Helen MacLean: Navigating the Social Media Maze

In this episode of A Chat with Heart, host Christina Martin reflects on her relationship with social media, discussing its impact on her life as a DIY artist. She shares her struggles with time management and the addictive nature of social media platforms, while also highlighting the positive aspects of connecting with audiences and creative partners. Christina invites listeners to consider their own social media habits and the importance of moderation and intention. The conversation includes insights from guest Helen McLean, who shares her journey of quitting Facebook and reclaiming her time and attention. Together, they explore the need for a healthier relationship with digital platforms and the value of genuine connections.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to A Chat with Heart
• 11:40 Helen's Journey with Social Media
• 23:23 Reclaiming Time and Attention
• 33:21 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

Christina (00:00)

Hey, you're listening to A Chat with Heart. I'm your host, Christina Martin. I'm a singer-songwriter, curious human. I live on a dirt road in rural Nova Scotia with my partner in crime, Dale, and our Calico cat, Olivia. This podcast is basically just me chatting with people I admire. I like to ask questions that feed my curiosity, and my guests have all taught me something. They either crack me up or they punch me right in the feels.

If you've got questions, comments, or a burning desire to join the conversation, please call my heartbeat hotline, day or night. It's 1902-669-4769. You can also email me at christinamartinmusicatgmail.com. And if you want to throw a little love my way and help keep this thing going, visit my Patreon page. That's how artists like me get paid. Thanks for showing up. Warning, heartfelt content ahead.

Just talk about

Christina (01:15.086)
you

Christina (01:22.828)
Hello my little heartbeat listeners, welcome back. I am someone who thinks a lot about how I'm spending my time. And today I wanted to have a little heart to heart about something I think about a lot and that is social media. When I say I think about it a lot, not like, it's not that I know a lot about social media. I guess I just spend a lot of time

worrying about that I'm spending too much time either thinking about social media or feeling like I have to be posting something, I should be doing more. It's something that I've kind of experienced over many years of being a DIY artist and self-employed businesswoman.

And so don't get me wrong. I do feel that there have been a number of wonderful outcomes from using social media with intention and having fun with it. I don't think it's all evil. I do think there are definitely negative things about it. social media platforms have helped me stay connected with

and grow my audience around the world. It's how I share my music, news about my shows that are coming up, and it's how I share this podcast. so social media has also connected me with new creative partners. yeah, no way around it. It's helped me build my quote unquote

career as a DIY artist. So I am extremely grateful for that. I've never had a record label or management team and I think it's helped get the word out when I didn't have maybe the infrastructure to, know, traditionally speaking that. In any case, here's the thing. I've also let social media rob me of my time. Like I could have spent

Christina (03:47.956)
so much more time instead of thinking about marketing on social media. I spent a lot of money as well in the past on social media platforms or hiring people to tell me what to do on them. Sometimes I think could I have spent that time creating more music or reading books or going for a walk with a friend or just kind of being still. So today I'm asking the big question and I've invited

you to ask it as well of yourself, is this how I want to spend my time, my life? There are, let's be honest, there's a lot of addictive platforms that are designed to keep us locked in and what drives so much of it is an industry that profits off of our attention and tells us we need to keep posting and keep performing and keep scrolling and keep buying like we can't even help ourselves.

because it is designed to addict us. I do believe I should be suspicious about listening to organizations or voices that don't know me, that don't care about my well-being, and often just want to sell me something that I probably don't need, especially when I can't afford to buy those things. I'm guilty of this.

Many years ago, I started daydreaming about like reducing the time I spend on social media and the time I spend in front of a screen in general. But I do struggle with trying to come up with something that feels balanced. I do think the plan needs to look different for each of us. If you're running your own business, if you're a musician, if you're a politician, or if you're someone who just wants to share photos with your family and friends.

your, the time you decide to spend online hands down should be based on your, you know, intentions and, and values. and, and if you ask yourself more questions about it, you can kind of determine if you're spending too much time on there and, maybe how to get away from spending too much time. dirt road car just went by very exciting here in Cumberland County.

