Quitting Social Media (2 Years Later)
This is sort of a continuation from my first ever blog post here How I Quit Social Media and Took My Life Back. I wanted to give a bit more of a follow up on my 3 year journey, hiccups, plans going forward, etc.
In my old article, I explained the general quitting process and I'd like to expand upon that. I did "relapse" particularly with reddit quite a bit with making accounts. I wanted to engage still with subreddits for my particular interests, but found that I couldn't stop myself from engaging with people that said something stupid or problematic. So, I finally dropped the accounts for good. This was about a few months after I had quit all the other social media profiles.
With return-to-office, I found myself still spending quite a bit of time on reddit out of sheer boredom. What else was I supposed to do for 8-hrs a day outside of my usual work? So, I'd scroll on reddit without an account and would end up just being miserable most of the time with all the doom-posting particularly circling around the never-ending all-you-can-eat bullshit coming from every dumb thing the US's current administration was doing. I'd find myself just making myself angry even on my car ride back. This completely took away from being present with my family when I was home. So, I set the strong boundary to avoid reddit as much as possible and only go to specific subreddits if I absolutely needed to (mostly for troubleshooting/references).
This whole thing again reminded me that while social media can be good, the powers that be don't let it be a healthy environment.
I needed something that would stop me from seeking out the infinite feed
I started trying to figure out how else to spend my time at work when I'm bored. I had a few ideas:
- Watch movies/shows
- Listen to new albums
- Practice drawing
- Write for the blog
- Work on Neocities website
- Journal
I also set the hard boundary with myself to not bring a phone into the toilet so I'm not tempted to doom scroll. To give my brain SOMETHING to do outside of just play with my imagination is to read a book. Something kinda dry that won't be enthralling enough for me to lose significant time in. The book currently sitting by my toilet is "The Subtle Art of Logic in an Illogical World" written by mathematician Eugenia Cheng. It's a dive into applying mathematical logic to reason, solid read, very dry. Perfect. It's just interesting enough to engage, but dry enough to wear I won't feel tempted to sit on the crapper until I get a hemorrhoid.
The main reason for all this change is to break the habit of mindless media consumption and bring more control/intention into what I consume.
I will often get reminders about how much I'm glad I was off of social media. Recently, my wife got an ad for some airway dentist (yes it's apparently a real thing) claiming that "90% of ADHD is just poor sleep" and proceeding to sales pitch about airway posture or some stupid shit. I took my wife's phone, found the "sources" she posted and proceeded to light her up in her comment section. While it felt good to lay into a grifter, it was really just a waste of energy and will ultimately do nothing. This was basically the only time I even touched instagram in my 2 year social media detox.
Overall, I've significantly cut down my social media usage. I think the only thing that will sap away time is Youtube. I am currently working on creating a healthy relationship with youtube; which will be a blog for another day.
With all that, I'm glad I made the decision to quit social media, I get brief glimpses at it and am reminded just how much it sucks and how much I won't go back.
Reply via email: me@absurdpirate.com