.

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Emma: Yeah. I dunno when she would read a novel, probably when we were asleep.

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Elsie: Yeah, like being able to have that experience if you haven't, I think just that alone. So interesting to just like see how it affects your nervous system and your brain and once the craving for it goes away and your thumbs aren't like, you know, trying to look anymore like what you do with your time naturally is also an interesting thing to find out.

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Emma: It is interesting, so I think I've mentioned this before, but I would play this game before I got rid of all social media where I would move my Instagram app and I would put the Domino's Pizza app in its place. So just every time I would just like by habit, not because I needed something, but just like by habit clicked it, then the Domino's Pizza app would open. And I'd be like, oh no, why did I click that again? Just punking herself. I was just punking myself and I was so shocked every time I would do it, I was always so shocked how many times I would open the Domino's Pizza app because it was just this little habit of like, oh, I'm a little bit bored right now. I'm gonna click that. So yeah, that would be the main thing that I would say. So I got off of Instagram this past January and I deleted it from my phone, and I don't have any social media on my phone. I have Pinterest. But I'm just gonna be really honest, I've never really been a big Pinterest person.

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Elsie; Yeah, you're not into it.

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Emma: I'm a huge visual person, and I like to collage like in real life. I think something about it, it just never, yeah. So I have Pinterest on my phone, but it's not a big draw for me. It's just not. And then I never really had TikTok. I think I might've had it on my phone for like a week. I also never joined Facebook. It was in the era where like we had MySpace and Facebook and it seemed redundant to me to have both for you. I think we have one for work. I don't know what the login is. We used it for work for something. Yeah, so that exists. I've never used it. I can't use Facebook because now like I feel like for me, I'm not good at technology really. And I'm not that interested in it, which is sort of why I'm not good at it because I think anyone can go to something you're interested in. But I'm not that interested in technology. I'm definitely like a paper person. So, unless I'm an early adopter, I tend to not be able to use things very well because they get too advance quickly. So Instagram was like the one that I like started using right away. And so I knew how to use it. And then they would add things. Like I remember when they added stories and I remember when they, you know, like just stuff like, I remember they added reels and I was like, oh, this has videos now. Weird. So I felt like I could use it because all along I'd been there. Now if I were, honestly, if I had never used Instagram and I tried today, I probably couldn't really use it. I'd be like lost. Like I don't know what to tap on. I don't know. And that's how I feel about Facebook and that's kinda how I feel about TikTok. Anyway, so the point is I have no social media on my phone other than I suppose Pinterest, which for me doesn't count. Maybe for you it does. I don't know. The main thing I say even more than social media is I have no infinite scrolls. I don't have anything that I can just keep scrolling. You know how you lose 30 minutes? I say that all the time. You just immediately lose 30 minutes. I don't have that anymore. I don't have any way to lose 30 minutes.

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Elsie: Wow.

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Emma: And one thing I've found too, so I've always kind of looked at my screen time. So prior to getting rid of social media on my phone, I would usually average around three to four hours a day. And it was a combination of a whole bunch of things, including podcasts. And now since getting rid of it, I average an hour a day. So it dramatically cut down my screen time and you know, I think you could look at that and be like, okay, well, so that two or three hours, that 2.5 hours the day that you're saving, what do you do with that time? I'm not really sure, to be honest. I'd love to say, oh, I'm way more productive. And I'm like, I don't know if that's true. I'm not sure. I think I'm just more present. And the main thing I would say that I've gained is boredom, which turns out is a huge gift. I was missing it so bad and I didn't even know it for so many years. And what I mean is, you know, growing up I didn't have a phone. Like, you know, if you're my age, I'm almost 40, then you probably didn't have a smartphone until you were, I don't know, 20 or something. Yeah, somewhere around in there. I had like a phone in high school, like I think my senior year, but it didn't have internet. It was just so you could call in case your car broke down. So my whole childhood and really my early twenties too, I was bored. And if I was bored, I found something to do, like read a book or start a business or make a collage, or who knows, do some kind of weird art project that I wanted to do. I did so many weird art projects growing up and in my early twenties. Along the way, that stuff kind of disappeared. And I think I thought that that was because I grew up and I got a job and I'm an adult now and I'm busy and I have things, you know, and I actually don't think it was, I think it's BEcause my boredom was gone. Because all of a sudden I had like an infinite scroll that could entertain me anytime I wanted. I could be entertained anytime by my phone that was in my pocket or in my purse. And now I don't have that. So I'm not naturally entertained. I have to entertain myself. And so I think of ideas all the time. Random ideas. Some of them I do. Many of them I don't because I don't have time to do every random idea I have. But it turns out that boredom is like a huge, huge gift. And I'll also say along those lines, so since getting rid of social media last year in January, I feel like I can get into flow state when I wanna write. So for me, I'm a writer anytime. And I never used to feel that way. There was many times I felt very blocked or I felt very uninspired is probably the word I would use. And now I really don't feel that way. I feel very much like I could do it anytime. Anytime I have time, because I do spend a lot of my time caring for young children.

