Saying Goodbye to Online Community
Feeling like I have moved on from the online communities that gave me life during early motherhood
I’ve noticed that I join online social groups and creative communities when I feel a desperate yearning for connection. Four, five, six years ago, I was very active in such groups. Showing up to everything, commenting on each post. It was how I retained an identity outside of early motherhood. But in the last two years, my participation has decreased. I may read most of the posts, but I don’t comment as often. I don’t often create my own posts. From what I’ve observed about these (different) communities over time is that others seem less active too. There’s the thrill of joining and then it fades rather quickly to small trickles of engagement and connection.
I wonder if I don’t need these online communities as much as I think I do. Perhaps they are simply a distraction. Maybe I am more capable of being alone than I was a few years ago (although I’m never alone as a homeschooling mom). Maybe I don’t need constant support to withstand my own inner critic or imposter syndrome anymore. I’m afraid of what I will be without these groups, but I am no longer truly using them. It could be time to experiment with pulling back and just seeing what happens.
It feels “drastic” even though it's not really. It is just not paying a few subscriptions and not logging into a few apps or websites multiple times a day. It’s about removing feelings of guilt when I don’t actively participate, when I forget to show up. But I also think about all of the essays and articles I’ve read about the need to develop community, to think about friendship beyond the family unit. Will exiting these online communities mean I’m choosing to be more insular?
I can still cultivate friendships online without the subscriber-based communities. I can decide which to quit and which to keep, but the decision making process feels a bit arbitrary. It’s never that I don’t like the people. I just don’t use the content and actively participate. But if I leave this long-standing group and want to come back I’ll end up paying way more because my price was locked in so early on. Is that a reason to stay? What would my life look like if I were in none of these groups? My phone screen would look a bit emptier. My mind and free time would have a bit more space, but I know that would be easily filled with reading more on Substack or something else.
Maybe if I quit the online communities, I would invest more in my actual physical community. Maybe if I leave most groups, I will be able to focus better on the one community that I really want to dive into and learn from.
I suppose it would be a little like my relationship to Instagram now. I haven’t been very active on it for two years. I was never an active poster, but since removing the app from my phone and only using it on desktop, I rarely remember to log in. I’m more likely to stream a tv show than to scroll. I do miss some of the acquaintance connections I made on IG and don’t connect to anywhere else online. I occasionally check in on people, but scrolling doesn’t captivate me as much anymore.
Sometimes when I go back to IG, I feel a wide-eyed wonderment that the content just keeps going. Removing myself from most sources of endless scroll have brought me back to a more manageable size of the world. Seeing the endless content reminds me of just how many people there are in the world. Of course, thinking about all of them posting and talking at once would be overwhelming. Why am I so surprised?
Leaving online communities is the next stage of taking a step back from endless online content, from the never ending world of courses and communities and ways to learn something, or improve yourself, or whatever. Maybe I’m ready to live and learn on my own without the crutch of seeking answers from someone else, without the constant accountability and cheerleading of an online group. I used to live for those groups; they helped me so much. But it sort of feels like I’m in a relationship that I know should be over. It’s run its course.
So what’s holding me back? The fear and embarrassment of what being a middle aged woman with “no close friends” means about me.1 The fear of missing out, of not knowing what’s going on in these niche communities. I felt this leaving Instagram too, but beyond checking on a handful of people every so often, I’ve realized how much of that information I didn’t need to know in the first place. The fear that once I leave I’ll want to come back, but have to pay more money. The fear that I’ll leave and then never be able to find my favorite people in these groups again. The ones where I don’t feel close enough to be friends outside of this group and yet I would miss not hearing from them. The fear that I’ll be lonely and depressed without these connections and/or distractions, without having easy access to the pulse of other women like me to help me remember that I’m not alone.
And then I remember it's not just me. These communities have gotten visibly quieter in the last few years. There may be a communal pulling back from virtual lives. Some of this is people getting back to life “after” the pandemic, but I was in online groups before 2020 and they were more active. Perhaps we are finally at an age2 that sees beyond the mystical properties of the internet and social media. The solid world we live in holds more power over us again.
I am generally more captivated by sitting on a bench in my yard looking at the flowering trees than I am in any of these online groups. After about 25 years of living online (in some way or another), I’m ready to sign off more. I’m ready to stop feeling guilty that I don’t join in the weekly prompt posts or remember to share what I’m doing in my day. I’m ready to stop making lists of 20 writing courses that might be interesting to take. I’m sure they would be, but I don’t need them all.
I’m still unsure about all this. I’ve noticed that I’m quieter in some of my real life relationships too. I’m simply busy living my life. I’m taking care of my household, raising my kids and finding moments to do whatever I want to do in between. Instead of spending an hour talking on the phone before making dinner, I’m living. I’m using that time. I worry about not taking time for connections, about how not prioritizing these relationships will lead to long-term bad news. But…it feels like living more in the present sometimes means not remembering the relationships that aren’t there in the present.3 I’m focused on what’s in front of me.
I should know by now, seven years into motherhood, that ambivalence is a natural fact of life.
There can be good and bad at the same time, about the same thing. I’m not going to solve what is the “right” thing to do about my new pull away from online community. This new focus on what is right in front of me. Perhaps this is what I need for this next season and it will all come back around in a few months, or a year, or whenever. And that’s okay.
It’s okay to toss out a system or structure that is no longer lighting you up (subscription-based online groups) and turn to what is working more (occasional online seminars and simply living my life). I may resist change every single time it comes up for me, but that doesn't make it wrong. I can leave these parts of the world and still be a fulfilled human being.4
All images published in Stutter Over Silence are original artwork created by the author, Katie Gresham, unless otherwise noted.
I’ve been thinking a lot more about this story I’ve told myself about friendships in my life. I feel a future post on the topic brewing.
Or my peers and I are at an age.
Another thing to dig into in a future post.
Honesty note: in the weeks since I first drafted this post, I still haven’t left the online communities in question. Maybe publishing will push me over the procrastination edge?
Relate to this one a lot and I am looking forward to your essay on IRL friendships. I was telling my spouse for the 1000th time that I wish I had my friends and he was like: “you do have a lot of friends. You are looking for people who want to go deeper. They are harder to find.” One of the benefits I have gotten out of being a part of online communities is that people did seem willing to go deeper there. But I want the whole package— IRL and the deep stuff. Hard to do at this life stage I think
so much truth in your essay. whatever was a wonderful tool is no longer serving you. i am working on doing the same with a group i am in. it helped me so much but i have sort of graduated. there is sadness in leaving but i know i am ready.