Reclaiming My Time

I’ve been spending too much time doom/rage/mindlessly scrolling on social media. Today I finished The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher and even before I finished it I was cutting back on social media. It’s a well written, meticulously sourced book and left me feeling pretty bad about the amount of time and energy I put into social media.

I do believe that social media can be a good thing. Recently I started using a new photography app called Foto and it’s so refreshing to just scroll pictures and not be inundated with political posts which is what I consume a lot of. I live in the US and our political landscape is an absolute shitshow to put it mildly.

Like the title says I want to reclaim my time but I also want to reclaim my energy and my peace. I am taking action to protect others but I also need to step back and regroup for my own mental health and cutting back on social media feels like a good first step.

Last summer I ordered a brick. Which is just a 3d printed box that pairs with an app by the same name, it lets you block apps on your phone and when you “brick” your phone those apps are locked out to you until I scan the hardware token again. The actual token also has a magnet on the back so I just put it on my fridge and until I unbrick it I can’t access any social media. It’s amazing to me how many times I pick up my phone to just mindlessly scroll.

For now I’m exempting BlueSky and Foto from brick because I have both of them setup primarily for photography with little to no political content and I intend to keep it that way. Another thing I’m going to do is stop neglecting this blog. I really enjoy writing here and I have a lot I want say but I get so caught up in social media that it leaves me tired and angry. That stops. When I think about something I want to write about, instead of telling myself that I’ll write about that later and then completely forgetting I am going grab my laptop and write the damn thing.

I want to be more in touch with my creativity and I’ve learned that in order to do that I have to tune out some things. I’m not saying I won’t write anything about politics here because I just might do that and if that happens it will be more thought out than just an angry post on Facebook or Threads.