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Elsie: Do you get like 30 minutes or an hour or like how long do you have to have?

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Emma: I mean, I'd love to have an hour or more, but if you can guarantee me 30 minutes where my kids aren't gonna come in the room I could probably do something pretty good.

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Elsie: Nice.

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Emma: I just feel very like ready to work anytime. Because I'm kind of always thinking about it in that 2.5 hours a day that I would've been scrolling. I'm kind of thinking about the next novel I wanna write or you know, oh, what could this character, because I'm a writer, so that's what I'm always thinking about. But for you, you might be thinking about painting or pottery or something else. Science or math, I don't know. Whatever you're into, man. So I like that. I kind of feel like I can access my ideas and my creativity so much faster because it's kind of always back there in these little boredom pockets of time. Like when I'm sitting in a waiting room or when I'm, you know, playing with my kid. But we've been playing for 30 minutes and I'm kind of zoning out, but he's still, you know, putting together the puzzle pieces or whatever. So it's just like this thing where it's there all the time. And on that note, I'll also say just if you're a parent listening, definitely be thinking about giving your kids the gift of boredom because I do think it is such a gift and it can be so easy to like, and I kept talking about phones, but I'm kinda talking about anything like just make sure they have pockets of time where they have to figure out something to do. Because I think that's such a gift because our parents gave us that for sure. And I think it contributed to our creativity and like just how we're curious people who wanna learn things and do things. Because I'm like, I don't like being bored. I better research aliens or write a novel or make something, you know, start a new business, whatever.

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Elsie: If you're a parent and you think that sounds very challenging. It is. Like I acknowledge that like my children right now are seven and ten and encouraging them to think of their own projects and ideas and kind of have their own creative time is one of my biggest priorities. But it's challenging. It's hard. It's not what they gravitate towards. It's not what they beg for. You know what I mean? So I think that like acknowledge no kid's gonna beg to be bored. You kind of have to like create a space for it and then defend that space because also just like all the activities that compile up at these ages is, you know, like I think it just naturally accumulates when they get into elementary school. But yeah, it's definitely one of the things we were raised with that were the most thankful for. So we're really trying to give it to our kids. I do think it's harder than ever, like in our current culture.

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Emma: Yeah. So that would be kind of like my biggest pro would be saying I got boredom back and I feel like it was such a gift and I didn't realize how much I missed it. I love that and how much it like affects me and affects me as an artist and kind of as a person. I feel like I know more who I am, Emma, without social media because I'm not constantly comparing myself. I'm not constantly like kind of being inspired by other people. I'm just in my own head figuring out what I like and I like that. I think having a good amount of that is good.