Christina (06:15.222)
Okay, so listen, I'm just gonna talk a little bit about my social media platforms. So I recently deleted my ex Twitter account entirely. I really wasn't using it and I just was like, I'm just gonna hop off here. What else? I do have Facebook, but I don't use my personal page. I guess you have to have one to set up the professional page, like the music page. So I post occasionally.

my music page. But it's kind of, it is an afterthought of Instagram. For me, I post first on Instagram, my stories or my reels. I don't know how to use all the things that that platform offers and I don't want to learn all the things. So my main focus has been my Patreon community where I can share my

my news, my new music, it's my newsletter for anybody who wants to join as a free member, my new music videos, whatever. Like that's kind of where I go into detail about things that are happening. And I try not to over promise things because I don't want to spend too much time on that platform either. And I want to respect both my time and the time of my supporters on there. So I like that

My patrons have chosen to sign up and get updates. They get an email if I have something to say. And they can choose whether or not they want to open it or delete it. They can always just visit my Patreon site to catch up when it suits them. So they're not going to miss anything because it's going to disappear. Anyway, so my plan long term is like maybe one day I could delete my Facebook.

But I don't really spend a lot of time there anyway, so it's not a big deal. It doesn't torture me. I love YouTube for sharing the podcast, videos, live performances, and interviews. I really do like that service. And I do like how accessible YouTube is. Yeah, so I've developed a workflow, I guess, like a...

Christina (08:36.534)
and I enjoy it, it's taken me almost 15 years to find a happy relationship with social media. So I just want to say to anybody out there who is struggling with social media, I do encourage you to take your time, experiment, but always ask yourself, you know, is this how I want to spend my time while I'm alive? Another thing I want to emphasize is like, if you're going to do social media or anything for that matter,

As my doctor told me when I asked her about smoking marijuana, she said, make it a treat. So honestly, I think that's great advice for ice cream, for social media, for buying lottery tickets. It's about moderation and intention. And we need to bring the joy back to social media. Here's what social media should be about, in my opinion.

It should be about sharing things that you care about, especially what others are doing. You cannot expect others to share what you're doing and get excited about what you're doing if you aren't also sharing what you love about them, you know, and celebrating other people's wins. Social media should be about community. It's like,

the modern telephone, helping spread the word about events and helping people connect in person. Instead, these platforms are forcing people to pay to spread the word about public events and things, unless you're in a group, of course. anyway, social media should be about sharing the bits of your life and work that feel meaningful to you.

I even support social media as a form of documentation of your work, like a digital photo album. I think that's great. As long as it's not interfering with being present in real life. Like you're going on vacation and you're constantly on your phone taking pictures, but never really enjoying where you are. Or like you go to a concert and your phone is in front of your face filming the entire concert. I just, I don't understand that. You know, put your phone away.

Christina (10:53.208)
You want to take one picture, fine. But like, just be there, be present. And those artists probably don't want you recording their stuff anyway and posting it online. Yeah. So if you're feeling that pressure to post more, to show up constantly, I don't know, I try to take a breath and go, and I ask myself, how much space do I need to take up on this platform?

Could I show up somewhere else, like in the flesh? Could this be the moment I finally learned that instrument I've been talking about? Could I instead call a friend and go for tea? What else could I be doing with my time to nourish my life and my health? And we're the only ones who can stop the scrolling. It's like forming any new habit. It's really hard at first, but liberating once you break this belief that you must

be doing it, or fear of missing out or whatever. What are you going to gain if you change this habit?

I want to tell you about my friend Helen McLean, a fellow Little Heartbeat listener, a patron of this show, and someone who recently made changes around her own screen time. She left a message on the Heartbeat hotline. It really lit me up and I knew I had to invite her on to share more. Here's her message on the Little Heartbeat hotline. The Heartbeat hotline. The hotline that I have. The Heartbeat hotline. my goodness. Here it is.

