In the previous post I was writing about the effect of the algorithm on our wellbeing. After I wrote it I was thinking more about the topic and my mind went to social media. I asked myself a question:
If we are all so tempted with social media, and we know it harms us in a long run, why haven’t we all deleted these apps already?
This is a question I keep asking myself for past year really. I see effects of being chronically online on myself and others, and I read quite a lot of research papers about the effects of social media on our minds, way of thinking and so on.
But even though I see all these issues with social media usage I still, every day, wake up and among first things I do is brushing my teeth while scrolling my feed on Instagram, Reddit and YouTube. Honestly, I hate it. I hate this routine. And every day I tell myself in the evening that the next day will be different. Next day comes and goes and nothing is different.
If I had read that paragraph from outside perspective I would say: “Gosh, what a weak person. Just don’t use it, duh. Have some discipline.” And if you had thought that, I would have to agree with you because I feel that way quite a lot. Why can’t I just stop?
For example, Instagram. I use it since I was like 12, I kinda grew with it, and I’m pretty sure that somewhere there is my old account full of cringe photos or even videos (god no). And I actually very much enjoyed this media throughout my teen years. I was getting inspired here, and it was my platform where I shared my photos, some poems, and art. I got all news here, I watch my favourite politicians here, and so on. I truly felt connected to my community and my city. But the problem is, that this connection is alive only there. When I close my phone, I’m no longer in the flow, in the community. I am then disconnected. The same issue is with my friends. I am connected to my friends mostly only when I am scrolling and sending memes to them.
I am fully aware, that this issue is solvable through actually meeting my friends outside the online sphere. But we are all busy chasing our dreams, so yes, yet more excuses.
I saw a video about analog bag trend, referencing also my desire to be more offline, a guy in a video talked about that even if we go offline, we then have to face a different reality. The reality today is that the “third places” are dead, places where people could meet without paying, just to hang out. And so these places went online, and now we are forced to abide by the big corporations’ rules. The social media was there to fill the void, but if we delete all the social apps, we are then subsequently cut off from opportunity to socialize. And so we are left with our thoughts, our loneliness.
And yes, it’s totally not a bad thing, we have to learn to be by ourselves and be bored (I recommend this video about boredom). But people are very much not used to it. I was alone my whole childhood. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I was raised without siblings, so I had to learn to entertain myself. But even I see on myself, how I can’t eat without some stupid video playing in the background. We truly have become our parents, but instead of TV news blasting we have YouTube.
The solution?
The only solution that comes to mind is to just delete these apps. Why not, right? Every time I am willing to delete it I say, no, what if somebody texts me there, or I see something useful, will learn something, and so on. Just more excuses. And so I don’t delete them, and the wheel keeps spinning.
If I delete all my social media, my work communication is jeopardized, because my work group is located on Facebook, one of THE worst social media there is. But there the solution was deleting Facebook and using it only in a web. I have already deleted Twitter few years ago, when it started to become unusable. So, it now leaves Instagram and Reddit. My current solution is partial blockage, but this “solution” seems bad and very artificial to me, because if I block these media why not delete it? And for that I have no answer. YET.
P.S. I was primarily writing this post yesterday, and I got very sick of just the idea of having Instagram, so I have officially deleted it. I cannot do any conclusions, because we will see how it goes.