Unplugging from Social Media: A Tale of an Addict and An Ongoing Experiment

Quitting social media reveals true addictive behaviors that I otherwise may not want to acknowledge. Ignorance truly is bliss I suppose, but at what cost? To be candid, I wasn’t completely ignorant as a social media user and consumer. I was pretty aware of my behavior patterns and I had flagged them in my mind as addict-like, but just because I knew didn’t mean that I was willing to deny my own desire to keep consuming.

This awareness began when I started to receive weekly screen time reports which I would like to note that I did not ask for. Like I said, ignorance is bliss. Every Sunday morning, I began receiving my average screen time over the past week and I was directly confronted with how I was choosing to spend my time. Sometimes, I was indifferent to the number and other times I would make it a point to cut back. Cutting back in it of itself really makes me sound like a junkie and perhaps I really was.

So I decided, in true junkie fashion, to limit or restrict myself to daily screen time to only at the end of the day, sometime after dinner and before I unwind for the night. And I would say for the better part of this last year, that was pretty sustainable. Only, it was than when I could really see some of those addictive behaviors and patterns occur.

Now, I should mention that I am not a stranger to addiction. A little over a year ago I quit vaping after about four years of on and off use. I will say that making my mind up to quit was harder than actually quitting. I have high expectations for myself and can be very hard on myself so when I began to see myself acting neurotic and dependent on a substance I was fully convicted and new what I had to do.

That said, I learned a lot from self observation during the time I did vape although it’s much easier to spot the things that are out of the ordinary or out of character in oneself and behaving like an addict revealed a lack of control that I needed to regain. Now, a little over one year later, I ironically find myself in a similar position although this time it’s social media that has revealed disturbing behavior patterns like looking for excuses to go on my phone or mindlessly opening up social media apps in the middle of the day and having to correct myself to wait until later in the evening.

I had to set boundaries for myself and I was essentially practicing delayed gratification, but I realized that it wasn’t actually sustainable. And I don’t want or need to spend an hour a day frothing at the mouth consuming content from a user interface that was designed to manipulate my dopamine input and inhibit my long term ability to think and focus.

So, here we are now, no social media. Now, I am not saying that I am never going to use social media again. I work in marketing so that’s not necessarily feasible and I do believe that there is a way to leverage it appropriately that can be a really great tool for learning and connection. But, there is a balance I would like to strike when using social media for personal use and it’s going to take some time to figure out the best way to use it most effectively with consideration of my time and my mind. Perhaps it’s not at all, I don’t know.

I am not sure if this is becoming a new trend where each year I give up something new. I am a bit weary, but up for the challenge if that’s whats on the agenda. Anyway, I will follow up with an update with how this, shall we say, ‘experiment’ goes as I un-addict myself. Stay tuned.