Hello, Helen McLean calling. I have just, Facebook full, everything, no Instagram, only my text messaging and my Rogers provider because Facebook is making so much money and there are so many people being exploited. So maybe we could chat about that, my darling.

Christina (12:35.138)
quit Facebook.

Christina (12:47.726)
sense.

Christina (12:51.758)
Thank you much.

Christina (12:58.254)
Okay, so Helen and I met in a Pilates class. She's been to our denim session house concerts many times and she is one of those bright, light, old soul friends. Wise, joyful, grounded. We love her to bits. Today she's here to talk about her own journey with trimming time online and reclaiming her attention. And I love that we were able to do this chat.

in person just with my cell phone while playing a game.

Helen (13:38.894)
I had just quit any Facebook products and it was before the election. It was about a week before the election.

Yes.

Christina (13:55.726)
Okay. The US or the Canadian? Canadian election. And why did you decide to do this?

During several very important elections around the world, Facebook has been making a lot of money, of dollars, billions, billions, billions of dollars in profits through this very easily accessible, internationally accessible medium. And they're not, it's just...

hurting so many people, people are getting terribly exploited and violence is getting in on, in Facebook, in Instagram. And I had received through the algorithm these Karen films about women who were being

Helen (15:03.904)
arrested for drunken disorderly behavior and drunken driving and stuff like that and they were behaving really, really badly.

Were their names Karen? that what their Karen name

We're behaving badly. It's what Karen is a name that they call white women who are behaving badly.

Okay, I guess I've heard of this. I just want to say we only know really awesome lovely Karens who

Yeah, like it's...

Christina (15:32.952)
Karen Graves doesn't even drink alcohol, I don't think. She might, but I've never seen her get aggressive.

so, you know, that was mean. That's really mean. It's not police footage. It's people who are following the police and pretending that they're police. This is like they all say this is police. It's not police footage that they say, but it's at the time of the arrest or things like that. Yeah. And so the seller of the video is making money and Facebook is making a lot of money with every hit.

And let's win.

Christina (15:54.968)
footage.

Christina (16:07.127)
Yeah.

And then after those had been coming by and I'd been throwing them out, they were followed by Middle Eastern garbed individuals punching or really cruelly slapping their wives while other people, you know, they were representing an unfair...

visual or something that people would get off. So Facebook was still doing this in Instagram, on Twitter, on Snapchat. There's all kinds of ways that they're collecting funds. every time they get taken to court, they're so powerful that they never settle. Most of these things are settled out of court, but the perpetrators are not brought to justice.

Yeah.

Helen (17:05.038)
So it's just, I don't want to participate in that abuse of what, and then for people to say that, you know, I'm going to lose out because I'm not on Facebook all.

That's great. I don't buy it. Yeah. Well, mean, like, great. You'll have more time to read a book. Yeah. Go for a walk.

or listen to some truth or look up something from an educational institution instead of someone's bloody opinion.

Oh, by the way, my little heartbeat listeners, we're playing a game called Mexican Train. And Helen has taught us how to play this game. We haven't played it in while. She's probably gonna kick our ass. But that's what the swishing of the tiles is happening while we're chatting about social media. I do have an Instagram account and I do catch myself sometimes scrolling. And I think I'm, I don't get a whole lot of like, maybe because I'm not on there a lot, but I don't get a whole lot of

aggressive content or anything. but I do every single time I catch myself scrolling, I'm like, there I am again, wasting my life. I don't know any of these people. this is mine. Yeah, exactly. Like, didn't I come on here to look up like how much food I should.

Helen (18:25.933)
Phone!

Yeah, I was supposed to check how much food to feed my cat and here I am like an hour late

Ding ding ding ding

Yeah, well, that many bangs, but some in my case.

If you're on a group chat or something like that, it's constant if one...