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Elsie: Yeah, me too. Pros and cons. Okay, so I did log off in I think May until around September. So it was the whole summer. So I am a full-time parent in the summer, full-time caretaker, and I've done that for, I think, well, ever since my children were out of daycare. So it is definitely my busiest time of the year and the time of the year when I have the least amount to like give, just like in general. And this summer I wanted to still work on my novels, so I kind of felt like I had to log off to be able to get that little tiny bit of time every day for my novels. So I did that and I also logged off last, I think maybe like January. A few months earlier, last spring, I don't remember which months, so probably like half of this year so far. Probably most of the year so far. And I'm now trying to like transition back on, and it's harder than I thought it would be, but I'm happy to rejoin it too. Okay. So pros and cons. The pros for sure are time, like the focus time, like for sure, for sure, for sure. At this point in my life, I want to be writing a novel all the time. And this summer I was working on two really, and I was also taking courses, writing courses, so I really didn't have like much if I wouldn't have had enough time to devote to like my parenting. Or I would've just not been able to do one of those things was gonna give if I would've been on my phone. But since I logged off, I was able to do both every day. And it was incredible. Like the week that school started, my time picked up again and like it changed it significantly, but it made it possible. So that for sure, the pro is just the feeling of like agency you have over your own time and being able to like squeeze in these dreams even in a time when maybe your work or your parenting is really demanding. The con, for me, the biggest con is that I do get a little more lonely when I'm offline as an introvert and someone who's been online most of my life, most of my adult life. I enjoy the companionship of other women and like other creative women. I have several close friends in my everyday life who I see, you know, maybe like biweekly. And then I have friends that text, you know, who live in other places. So it's not that that's not really the problem. It's just like social media does provide the sense of community with other creative people, and there's like certain people, especially on TikTok, there's certain people where I just like follow their and I really enjoy it. Like just these random people. People who like talk about history and just all kinds of different little, you know, during the time that I'm logged off, I do feel I kind of have to monitor that. I have a little bit more of like this feeling of like that I'm missing something and it's because I am, and that is real and valid, but also I know that I knew that I was going to come back to it and that it wasn't permanent. So yeah. Now finding, I think we'll talk about this at the end, but finding that balance I think is probably the greatest challenge that I still wanna conquer is like being able to enjoy that sense of community and like follow these like fun, fun little people having their adventures, but without sacrificing all of your free time. What did you miss?

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Emma; Yeah, I missed catching up.

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Elsie: You're still off right now, right?

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Emma: Yeah. I'm still off. Spoiler. I don't plan to get back on.

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Elsie: Oh really? You're gonna stay off forever.

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Emma: Yeah, I don't feel like a hard rule about it, so some people are like that whole Gretchen Rubin thing. You're a abstainer or a moderator. I'm a moderator, so I don't really need a ton of like, super hard rules in my life, so I don't feel like a yes, I'm off and I will never get back on no matter what. Like, I don't feel like that interesting. I feel like, oh, you know, if I have a publisher who's like, why don't you get back on and promote your book a couple times while it comes out, I'll do it. Great. But like I don't really plan to have it on my phone every day or anything like that, ever again. I think I'm good. But that's sort of my ending. I think you wanna find a balance. I miss catching up with random friends who I like wasn't close with enough. That like we didn't have each other's numbers. I have some friendships like that where it's just on social media. I missed that for sure. And I feel like blogging isn't really a thing like it was before social media. Like if you wanna see like people's lives that's on social media. So I miss that a little bit. I think that there's other avenues for it. Like there's a few like kind of more light silly podcasts I listen to. I still watch Zoey's YouTube from time to time. Like there's things that I like and I catch up with it here and there, but like there's a lot of people that I miss, so I miss that. And then the other thing I'll say is, I don't know how to explain this well, so I listen to podcasts for the news. That's generally how I get my news. Every now and again, I read an article, but it's usually something like a friend sent me most of the time I get my news from like the daily podcast or like something like that.

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Elsie: You're a big podcast listener.

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Emma: I'm a podcast listener. So I don't get my news from social media because I'm not on social media. So a lot of times I think that's good overall. But there are some great people on social media like Sharon and I have found like her Substack newsletter to be like so infinitely better. I'm still getting everything I needed to get out of it. But the main thing I'd say is I am often lost in casual conversation. So like if a celebrity dies, for example, I don't usually know unless someone tells me in person.

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Elsie: Oh, I'll have to start texting.

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Emma: I am in a phase in my life where I'm a little bit like mostly staying home with my kids. I do work part-time still, but like I'm home a lot with a little baby. We don't consume anything like that, we watch, I mean, he doesn't watch anything, but my older kid watches like PBS and Bluey. So anyway, so there's lots of times I am finally talking to some adults and I have no idea what they're talking about. I have to be like, hey, can you tell me what happened? I actually don't know. Like major, major things I will hear about on a news podcast, but like smaller things, I just don't know what they're talking about. So I have to tell people to back up. And if I'm close with them, that's really easy. But if it's like a, I've just met you or we're somewhere where like, I kind of know you, but more like, I came with this other friend and I just, you know? So it was kind of awkward to act like the person who just doesn't know anything, but I am that person, so it makes me feel a little weird. I'll say that it has been interesting to watch people. Sometimes people can really back up and tell you like they really know. And sometimes people like kind of can't, they can only really say, well, you've seen it online. And I'm like, I actually haven't. Can you tell me? And they can't really, and they can't summarize it.

