Media Detox

My biography on social media for the past 20 years has been: Builder. Fixer. Thinker. Rocker.

I thrive in creative environments and have a real need to be designing, producing and moving to stay happy. My therapist recently pointed out that my self-esteem is directly tied to my productivity, which was something that I needed to hear.

Over the past few years, I found myself laying in bed before I fell asleep or after I woke up, just scrolling - trying to find a few, unearned dopamine hits… and I'd zone out several times a day to do the same.

I tried setting 15 minute app limits for all of the social media apps on my phone, but kept ignoring the warnings. Every time that I saw someone else scrolling, I’d judge them and then recognize that I was just as guilty.

Over-consumption is depressing… whether it be media, shopping, food, drinks, whatever. I think it's abnormal for Americans, myself especially included, to know how to consume anything without over-consuming it. The way that we’re encouraged to do so is straight unhealthy. Aside from the short term bits of satisfaction, it doesn’t buy happiness.

I’ve become increasingly cognizant that Social Media wasn’t showing me things that I cared about. It wasn’t showing me things from the people I cared about. It was just a firehose of bullshit no matter how much I tried to curate it… and I had to scroll longer and longer to find something worthwhile. It was becoming a job and it was interfering with my desire to create, and ultimately my happiness.

This past election cycle, along with the dread that came from handing power back to a corrupt, old, unethical shitbag amplified things. I was tired of seeing the bullshit mixed with content about fuckheads that I don’t subscribe to or support.

So, I decided to focus and rein it in a little bit.

At first, I started unfollowing or removing toxic people or channels from my lists, but that still didn’t fix the algorithms. The bullshit was just replaced with different bullshit. So, I started deleting apps from my phone whole hog. I removed Reddit, Facebook, X, TikTok, Threads, Snapchat, etc. I even removed my news apps: The AP, KCCI (my local news app), and Apple News.

The next morning, I woke up, grabbed my phone and didn’t know what to do with it. I spent a couple minutes on Instagram and Bluesky (the only social apps I kept), and then found myself doom scrolling the next toxic dumping ground of spam… my email, lol. So, I just put my phone down, got up, and started my day - much earlier than normal.

It’s been incredibly eye opening. I’m a month in and have been more motivated to tinker. I started caring about / working on my website again. I’ve begun thinking about house projects and have been more intentional and motivated with my time.

Over the past month, I’ve checked in to Facebook twice on my computer and found that the only things I missed were a couple of events… which is a bummer. The last real value that I was finding on Facebook was events. But I haven't missed any of the other apps a bit.

So… I guess the point of this post is just to acknowledge that social media and the 24-hour news cycle had me in a deeper rut than I realized.

We’ll see how long I stay away, but I can’t see myself wanting to participate in the way that I was.

I still use Instagram and Bluesky... however, I’m finding instagram to be pretty awful lately as well. Bluesky, at least so far, has been the least toxic microblogging environment that I’ve found… plus, they have nice APIs, which sync all my posts back to this website.

Anyway, I highly recommend a social media detox if you’re finding yourself in a similar place. Give me a call if you do (or if you don’t).

Let’s kick it IRL.