Christina (18:43.786)
I know. And now I feel bad. Like, Dale's here too, by the way. Now I feel bad. Do you guys get this? Where it's like, I actually kind of want to leave some groups because I don't love the people. like if I, but I feel bad, like it's going to be known that I've left the group. And then is that, does that mean that like, am I going to make somebody feel bad?

What the thing is, maybe this is the beginning of where we get to start something else. Yeah. Cause we used to do, you can do like a big email and some of like Patreon. That's not a dangerous place. So if I'm a member of your place and often they include ability to communicate in larger groups through your, through that alt.

Yeah.

Christina (19:20.322)
Yeah, Patreon.

yeah, you're a patron of us.

Christina (19:33.878)
Yeah. If you want, but nobody ever does.

No, we're all going on to Facebook. Yeah. Is that

What you mean? No, I mean, what I love about Patreon, not that this is all supposed to be promoting Patreon, but because of But it's why I've chosen to kind of find everybody and just say, look, just find me on Patreon is because I'm not asking people to scroll my content. If they want to follow me, they may get an email which they can choose to open or delete. But they know where to catch up with me and get all the news.

but I'm not going to be pestering them, it's sort of giving them the power again, and me too.

Are you collecting statistics? you?

Christina (20:21.998)
There are statistics, but I don't use them or and patreon doesn't sell them or use them. Yeah

So this is the difference. And there's a lot of purpose-led connectors that are like that. They're just providing us with a service. That's right. And they're not on selling our personal information.

Yeah, that is a big one. I'm super concerned about the time it takes from us. The time it takes from face to face, from playing Mexican Train, from having a phone call with a friend. Okay, so you've quit Facebook.

Yeah, Facebook and Instagram and what's up? What's

Instagram. What's app? good for you. I'm actually daydream about that as well. However, I have some work people that I like to communicate sometimes with.

Helen (21:21.74)
or

How many? Good question.

This is if it is it enough. It's all texting and maybe.

Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Well, these are people overseas. It costs money. To email? No, you're right. You're right. I'm just gonna tell them I'm gonna email me.

Yeah, everybody stop them in there. Yeah, let them fail away because there's a whole bunch of other things we can use. We're just used to that. So we.

Christina (21:52.686)
Okay, you're right. can even send voice messages through my email. I didn't even realize that. Oh Because you just do the voice message and then you send it. You hit the send button and it'll go where do you want to send it? my god, you guys. This is a game changer for me. Oh yeah!

to an A email.

Helen (22:09.208)
We're gonna have some fun. Because we don't even use all of the tools that we have.

And all we need is email, really. Yeah. Why do we have a video? Yeah.

But you can phone, of course, on your face.

FaceTime. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Meetup or whatever those other things are.

Christina (22:32.75)
It's true. Why does everybody use WhatsApp? What is with that?

Good promotion, you know.

know. It's okay. Okay, well I'm with you. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna put my yeah. Good luck to us. good luck to us. Well, I'm gonna keep Instagram. But I did quit X or Twitter or whatever. Yeah. And I don't do Snapchat. don't do what's the big

I by the sounds of Facebook, it doesn't sound like you're on there.

Or TikTok. don't even... Facebook is purely like... Honestly, it's like an afterthought of Instagram. I like Instagram.

Helen (23:14.668)
Yeah, I did like, I was off of Facebook before, but then to get to contact people, I got hooked in again.

Yeah.

Christina (23:25.006)
What do you think you've gained from just the recent, like have you gained time or like just peace of mind from making the decision?

I'm getting, you know...

Stronger and not diversified, not pulled apart, not... I think, here's a good word, person capacity.

Perse capacity? That's a word?

It is. It means you're, I think it means you realize where you are. Yeah. And you see where you're around you. So you have a clearer view. Yes. So I think I have, I'm getting better with perspicacity. I'm choosing without being slavishly held to it. So I think that's what I'm aiming for.

Christina (24:01.024)
yeah.

Christina (24:18.296)
I like that.