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Elsie: That's interesting. Wow.

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Emma: And that's always weird too because then we're kind of at a socially it's very awkward because we're kind of at an impasse. But like it's an interesting phenomenon. They're like, oh nevermind. They're just like, oh, nevermind basically. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's cool. Well, what else? You know, like we just move on. But it's just, it's weird when someone's like, oh, there's too much to tell you. And I'm too like, in this bubble, I can't even explain it to you. I'm like, oh, okay. Well I totally understand. There's times like there's too much to say, but also I don't know because I'm not on any social media. I don't know what they're saying about anything. So it makes me feel a little bit like a grandma in some ways where I'm like you know, like, just tell me what the kids are talking about. I have no idea. You know, but it's interesting too. I try, I more like try to take it as like a, well, I'm just gonna be curious about this and if someone doesn't wanna tell me, that's fine.

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Elsie: Yeah, no, totally.

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Emma: But it is sort of, if you don't like being a socially awkward person, I'm very used to it. But this can make you a little more socially awkward. And I don't really mind, but I would say like, heads up, you're gonna seem out of touch because you are. Because a lot of people are just very online and they know everything that's going on, and I just don't.

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Elsie: That makes sense. I haven't had that experience yet. Okay. What I missed most was definitely people on TikTok talking about writing books, and TikTok is definitely my favorite. It's what I am most addicted to. I enjoy Instagram too. And I enjoy Instagram because it's where I see my friends. And then I enjoy TikTok because it's where I see like people writing novels and it's more like my algorithm is very mostly on that, you know, beat and, I don't know I just enjoy like that type of thing. Tere's people that share their whole entire process and like their journey and like, it's fun. It's like a fun thing to follow. And I also follow people on YouTube like that though, and it's even better to be honest. So yeah, I think that's probably the thing I missed most is just like people with my same niche interests. As soon as I logged back into TikTok, I was back onto my watching people talking. Gossip about the Bronte sisters and like all the kinda stuff. Like I was back on it immediately and addicted immediately. So yeah, there's definitely good things on there and plenty to miss. There's lots of creative people, there's lots of people doing, I think like Sharon, good work that makes the world a better place. Okay. The best parts of being offline. I feel like I already said mine. I like mine. Mine was just time. Like if I'm on a deadline for my writing, I have to be off social media. At this point in my life with like my kids and stuff, I'm just not a good enough writer yet to do both. So I have to just kind of be like head in the sand. And I think also the other best part honestly, was probably being offline for like a large part of this year because of like olitical stuff and like I'm following the news in other ways, but I didn't have to consume everyone else's fear and sadness every single day. So I think that was healthy too, even though I don't think that's a bad thing that people post those things, but it is something that can like wear you out emotionally and like, you know, sink your battery levels and stuff.

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Emma: Yeah, similar more thing I would say because like I said, I'm not really planning to get back on, but there's definitely this like push and pull of it for me. But at the end of the day, I don't really like how it's built too. So a couple things about it, it's built to keep you on there. Like it's meant to keep your attention. Literally. That's their business. That's like the thing that they're mining for is attention. This isn't some sinister plot. This is straightforward. You know, you sign up and it's free. What do they get from it? They get your attention. So it's built to hold your attention. I don't like that. They're good at it. They're too good in my opinion. And so that's why I'm like, oh, I don't really like being on there because I feel like it does get me and it gets everyone. It's built to do that. So it's that. And then the other thing I really don't like about it is I do think it's a little bit exploitative. I think that the companies that own these platforms. They don't pay creators. I mean, imagine if Netflix didn't pay anyone to make shows. Just their show was on there and then they had to figure out how to monetize it. Yeah, we'd think that was insane, wouldn't we? And that's kind of what this is a little bit, and I don't like that. I don't like it as a model. I think it's not cool, man. So I don't really like supporting it.

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Elsie: And there's a lot of people who are able to earn money through social media. Maybe not directly through the platform, but otherwise.

