socials break: how to fill the time

In my last post I talked about deleting my social media to see what happens to me. During my past social media detoxes, I made 2 assumptions: (1) that doing this would make me better than everyone and (2) that I would see amazing positive results in overall wellbeing. This time, I'd like to treat it more as an experiment, philosophical and psychological. It's been a few days and I've already noticed that having no media isn't necessarily always good.

First, I want to reiterate that I am not completely off the grid. I have a Twitter stan account that I can still log onto via web browser on my iPad and laptop. I don't check it several times a day or anything. Maybe once every other day so far. I also have the Instagram app on my iPad. I run a popular Yale meme page on there so I can't leave it. I have an audience to entertain. I'm also logged into my finsta, which is very occasionally checked. I will probably post a photo dump some time today. Am I just supposed to let pictures sit in my camera role? I also have YouTube, which isn't "social media" but still a nice escape. I don't go on there too often but yesterday I discovered something called "YouTube Shorts" which is basically just TikTok. It's always funny to me when different social apps copy each other. Like when Instagram took "Stories" from Snap Chat and then copied "Reels" from TikTok. Or when Twitter introduced "Fleets" which is, again, a repackaged "Snapchat story."

Anyway, my screen time last week was on average 2hr 44 min per day, which is honestly a lot more than I thought. My most used app is Messages. I've noticed that even though I don't have distracting apps, I'll pick up my phone to do anything to occupy myself. This has manifested as reading old text messages, looking at old pictures, and marking emails as read. It's interesting to figure out what to do in situations where you'd normally use your phone (for example: in line, in Ubers, in waiting rooms, even in the bathroom). I was in an Uber the other day and actually looked out the window like they did in the good old days. That little action reminded me of the movie Wall-E, which is a fantastic commentary on climate change and mass consumer culture. Anyway, the humans on the space ship are constantly preoccupied by screens, and when the screens shut off because of problems with the ship, the humans are shocked to see each other and the surrounding environment. That scene is not too far from reality.

I guess being more "present" first leads to a spike in anxiety. My brain's baseline dopamine levels are high because I'm used to consuming or doing at all times. When you take away the source of consumption, your brain makes up for that lack of dopamine rush by shooting thoughts your way instead. So I've had to listen to the voices in my head more than I'd like to. I think it's at this point where one would really want to turn to media to drown out the mental noise and distract themselves. But my hypothesis is that if I stick through this, my baseline dopamine levels will readjust to a lower level and I'll feel calm instead of antsy. I don't know how long that's supposed to take. There are plenty of dopamine detox videos on YouTube so I'll do some research and report back. One guy said he could now "spend time in [his] own life instead of everyone else's." That resonated with me because I tend to be really affected by echo chambers and groupthink.

This links to my more personal reasons for this experiment. I recently discovered I have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). When people hear this, they usually think of someone washing hands until they bleed or checking if the door is locked 50 times. That's not what it is. Pure OCD is mostly mental and really fucks with your identity. It makes you lose sense of you are. It looks like intrusive thoughts followed by compulsions to check if the thoughts are true or false. Social media, especially TikTok, was really triggering for my OCD, because when you are stripped of identity, you feel the need to relearn what it's like to be normal. Algorithms do not promote diverse thought. They tag you and classify you and give you similar content over and over, leading to the formation of echo chambers. So instead of me being myself and exploring who I am, I listen to what others say and internalize that as how I should think and act. I won't get into the details of it, but basically, I'd like to discover who I am without hearing a million other people's opinions.

Humans were never supposed to know this much. I stand by that statement. We were never supposed to be this stimulated. At the same time, these platforms have been immensely beneficial, especially for creative pursuits. I love taking pictures and videos. I really miss making aesthetic TikToks or posting beautiful Instagram stories. I was sitting in a cafe yesterday and was thinking of how I could capture the steam coming out of my latte or the people walking outside or the way snow was falling onto the ledge. When I feel intimate with a moment in time, I want to capture it. To me this is art and creation. Finding the perfect angles and lighting and the perfect background music to accompany the clips. But of course, art needs an audience. I need to share those videos and show people what I see. My art also reflects me. Or perhaps who I want to be perceived as. But I think that is me. Posting a calming aesthetic video on TikTok and seeing a comment like "i can't stop watching this" or "i want to stay here forever" is very fulfilling for me. Even I enjoy watching the video over and over. For me, not being able to do this is a huge loss. But it's also allowing me to examine what parts are fulfilling in more detail.

I split my photo/video taking process into three components:

(1) intent/motive to capture

(2) content captured

(3) whether it's shared online

I assign different values to different reasons for each component. If the intent to capture is to gloat or appeal to a specific gaze, it holds less moral value to me than if the intent is to share something genuinely beautiful or important to me. A more concrete example: posting a selfie so that my crush will see it is bad. Posting a video of the way a plant moves in the gentle breeze is good. Next is the content captured. This is linked to intent, but slightly different. For me the content should meet a certain standard of quality. Sure, I find the moon beautiful. But the picture I take of it is not going to be so great. I want my content to be genuinely entertaining or beautiful to whoever sees it. People's feeds are inundated with pictures of lattes. My latte picture should be unique. Artistic even. The last component is whether I upload it. I take plenty of pictures for my own memory and pleasure. I took a picture of duct tape yesterday because it's attached to a certain moment I experienced. I also have many beautiful pictures of nature or my dog, etc., but I'm not necessarily going to post those. I guess for me, there is a threshold for publishing content. If you post too much, your engagement goes down. People become desensitized to your content. To maintain my 'cool aesthetic' image, I try to limit what's uploaded. Which is still bad in my moral book because now my intent is to project a filtered image of myself.

I don't know what to make of these realizations. Perhaps I will return to them a few weeks later and see if my opinions have changed. Maybe I won't remember having these stressors. Maybe I'll think I was extremely vain to be thinking like this. Maybe I'll still be in the same boat. Anyway, I picked up some books today from a bookstore. Those will be my "healthier" replacement for a phone in waiting rooms. But even when I picked those books up, I could 't help but think about how artsy I probably looked, flipping through the pages in my oversized jacket. So indie, so cool. But for who? An invisible consumer? For myself? Perhaps my OCD is attaching itself to morality too. Maybe I'm overthinking this. We'll see.