Christina (24:23.296)
Okay, I fully support that. I wonder if people just don't care about persicu... ...persicu-pacity. I mean, I do. I really want my time to be my own. And I want quality time with people when I spend it with them. Like, I don't, I mean... I don't need to know what hundreds of people...

person

Christina (24:48.75)
are doing, it's not that I don't care about them, but it's just like when we encounter each other, I want to know genuinely what's going on. But it's too much information to try to, it's overwhelming to try to remember and engage with and keep up with. You see somebody's suffering and you're like, oh my God, I gotta call them. Well, I can't call 50 people in a day. Yeah, and then you're depleted.

and still get your own thing done.

If energy, so energy doesn't end, never ends, it just dissolves and goes somewhere else. So instead of making a phone call, there's theories that say we can think well of someone and hopefully if you know, if we're concerned about them, that'll be well enough. And that's the problem. I think that people are getting like you hear about a lot of people being anxious, not that

They ever weren't, but we're overwhelmed with social responsibility and correct performance and showing up for everybody and everything. Somebody had a saying, they'd say, I've got your back. I could only say, like I was supposed to, everybody was saying, I got your back, I got your back. And I could say,

I can help, but I can't just give up everything and help you out. Because I just don't have that kind of strength. So I think we're getting overwhelmed and we have to get everyone should feel a little more less pressured and find out who what your own strengths are instead of trying to fit into the stream because we need multiplicity.

Christina (26:21.838)
Great.

Christina (26:31.598)
Yeah.

Christina (26:41.742)
Yes, I completely believe.

So agreeable, lovely.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I find I don't know there's much to disagree with with your I'm sure some listeners might and they can and then they can call the heartbeat hotline. Yeah. And they can air their join in. Yeah. Join in the discussion. And what do you what do you live? Do you live for social media? Is it because, you know, I think it has like benefited some some people and surely myself as well. Like I don't I don't I do value my online community. I just want to make sure it's healthy.

and that I'm being responsible and that it's not also draining me so I can give and keep making stuff.

One of the things I was thinking of was the Arab Spring. that was really important. News got out fast. Things can travel fast. Truth can come out. But it's the untruth and the maliciousness that doesn't help anybody. Really.

Christina (27:49.266)
Mm, yeah. Remember that time I posted a picture of the cigarette we found in our takeout food on Facebook? What? And so I had just posted, kind of like a, this ever happened to you? But I didn't say where it came from. didn't, it did happen to us on tour. We found a Marlboro cigarette on tour in Germany in our.

Take out Indian food. We don't know. We think it was just an accident. Like the cook maybe had the... No, it wasn't intentional. was cooked. It give the food a nice flavorful... And I reported it because I think that's important to report. And I did ask for my money back because we paid like 60 euros. like, I like, you know, I was like, I think...

Yeah.

Helen (28:28.053)
Smokey.

Christina (28:39.83)
I think that would be cool if we get our money back. But I still wasn't, you know, wasn't going to badmouth. The food was actually really good. But anyway, point I'm making is on Facebook, this is the only post I've ever made that went viral and the nastiness like people are like, you're lying. And then they would start commenting on my other photos. See, she's a liar and and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. You you guys planted that. I'm like, I renew.

I was like, this is ridiculous. then I was like, wait a second, I don't want to spend my time managing this, this aggression. So I took it down and decided that I would never post something like that because again, it becomes this. It's just ridiculous. It's not, and that's not my fan. Those aren't my fans. Those aren't my people. Those are just people looking, waiting for something to or bots. I don't even know what those are, Trolls, yeah.

I often think about how many more books I read when I was younger. And I do think that that number was so much higher. And the skills, I learned a language when I was 19, 20, 21, and because I wasn't in front of the computer very much, just didn't have access to screens like we do now and the distractions. You know, in the music business, like,

hear a lot of people complaining about things like Spotify. But the thing is, if we all just refuse to use it, Spotify would either go out of business or they would change their model. But we all sign up. We all agree to send it. Some people don't, maybe. I I took my stuff down for a while and I felt like I was missing out. And that's what I was told. You're missing out. You you're shooting yourself in the foot.