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Emma: Despite the platforms they are able to do it and that's cool. And I like that for a lot of people. I've been one of those people, it's benefited me a lot. At the end of the day, for me, both those two sides of the coin existing, I like my brain without social media. That's basically it for me. I'm not really like a, this is my stance against the companies or this is me promoting my work. I'm like, that's why I don't really have a hard stance on it, and I'm just like, I like my brain and my life better without an infinite scroll on my phone. I just think I'm more present.
I think I'm more creative. I think that I have this boredom thing. I also think I'm a little bit out of touch and I don't have a way to promote my work as easily, you know? And I accept all that. I accept it for the benefits that I see from it. So for me, that's why I'm like, I don't really plan to get back on, I might to promote some work here and there and when I'm doing that, I'll definitely check out other people that I've missed and like see what they've been up to. Yeah, for sure. I don't really think that I'll ever have a time in my life. I'm not planning to have social media on my phone for extended periods. I just like my brain better off of it. One thing I've noticed about myself over many years is like I get overstimulated really easily. Like I have a hard time when I go to concerts, if they have loud music and lights, if it's like lights and loud music. I've just noticed. I like it more likely to have what I would consider like a mild version of a panic attack.

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Elsie: I can't have like, high Emma at the Taylor Swift concert down.

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Emma: I was like I need a break. And it's like the nicest, sweetest concert. Nicest, sweetest fans you'll ever be in. And I was like, I've gotta go stand outside for a little bit because I'm like, I'm just so overwhelmed because I just get overstimulated easily. And I think social media is not necessarily a good fit for me because of that. It is kind of a stimulation thing, giving you whatever brain chemicals, dopamine or whatever all the time, and I just think it's too much for me.

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Elsie: It can definitely be like very overwhelming, especially like if you're in a season of life where your life feels a little slow, a little slower than you want it to be. Like maybe you're like, we're in like a sort of like a career transition right now. So like during any season, like you have a toddler. Any season like that, it's hard to watch other people thriving at the thing that you're struggling at.

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Emma: Yeah, for sure. And I think too, like with little kids. There's a lot more noise in my life.

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Elsie: Yeah.

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Emma: And I want my kids to play and, and hear their shrieky little giggles, like I love it. But also as a person who gets kind of overstimulated by noises and sounds and things. I just am like, I don't really need anything extra. My life is as full as I can do. I'm good on that. So I really don't want anything on my phone that's like more stimulation. It's just like, yeah, too much for me.

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Elsie: You need that mellow little playlist.

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Emma: Yeah. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed. I did this the other weekend. I was having a crying moment. I was like really low. And I went in my closet and I shut the door and it was completely dark and I just sat there with the most quiet I could for like 10 minutes and it helped a lot.

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Elsie: Wow.

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Emma: I just sometimes just need nothing.

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Elsie: Yeah.

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Emma: And it's not because I don't like people or I don't like noise, or I don't like music or it's not that. I love all these things. I love people. I love music. I love lights. I like concerts. I just get overwhelmed. I don't know what it is. It's just sometimes I just need. The thing I need more than anything is to just be like left alone in a dark, quiet room sometimes. I just gotta refrigerate myself for a minute. Actually, I have to be cold. I just, I imagine the inside of a refrigerator's very quiet and dark. I'm like, yeah, put me in there. I need some shelf life.

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Elsie: Okay. So how I think I'm going to approach social media moving forward. I'm still logged out of TikTok again because once I got back into it, I was like, immediately so, so addicted. Like, it's so addicting for me. So I think when I do, I'm gonna finish the draft I'm on, and then when I'm on a little more of a break, I'll go back. And at that time, my new plan is, I already put a, what do you call it, like a timer? A limitation of how much time? A time limit. So I already put a time limit on my Instagram, and then when I redownload TikTok, I'll put a time limit on my TikTok. I think that I'm just gonna try that. I always thought so moderator versus abstainer. I believed I was an abstainer, but this past year I learned and realize that I'm a moderator actually, so I'm not an abstainer at all. And actually that like black and white thinking isn't even really that good for me. So I'm gonna try moderating my social media time. And I haven't done that as much in the past. I've never done the time or thing. I think everyone in the world has done it except for me. So I'm curious to see if that like solves it and if it does great because I would love to be in a place where I could like, enjoy the good things and not feel like I was still feel like I had enough time for my other priorities. Okay. Is there anything surprising that you learned from your experiences being offline?

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Emma: I wrote down how easy it was, how little I miss it.

