Being addicted to social media wasn’t on my bingo card this year.
I’ve been a social media enthusiast since the dawn of Facebook though I didn’t see the effects it had on me, or the consequences I would face. Having social media in and of itself has been an incredibly useful tool that I’ve used to meet new friends, share pictures, and acquire my first software development job. Normally, I’d advocate for some kind of presence, and I still think it’s a good idea in moderation, because it’s a good tool. This tool can be abused though if you let it, and I let it.
Social media has had a prominent role in my life to the point where I unknowingly developed an addition of sorts. The kind that sneaks up on you when you think what you’re doing isn’t that bad. One thing leads to another and suddenly you’re picking your phone up absentmindedly in between tasks or out of boredom with no discernible purpose or notification to tend to. This seemed find at first until the habit forms where before you think about it, your phone is in your hand and you’re rifling through your top 10 apps - again with no real purpose.
It’s funny how this mindless scrolling or app perusing can have a profound effect on your psyche. Perhaps you’re strong willed and your brain is a well oiled machine so this doesn’t effect you, well then I’d question whether or not you’re a robot. It took me a long time to figure out why I had this underlying feeling of anxiety whenever I was around my phone. The kind that you can’t quite put your finger on, but you know it’s there. The only relief to anxiety was me being offline, or unplugged as they say, where even if someone wanted to reach me, they’d be unable to.
Recently I decided to delete social media from my phone. It’s been about a week right now and using this as my journal I’ll write:
It feels pretty good
Surprisingly, the draw to my phone is mitigated substantially. I find myself going without looking at it for longer periods at a time as compared to before where it would be on the forefront of my mind anytime I had a moment of boredom.
Now if only I could do this for food.
The anxiety I feel is no longer present. I’ve actually tried deleting my social media before, but found myself downloading it again which reignited the whole array of feelings. For this, I am proud.
My personal jury is on a hiatus. I can’t attribute my lack of focus sometimes to any particular thing. However, I can say that the looming presence of social media being a swipe away, tugged on my consciousness like an annoying cat (just kidding, cats are cool).
The thought of it always being right there contributed to me picking up my phone more times than not. I’m reading this great book called “Deep work” by Cal Newport (recommend). The similarities described in the book matched my situation perfectly. Turns out that having these kinds of apps that are engineered to feed you dopamine repeatedly, actually has any affect on your ability to focus. In turn, this can attribute (at least in me) to not only a lack of focus, but brain fog, the lack of desire to want to do work which requires focus.
These symptoms of what I believe was an addiction to social media had a tangible impact on my ability to work focussed and deeply. I can recall numerous times, as if it were part of my psychology/personality, the times where I’d work for 5 minutes and reach for my phone to open the same 5 apps even though nothing required my attention. Let’s be real though, nothing requires our attention like that when a phone is the context.
I’d like to include waking your phone to check notifications in this conversation. I think there’s little difference between opening your phone to check your apps absentmindedly versus waking your phone constantly to check for notifications. These underlying issues relate to the need to constants hit that dopamine switch for your little mouse brain.
Removing this temptation from being within arms reach broke the habit for me within a week.
I still check social media on my laptop/computer, but I don’t stay on it like I used to. The days of doomscrolling X or Instagram are gone, thankfully. Those apps are perfectly engineered to suck you in, and they do that very well.
Come to think of it. The most egregious example I can think of is Snapchat. There is no utility, no conceivable need for their streak system. It wouldn’t take anyone with a couple brain cells to rub together to figure out the motive behind that feature. Now deleting Snapchat is more out of spite than anything. I will break our Snap streak if we ever get one - out of principal.
It’s examples like that, that frustrate me. Something designed to be addicting in such a way, is a special kind of evil. If you’ve never seen “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix, I’d recommend.
But, I get it! There’s a reason many individuals are addicted to their phones, but it’s not the way it should be. I feel bad for those that lay around watching Instagram reels and Youtube shorts, because their missing a whole lot of life; and it’s easy to fall into.
I could go on and on about social media and perhaps in future articles I’ll share my opinion. For now, I’m enjoying having no social media on my phone. The crack device is neutered. Funny enough, it’s not the social media that was addicting, but perhaps the ease at which it was accessible. There’s no desire to be glued to my monitor on X or whatever. Interesting.