What Social Media Breaks Taught Me
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I remember creating my first social media account and being prompted to follow a suggested list of popular accounts. I remember asking for a follow back from every new person I followed, both friends and strangers. I remember the flood of unusual excitement that followed a ping from my phone. I remember feeling rejected when, after hours, there were no engagements on my posts; no comments, no shares, no retweets, no new follows and no likes. I remember admiring people who had several followers and viral activity on their profiles. I remember the feeling of want and lack while I gazed at aesthetic accounts with their minimalist coffee cup photos and adventurous bios. I remember feeling incompetent and inadequate when people posted pictures of themselves, their art, workout sessions and exotic moments from recent trips. I remember resenting myself for not meeting unrealistic standards. I remember the relief I felt when I realized much of my emotional stress and insecurities were bred by my many unchecked hours on social media. I only know this because I now understand the design of the networks I naively opted-in to.
Where I’m Coming From
Early last year, I felt overwhelmed very often. I soon noticed a link between stress and the number of notifications on my phone. There was always an email from a website I subscribed to but never visited. There was always someone going live on Instagram, someone tagging me in a comment on Facebook, an event I might be interested in because my social media connections were attending and of course the obvious click-bait articles. I would try to ignore them as much as I could until more notifications poured in and the list just kept growing. It always seemed like I had tasks I’d left undone. I would often try to get rid of them as soon as I could but this meant I had to pause any task at hand and focus on reading mails, replying certain messages and liking a post from a friend which inevitably led to scrolling. Infinite scrolling.
I was able to identify the source of this mental pressure that made me think I had so much to do and no time to complete my tasks. My solution to triage and clear them only made matters worse. There had to be a different approach. I wanted to be rid of them, all of them. Then it clicked; opt-out!
Unhooking Myself
I time-blocked an hour on a Saturday to unsubscribe from as many emails as I could. I had a similar approach for Facebook. I left groups and unliked pages I no longer found value in. I also unfollowed accounts of people I met without unfriending them. These were accounts that showed up frequently on my timeline and usually distracted me. Obviously, I couldn’t sift through the list of third-parties who I’d given my email to over the years or leave every group I joined. In the days that followed, once I got a notification from a website I was subscribed to or another irrelevant social media post, I simply clicked it and handled it accordingly. With time, I saw a decline in the number of times my phone’s screen lit up and vibrated. I noticed how much more I was able to go at tasks without being distracted. There was a feeling of accomplishment. from believing I beat the system.
The Opt-Out Facade
Now that I was getting fewer distractions, I thought I’d finally be free of the burden I’d experienced but something wasn’t quite right. I would catch myself reaching for my phone even when it didn’t vibrate. I would spend even more time per session being hooked when I finally got a notification. Was this some kind of digital withdrawal? Yes, quite frankly it was.
While there isn’t much research to prove the existence of unpleasant side effects of limited device usage, one can observe the number of times focus is shifted from priority tasks to pressing the power button. Two reasons for this behaviour that come to mind are experiencing a fear of missing out and acting involuntarily to be rid of boredom.
The former is expected given the design of social networks. While on your favorite network (even LinkedIn), you are exposed to a variety of experiences and information that entertain you and invoke different emotions within short periods of time. This feeling becomes longed for when you’re not on the app and leads to constant checking and switching between apps searching for new activity. This fear of missing out brings you back again and again to fantasize about the lives of others and the amount of “fun” they’re having.
Acting involuntarily might be a result of a learned behavior. A phone rings or vibrates and we pick it up. It rings again and we repeat the process. When it doesn’t ring for a long time and one is not mentally engaged in any other task, it is easy to find a hand reaching for the phone just to see if anything new is available. It’s not rare to experience feeling a phone vibrate or thinking you heard it ring only to find an empty notification panel.
For me, opting out was much harder than I thought. There had to be a better strategy.
Defining Priorities
I knew my productivity was lower than I wanted it to be. I also knew that my spontaneous goals that ended as quickly as they came we’re kicking me off course. At this point, I had to ask myself what was most important to me.
I identified what my desires were in no particular order and put them under a microscope. I first filtered out anything that was influenced by seeking external approval. Such “goals” sounded like I want to be a really good at drawing. However, they come from a place of wanting to be like others rather than being inspired by the work itself. I then cut off anything that wouldn’t provide enough value to change my life positively within the next few months. This tactic surprisingly let me know what I really held important. After identifying my largest time waster was time spent on social media, I decided to take action.
I deleted accounts I never used and deactivated others where I had made important connections that I would like to maintain. I realised I could reach people by SMS, email or a phone call and would have no problems whatsoever. The withdrawal effects definitely felt strong in the first week but soon subsided.
The Results
After several months, I logged back into one of my accounts out of curiosity. My notifications were mostly updates of events or groups I was in. The user interface of the app hadchanged but the content and quality of information people share remained the same. I hadn’t missed much.
In the time I was off, I doubled down on learning new skills and honing my craft as much as I could. I became more productive and effective with problem solving. Most of my time had gone to brainstorming ideas and finding new ones. Of course I wasn’t coding 24/7 but when I did, I put my mind to it. And when I had spare time, I was reflecting on myself and learning things that should have been obvious to me. My confidence and sense of self-worth improved because of what I was able to do with my time rather than comparing myself to others and external metrics.
My time off social media was worth it. I’m back now but consciously try to monitor time spent on it as well as my thoughts while scrolling through. I believe the real lesson here was identifying what my goals were and removing hindrances to them.
