Facebook. Instagram. iPhone. What do I do with you?

Have you ever thought of throwing your iPhone right into the ocean?

Maybe driving over it with the giant tires in your SUV?

Do you think of deleting your Facebook account and cutting the cord to social media in one swift slice?

It’s almost cliche now – this love/hate relationship with Instagram and Facebook and email and a tiny touch computer screen we carry in our pockets.

When we do struggle with conviction about time spent online versus time spent looking at a real human, we share that via our Facebook status.

It’s so ironic. “Ahh. I’m turning off my Facebook page,” we announce. On Facebook.

I’m not mocking conviction.

It’s a legitimate struggle, albeit a struggle unique to our time and our culture.

And I’m a bit of an extremist by nature.

I can’t tell you how many times in the last eighteen years of our marriage that I’ve grown frustrated by the Ultimate Time Wasting Box that is known as television. Nor how many times I’ve requested we throw the TV away, or, of late – that we sell the cumbersome, space-taking eye sore.

And when I talk like this my husband usually begins to bandy about words like moderation and self-control.

Those words are hard. Annoying. Convicting.

His favorite gentle reminder is that all this stuff– Facebook, Instagram, iPhones, Internet – is just a tool.

A tool we get to decide how to use.

A tool we need to manage in a manner that aligns with the rest of our lives and our thoughts and our convictions and our actions.

Do you get a hint of how impossibly hard that is?

See why extremism is so appealing?

Tossing it all overboard in one fell swoop would be loads easier and, honestly, so much less work than moderation.

For various reasons, I’m full up and fed up with Facebook. I’m tired of watching myself scroll down status updates of people whose names I barely recognize from my past.

I’ve watched my daughter appear addicted to the screen and the updates and the chats.

I’ve watched people choose virtual conversations on their three inch screens over genuine conversations on their living room sofa.

My heart wants to trash the whole system. To delete it all and be done with the machine entirely.

And I’m not saying there’s not a time and a place for such activity.

But right now I have a couple of reasons I think the good of Facebook can outweigh the bad for me individually.

I have an ongoing framily chat session with eight wonderful women and it encourages me frequently and helps keep our distant lives connected.

Our Mother-Daughter Book Club uses a chat to track dates and book choices.

I have a job as Social Media Manager for a children’s museum.

My brother lives in New Zealand and international phone calls are tricky at best and he’s already so off the grid that I need the occasional Facebook pictures his sweet wife posts to see what my nieces even look like.

It’s my primary means of communicating with my two handsome college-living nephews.

All that to say – I want to try to attempt moderation in all areas of social media before I attempt running my phone over with the Suburban.

And here’s a couple of ways I plan to do that.

You don’t have to do this list too, you know.

This isn’t some blog post touting a moral high ground.

It’s me sharing with you my attempt at self-discipline and moderation.

1. The bedroom is going to be a tech free room. I want this to be true for me and I want it to be true for my children. I don’t want to go sleep right after checking Instagram and I don’t want to wake up squinting into my phone’s glowing screen. (Which means I probably need to buy a regular alarm clock.) When my next set of children are old enough to own phones, I don’t want them sitting alone in their rooms online. I feel like that example begins now.

2. I will not carry my phone on my person inside my home. I will set my phone in a specific location and I will check it at my convenience. (Because a phone should be a tool that is convenient to my life. Not a tool that dictates my life.)

3. I will take a weekly rest from the Internet and the phone. A Sabbath, if you will.

4. When I am talking to you, I will talk to you. I will look you in the eyes.

5. I will not use my phone to text while driving. Not ever. Not at all. Not at a stop sign. Not at a red light. I will not check Instagram or Facebook while driving.

If you see me breaking my own guidelines, feel free to gently admonish me.

I can’t imagine this will be a painless transition for me. I fear the bedroom rule will be the most difficult one to maintain. (Shoot – I’m lying in bed as I type this.)

I have told these new self-imposed guidelines to the only people who will truly hold me steadfastly accountable.

My children.