But I sort of have a different opinion about it now. And just that I do actually like the accessibility of the music. having, you know, Patreon allows me a little bit more freedom in that sense. I think people who, this is getting away from just social media, but it's that idea that like, if we really don't like something, why are we joining up and supporting it?

Helen (31:01.772)
Yeah, we have to, like we've been, we've been really fed a lot of, you gotta have this, you gotta be here, you gotta do this Freedom 45 or 55. But for what value, what's the value of your life going to be? What do you value? How strong will you be?

And when you take back that position, say take away from Spotify, at least you're true to yourself. might not be. I mean, it's hard when you're trying to make a living for sure.

Some people actually do all their business through Facebook. So I feel for them, but I still think it's a lot of work, but I think you can still mindfully how you use it. That counts too, right? I know nobody's seeing my posts on Facebook.

I'm sure it was the same. You know, I'm thinking back when the printing press kicked off. this was 1500 something. And within 50 years, they were printing presses in South America in the 1500s. So they could print whatever they want. They would print whatever anybody paid them to print. it's the same thing. We just have to use our own honest judgment. People are people.

Yeah, that's true. I want to get my news source from like now I want to go like we subscribe to edit magazine because we want to hear edit magazine. It's a brilliant magazine print magazine that is features Atlantic Canadian business people, creatives, artists, just really wonderful stories and like. So that's like one example of like.

Christina (32:50.126)
put your money or maybe you want to subscribe to what's another great magazine where it's like.

The of the editors of Edit magazine are supporting arts and creative and interesting. They're doing what they want.

and positivity and yes and the stories are inspiring and they make me feel good when I look at the magazine. Ooh, I'll have to share it with you. I'll have some copies here. I just feel good after spending my time with it, you know, and maybe.

The difference in the feeling that you get if you're watching something that's salacious and cruel or sharing and bright, you do feel it, the cleaner.

Yeah, and I mean, I do want to hear about what's going on in the world, like for real, but maybe I can get it from like National Geographic and like maybe the New York Times or, you know, like.

Helen (34:00.014)
reliable source, not just.

But get a mix of those maybe, you know? And then, and maybe one tabloid magazine just to, like, just to...

See what the, to have a, well we used to get a national inquirer and that was always in the bathroom.

That's where that belongs, right? Yeah. Okay, this is great. We're going to wrap this up now. Okay. Thanks for calling the Heartbeat Hotline, Helen. Look what it led to.

It's something to read while you're trying to po-

Helen (34:31.373)
It's Thank you for putting it out there. I'm glad you're back home.

Thanks, I'm glad you're in my home. Thanks. What else did you want to say, Helen?

I want us to say it together, Christina. Have a

Great fucking day!

Christina (34:53.782)
Say goodbye to you

Christina (35:00.574)
I don't wanna say goodbye to you

Christina (35:09.23)
Welcome to the Heartbeat Hotline, 1902-669-4769. I'm the host of a Chat with Heart podcast, Christina Martin, and I'm so excited you called. Leave me your question, a suggestion for the podcast, or a comment about this episode. Please be aware your message may be used on the podcast and social media. Tell me your name, where you're calling from, and it's also fine if you want to remain anonymous. Thanks for listening.

Have a great fucking day.

You can snag CDs, vinyl, digital music, and some weirdly delightful merch like custom puzzles and temporary tattoo packs over on my bandcamp. If you're into keeping indie art alive or just want good karma, become a monthly or yearly member on my Patreon. It's a platform that helps creators get paid to keep making stuff we love. I swear by it. Sign up free or paid at patreon.com backslash Christina Martin.

If this podcast made you laugh, cry, think, or rage text your best friend, do me a solid, share it, rate it, review it, and hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. And to all my little heartbeat listeners, stay weird, stay tender, and I'll catch you next time.