Blog Tour: It Started With A Tweet, Guest Post from Author Anna Bell

It Started With a Tweet by Anna Bell

Published: 7th December 2017

Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre

Pages: 416

Available on Kindle

Pre-Order from Amazon

Blurb

Daisy Hobson lives her whole life online. But when her social media obsession causes her to make a catastrophic mistake at work, Daisy finds her life going into free-fall . . .

Her sister Rosie thinks she has the answer to all of Daisy's problems - a digital detox in a remote cottage in Cumbria. Soon, too, Daisy a welcome distraction there in Jack, the rugged man-next-door.

But can Daisy, a London girl, ever really settle into life in a tiny, isolated village?

And, more importantly, can she survive without her phone?

Today I'd like to welcome the wonderful Anna Bell to my blog to talk about one aspect of her fabulous new book It Started With A Tweet, out on Thursday. So over to Anna:

Social Media And Me

I adore social media. Being a British expat living in France I love the fact that I feel connected with the UK with a simple swipe. From a work perspective I love that I can talk to readers and other authors. From a personal perspective I love that I can lose hours watching Instagram stories and finding out everything I ever needed to know in an instant.  But I also hate social media. I hate the fact that I am always tempted to check my phone. I hate the fact it can cripple with me anxiety that my life doesn’t look as fun as everyone else’s. And I hate the fact that I ignore people who are actually in the room with me to speak to virtual strangers. I’ve started to wonder is it possible to find a balance between love and hate.

When I started to write my main character Daisy in my latest novel It Started With a Tweet, I was laughing at the way she acted when she was forced offline and the ridiculous lengths she went to find the internet. Only the more I started to write her, the more I started to see myself in her and I began to notice how obsessed with my phone I actually am. I started to track the time I spent on it and was amazed that those little email refreshes here and that scan of Twitter there actually added up to hours during a day.

Shocked to discover my addiction, I was determined to do something about it and I ended up doing a three day digital detox. I prepared myself for tears, tantrums and misery, only they didn’t come. It was as if I knew that I wasn’t allowed it so I didn’t even reach for it. I felt freer than I have in a long, long time and for once I didn’t have major FOMO (fear of missing out) as I wasn’t seeing what everyone else was up to.

Realising that I treated my phone like another person in the room - always giving it priority over everyone and anything else - I decided I needed to change. I’ve

now deleted Facebook off my iPad and phone. I’ve off all my notifications from all my apps and now the only way to know now if someone’s got in contact with me is if I check. I no longer jump to the beat of my phone as it’s pretty much silent all day. I’ve started to tweet more as I’m trying to be more of an active participant rather than just a reader, in the hope that I’ll get more out of it. I’m also trying to wean myself off Instagram stories, as yet with no success - but you’ve got to have one achilles heel, right?

I think writing the novel was great for me to remind me that there’s a world away from my phone. Life goes on whether I’m on or offline and I don’t always have to know what’s happening all the time. My great love affair with social media isn’t over, but like all love affairs I’m beginning to think perhaps it’s healthier not to spend all your time together!

Thank you so much Anna for sharing your social media thoughts with us and look out soon for my review of the hilarious It Started With a Tweet.