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Elsie: That's funny.
Emma: No, I don't. I think nothing was super surprising. I think that I went through a phase of like withdrawal where I was like really missing it, and that was probably about two weeks. And now I'm in a phase where I'm like, oh, I should say too, I'm not a big FOMO person. You kind of are. So I think that's actually more normal. I feel like I see people more like that than like me. Like I'm very like out of sight, out of mind. I couldn't care less. Good for you. You're on your journey and I truly like mean it. Like I'm just very in my own world is what I'm like. So I think the FOMO of it doesn't affect me very much. I know there's cool stuff on there. I don't care. Like good. My FOMO exists when I walk into my little like library room and I see all my books that I wanna read. I'm just like, when am I gonna have time to read all of these? Yes. So that's the most FOMO I have in my life.

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Elsie: Well, some of our listeners have been saying talk more about the Old Lady Retirement home. Our old lady retirement home is gonna have a Beauty in the Beast Library. I'm just gonna leave it at that. That we made for ourselves. Okay, so my surprising thing is kind of different, and actually I learned this from Elise and then I tested it for myself. So she said to us when we were hanging out last January or whenever it was, she said she had been offline for more than a year at that point, and she said, I know that I could go back at any time and nothing will have changed. And I was like, whoa.

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Emma: Like her follower account and things like that. Is that what you're talking about?

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Elsie: Basically, yeah. But now I've tested it and I've been off for months at a time, and every time I log back in there. Seriously, nothing has changed. Nothing like, yeah, I've missed things, obviously. But like it didn't matter. And it doesn't matter. And no one's mad. No one, like people notice, like people say things, but like overall, no one really functionally, no one cares. And it doesn't matter. Like it's fine. So I think that that's actually made me really encouraged that like social media doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to make the decision to like, I'm gonna post every day, or it's not worth doing, or you don't have to make the decision. I'm gonna log out, you know, for you. Three years. Like you can do both. Like if you want to, you can do both. It's fine. No one cares, doesn't matter. Doesn't really even feel any different. And as far as like all the things with like engagement and follower account, like I can't really speak to that because I don't care at this point in my life. And it's just not something that, it's not one of my goals, but my goal would be that like when I have something to share, that I can share it with my people. You know, like our podcast listeners and our friends and like, you know, people I don't see as much and you know, sometimes there's like people I knew from my twenties on there, you know what I mean? Just like random, you know, just all kinds of people you've known for your whole life. So, yeah, I think that that made me feel like really good about the breaks, that there's really like no threat to them and there's not much to lose. Okay. Book report time.

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Emma: What book are you doing this time?

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Elsie: Okay, so I just started reading My Brilliant Friend, so it's called the Neapolitan Series, or Neapolitan Quartet. So it's like four books and My Brilliant Friend is the first one. Have you heard of this?

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Emma: No.

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Elsie: The author's name is Elena something. So it's translated, I wanna say it's Italian, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. Okay. It's either Italian or Spanish. It is translated, it's contemporary.

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Emma: Can you tell it's translated?

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Elsie: No.

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Emma: So you just know it was originally in a different language.

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Elsie: Yes. But you can't really tell. I didn't know if you were saying you can tell it's happening that because in a different country you can tell it's happening in Europe and I just kind of started it. So this is the only book, the only new book I had to talk about, so I just decided, I think it sounds kind of interesting, but I heard that actually from TikTok, someone was recommending it as like their favorite series of all time. So I was like, okay, well I have to take that journey. I love a series and I love for some reason the number. Four is a really good number that I've had really good luck with in my other series evoking Alice Hoffman and the Raven Kings thing that I was talking about before. So anyway I really, really like it so far.
The writing is gorgeous and if you're a person who like cares about beautiful writing, it's like the most, the longest sentences ever. So I'm very into it, so I'm gonna listen to it. My dogs actually, I ordered the books. They were sitting there on the floor and my dogs chewed up the first one, like, ugh, I mean like in a way where it's unreadable. So I ordered a replacement on thrift books and then I was like, okay, well I'm just gonna listen to the audio book. But it's a really good performance. It's a good and interesting narrator. So I'm very into it. I'll come back at a certain point and tell you if I like complete the series or more thoughts about it, but it's a friendship story and it's starting in childhood. It has a picture on the cover of like a person in their wedding dress. So I know it's gonna be like a, a lifelong friendship story probably.

