Background: I love sketching so I have my social media accounts on Instagram as well as Facebook, Threads, X and Bluesky. I sometimes sell my artworks in the market/fair in London. I have my website too.
At least from 2019, I started trying to delete them, and I even tried 30-days not using social media as suggested by Cal Newport. Even though it was like him said no one would care, I came back. In London when I met more people through sketching events and sketching on the street, my followers rose a lot as a result.
But due to the design of social media, my account can’t be just focused on my art but everything has messed up. Friendships, hangouts, news… having one more account separated doesn’t help. Increasing popularity does help improve business but many people trying to take advantage of me (in terms of both friendship and business).
Looks like social media results in various benefits but they are fake. I even felt painful in using it. Simply delete apps can’t help too.
I have an idea to try to ditch Instagram and other social media again. Thinking of the article Why Ditching Instagram Earned me the Podium I read before encouraged my move, but I rather deactivate than permanently delete.
I don’t know what will be next. But I feel a little bit relaxed at least.
There are some other things that trigger my want to move: recently I started writing blog articles again and I ended up 11 articles last month. Although they are not as popular as my Instagram, I feel satisfied with writing, and my thinking is more structured. I also have higher awareness that the content in social media is not true and real, boring and the content can be influenced by others (this problem is more serious on Threads as Meta wants users to be more interactive with others).
You might seek to become a non-involved, objective, third party to ask yourself what your emotional, psychological, intellectual, and financial returns you gain for the investments in time, energy, emotion, and money in each social media account. Sometimes, just knowing why you are ok to waste your early morning hour scrolling through the randomly-posted Reddit scroll feed is enough to take away the anxiety (not that I would claim to have any real first hand experience on this one (cough cough)). Or such an inventory could help you gain the needed clarity to restructure what you do in each account.
You are however also hearing this advice from someone who has no personal social media footprint at all beyond forums such as this one. You could take this as the classic picture of a celibate monk on a hill preaching wisdom to a socialite in Hollywood.
At least you are heading in the right direction to feel a bit more relaxed.
I really liked that article, thanks for sharing. I’m not an elite level athlete, but my journey to get off social media has been similar. It was great to hear someone else having similar struggles.
It’s empowering to go somewhere or see an event and just sit there in the moment, enjoying it, without feeling the need to post to an audience. It’s also really cool to feel your attention span return to at least 2015 levels. Distracted, but not brain-zapped. Maybe someday I’ll get back to 1999 levels
I like that! I felt a little calmness when I read it.
I remember reading (somewhere, no idea where, and probably misremembered) about a time when someone was meeting Steve Jobs, he was late, and they found him sitting playing a video game.
I personally think Cal Newport has made a lot of people feel guilty, for no good reason.
I sometimes advise my clients to make an invisible sign that has:
an invisible smiley face on one side, and,
the words “%$#@ Off Nicely” written invisibly on the other side.
I suggest that they show the invisible smiley face to the outside world, then figure out some nice words to tell other people to go away, and if they won’t go away, ban them.
In case that’s a little bit weird: find a nice way to tell other people to go away, do it with a smile, and if that doesn’t work, ban them. You owe them nothing.
And, most importantly: you do get something out of Facebook etc - the pleasure of sharing, and maybe some money, and maybe some entertainment.
That’s good!
Use them selfishly, for your benefit.
p.s. I’ve never figured out what the “%$#@” stands for. I imagine we all have our own version. Mine is
Although I read his books before, I am not guilty of using social media.
I just want to find the way it is for me.
Talking about technology and online services, I do have some features or functionality that can’t be used absolutely. For example, I must turn off notifications from instant messaging like WhatsApp or Signal. I prefer manually open the app to check if there are new messages. I tried to turn on and live with it. It’s easy for me to overreact.
I know I can learn to live with various things, but some can take much longer time that it’s not worth spending time and energy in this case.
Technology is something you have both the options to make use of when you need to, or get rid of if you don’t want. Sadly the design wants you to commit to it all the time in one’s life, although I understand the business has to be sustainable.
