My decision to delete all Meta social media (WhatsApp not included) and TikTok from my phone came in a moment of intense overstimulation; my thoughts had become so jumbled that I simply logged out, and removed the apps. That was roughly four weeks ago - I don’t actually recall the day. But I do remember the day of the week, because like some strange form of muscle memory, every Wednesday the urge to mindlessly scroll through TikTok feels more tempting than any other.
That’s just one of the strange things that I’ve noticed. Though in effort to keep myself honest, I want to tell you the two forms of social media content I have decided to keep: Substack (hi, hello!) and Reddit. When I told a friend that I had decided to keep Reddit, he responded with “omg that cesspool? Why on earth did you keep that?!” Which, ok, fair enough assessment, but I can wholly customize my content if I stick to my home feed. Which I do. My Reddit account is full of fragrance memes, Lana Del Rey para-social commentary that is equal parts uncomfortable and entertaining to read, equestrian content, Ballet/barre/Pilates questions, wine, skincare, and living abroad threads. It’s as gentle as a summer breeze.
I think this is the very crux of why it was kept: the ability (illusion?) to control the content. For years I have told anyone who would listen that I had “trained my algorithm” on the short form platforms. I held an illusion of agency; I believed that if I liked, shared, or reposted certain content that reflected my interests or personal tastes, surely this was shaping my online persona that future yet-to-be-seen content would shape and shift to adapt to.
With that argument I was also relieving myself of any culpability or personal responsibility: because the reality was I was spending hours online every day scrolling. My weekly screen time report served as a reminder that I was not in control at all: the apps were. Not only was I handing over my agency of time management, I was handing over…my agency period.
We know that our apps monitor our movements both online and “in the real world”. Every day our personal lives are recorded as marketable data, and the truth is we still don’t understand to what extent it’s being used. And - listen. I’m not trying to turn this into a moral or political argument. These apps are addictive intentionally. And wanting or getting a “bump” of them every once in a while - it’s understandable. But that wasn’t what was happening with me: I was clocking the weekly hours of a full time job. I was calling it “working on my personal brand”, and I was telling myself that I was staying in contact with friends. I was renaming my addiction, and loss of control.
So, I made the autonomous decision to step back. I’m still not comfortable enough to say that I will never be back: I probably will be. When I do return I hope that I’ll be more responsible with my consumption (geez, spoken like a true addict, huh?). We shall see…
So…has getting off the apps helped? For the past four-ish weeks I’ve been paying attention to how life feels without them, and how I feel I am improving because of it:
I am reading more. I have read six books since deleting the apps. I don’t necessarily credit this directly to no longer using short-form content, but rather as a positive affirmation that my brain and attention span are reconfiguring to focus long enough to actually sit and read a book from cover to cover. It feels really good. I am also enjoying the joy of reading again: to experience another’s voice and written style, to be surprised by an author, and to experience emotion from written text. (I’ve also purposefully stuck to shorter books - roughly 200-400 pages in length to boost my reading confidence.)
I have very vivid dreams, which I remember the next morning, and sometimes even into the following day. It’s surprising how much more human I feel in being able to remember my dreams. For me, not being able to remember my dreams feels indistinguishable from not having them at all, and so waking in the morning with them still fresh in my mind feels like I am reconnecting with myself.
I am sleeping better, and for longer - but my schedule has changed. With short form social media content, I could be tired but consciously unaware of it while still feeling anxious to “get to bed on time”. I would scroll TikTok out of habit and before I knew it I would be the only one awake, and still needing to get ready for bed. And then of course, what’s the purpose of going to bed “on time” if I’m the only one awake anyway?
Now I will watch longer media (such as a movie) or read before bed. I find it much easier to pick up on signals that I am tired this way. I am also quite tired by 9pm, and by 10pm I can barely stay awake. On average I am now getting about 9-9.5 hours of sleep.
Watching movies has become easier. I will humble myself and admit that when I was consuming a high amount of short-form content, I couldn’t sit through an entire film; I would often reach for my phone out of boredom, lose interest in the film, press pause and never return to it. Now I can sit through a full feature length and pause only for bathroom breaks. A film I decided to revisit was Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (bear with me here); and guess what? It had my full attention and I walked away not with conspiracy theories, but a solid art piece on fragile masculinity and just how far the world will go to blind itself to it. Go figure.
My screen time has gone down significantly. A no brainer here - I’m simply not scrolling for hours through content anymore. I do find myself “wanting” though. In no way has this been a clean break; most of the apps are gone (and perhaps not gone forever) but I still find myself wanting to be distracted by scrolling on my phone. The behavior of scanning content (such as an image or headline) and immediately jumping to the comments to decide how I “feel” about the content instead of forming my own independent and informed opinion first, is still happening.
…Because deleting (most of) the apps was the easy part. But recalibrating my reward seeking behavior through my phone hasn’t been fully figured out. I know that my hyper-customized Reddit feed is still contradictory to my argument on agency over app algorithms; because there is still less than ideal screen time - it’s less than it was before, but it’s still there, and I’m still scrolling (just.not.as.much!). And yes; it took a friend pointing this out and calling me out on it to notice.
Baby steps.
I’ve been getting into hobbies. This month I have added two hobbies that I have always wanted to try since I was a little girl. This has brought me so much joy that it genuinely has me looking forward to each new class, session, and week. I’m getting out of the house, meeting new people, and striking up conversations with others. I’m socializing with broader groups than I have for a while, and it feels really healthy. As one classmate said to me before our lesson - “This year really feels like I want to do things to heal my inner child. I want to focus on things that make me happy.”
I couldn’t agree more.
For further reading:
On Attention and Overload: A Quiet Exit When You’ve Reached Your Limit
·
Feb 5
I don’t believe in “new years resolutions”: for me, the new year begins on my birthday. It’s an intentional centering of self in a world that asks us to disengage otherwise. But…I did feel a spark of something fresh and new with this year’s New Year’s Eve - it was a sparkle of hope; a glimmer that felt extra fresh and special, like a cool breeze after a…
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.