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Emma: I love it. Okay. Mine is another contemporary romance, so I will say, just for the record, I do read other books. But it's okay if you don't though. I've been in a real, I think in contemporary romance mode, in toddler survival mode and so it is my comfort genre. I've mentioned this before and it's part of why I wanted to write in it, because to me it's such a gift and I am in a little bit of a season of life where I'm, you know, a little bit sad and a little bit needing an escape and needing my comfort genre. And so I've been reading a lot of contemporary romance lately, but I also have some other ones. Like I just started Brandon Sanderson's, Miss Born. So at some point I will be doing a book report.

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Elsie: Oh, I can't wait to hear.

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Emma: So another contemporary romance I just read Love On the Brain by Ali Hazelwood. And if you know who that is, she has a whole bunch of books out and this is the only, the second one I've ever read by her. I also read Love Hypothesis. Which I believe was her debut. So if you don't know, Ali Hazelwood writes contemporary romance and a lot of times it's like women in STEM. I don't think all of them are, but many of them are. So this one has a woman who's a neuroscientist and she works at NASA and they're developing this helmet where astronauts will be able to kind of think and react quickly. I don't know man. I'm not a scientist. I like reading the sciencey stuff because I love science fiction. I love any anything. But I wouldn't say that. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm following the science all the way here. I'm like, I'm in it for the sex. I'll be honest.

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Elsie: Well, but I like it's a nice flavor to defend that though I think that like. Having like the sifi, like I'm thinking about Jurassic Park when I'm saying this, having the backdrop of like quote unquote smart people things is something that I'm really attracted to in novels. And you don't wanna understand every sentence. It's like you kind of just wanna like be like, I kind of get what this world is going for. And I like, yeah. I just want is good feel, be at the party.

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Emma: But I couldn't tell you everything that they're discussing, but I am listening. Like, so that's me. So anyway, you don't need to be a neuroscientist to love this book though. This book is very fun. If you like contemporary romance, you'll like this spicy meter. It's probably like three or four. Okay, maybe three. I'd put it at. Definitely has sex on the page if you don't want that, you are gonna need to skip large portions of this book. As you can tell, I generally like my books fairly spicy. Not always though. But anyway.

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Elsie: Can you give an example just for my own curiosity and our listeners, like what's a five, what's one book that's a five out of five?

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Emma: I haven't read it yet.

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Elsie: Okay.

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Emma: I generally like don't because I think five is like you're moving towards eroica. Usually you're not there because I think that's just its own genre, but like you're headed that direction. Like it's like every other chapter is something like that. And so I tend to like three to four where it's like definitely in there. I don't really want you to just shut the door and then we wake up with them in the morning. I don't like that. You can entertain me in other ways, but I'm gonna note it in my book report. So, yeah. But anyway, so this was very fun. If you like contemporary romance, you'll probably like this. The couple's very cute. It was fun to watch them figure out the NASA astronaut helmet thing. She also was just like a fun main character. She has like pink hair and then purple hair and a septum ring, and a nibble piercing and like, she just very alternative looking. That's fun. I think it's fun to hear about, I don't know, people who have different types of tattoos than me and stuff like that. I'm into it. And what else? The love interest. He was very fun. Very sweet. Yeah, it was really good. Really, really good comfort read. Loved it. Five stars. I'll probably read Ali Hazelwood's whole catalog at some point. I tend to try to spread them out. So now I've read two of hers this year and I have one more of hers on my shelf. So I'm like, all right, all right, all right. If I hit a few duds, I'll be going back to that. But I try to like jump around. I like to experiment with other contemporary.

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Elsie: You're a very diverse reader because you read The Secret History, right?

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Emma: Yeah. And that will be a book report soon too.

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Elsie: Love it. Love it. Love it. Okay, now it's time for our favorite segment. The best segment? A Joke or a Fact with Nova. Hey, Nova, what do you have for us this week?

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Nova: A fact.

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Elsie: All right, I'm ready.

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Nova: Did you know the human body, the biggest muscle in it is your butt? That's kind of a funny fact, huh?

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Elsie: Yep, I like it. That's very funny.

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Nova: Have a good week.

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Emma: Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with our annual gst stories podcast episode. I feel like this is always like listed as everyone's number one episode of the year. So it's my number one not to hype it too much, but get ready for that. We love hearing your episode requests, and we frequently answer questions that you ask us on our podcast. So if you have something, please email us at podcast@abeautifulmess.com. Bye

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Elsie: Bye. See you next week.