Social Media and Me

I’ve been on social media for a really long time now. Over the last month or so I just really seem to have had my fill of it. I haven’t deleted any accounts yet, and I probably won’t since I have so much history, but I’ve significantly cut down the time I spend on every platform.

Between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads I’ve been averaging 25-30 hours per week. The majority of that was what I consider doomscrolling and just scrolling because I was bored.

Back in 2022 I took a 30-day break from all social media and as I re-read the posts I made about that time I remember feeling lighter both emotionally and physically.

My self control lately has been tough to find and setting app limits on my phone don’t work for me when there’s an easy way to skip/extend/turn off those limits. I picked up a hardware token made by Brick that, with the app, locks out the apps I don’t want access to and can’t be bypassed until I scan the hardware token again. Using the Brick app has really made it easier. I still want to use social media but I have to find a way to not doom scroll and not use it when I’m bored.

I’ve been filling my new found free time with writing here, reading and getting outside. This method might not work for others but so far it’s been exactly what I need and I’m embracing it. The longest I’ve left the block on social media apps on my phone is 138 hours. I’ve gone from that 20-30 hours per week to 1 hour per week. Turns out that I didn’t miss that much either.