On a social media diet

[breakinglight11]

I've made an effort recently to seriously cut back on my social media use. I can't abandon it entirely— it's the only really effective way I have to promote my creative work —but I think excessive exposure to it is adversely affecting my mental health. My depression has a tendency to make me lapse into it as an endless source of bullshit input when my brain can't seem to latch onto anything substantive. And I get no joy from scrolling dumb meaningless shit on Facebook or Twitter, yet I do it when I feel bad anyway, and end up feeling worse with the time I waste. So I'm allowing myself to post things, check notifications once a day, but no scrolling through random feed stuff. I lose a ton of time to it and end up feeling bad.

I'm also trying to change my relationship with my smart phone, and I think the social media stuff is part of the problem. I've been reading articles and talking to people about smart phone addiction, how it destroys focus, and depresses enjoyment and engagement in other things. And as bad as one author had it, I compared my usage data to his and mine was actually worse. That was depressing to see. I've been struggling with attention issues and an inability to get engaged with things I would normally expect to enjoy, and I think this addiction at least makes it worse, even if it's not totally responsible. Recently I had some of the worst inability to enjoy or get interested in something that should have made me happy in ages, and it was such a terrible feeling I've resolved to do something about it. I don't know if just cutting way, way back on social media is enough to undo any damage, but I figure it's a place to start. If nothing else, I hate how hard it is for me to read books, or anything longform anymore, because I can't rouse the interest or focus. Even an improvement on that front would be a little victory.

Comments

[beowabbit]

I miss the longform blogging of LiveJournal (and my attention span for it). I migrated to Facebook when the center-of-gravity of my community moved there. (And I deleted my LJ account recently when I realized LJ was now subject to draconian Russian homophobic law, and haven’t been able to get the Dreamwidth habit — so thanks for cross-posting links to Facebook!) Now I seem to be drifting away from Facebook, too, but with nothing really to replace it.

For the record, from the outside it looks like you distracted by your smartphone and struggling with depression accomplish more than most people at their peak. I realize that’s not what it feels like from the inside, but you fake it really well, and really, I think we’re all stumbling through life and scrambling to make a presentable show of it.

[breakinglight11]

I feel so similarly about the downfall of LJ. I'm still in mourning for it.

That's really kind of you to say, thank you! I'm proud of my ability to still do things despite struggling with this. But it would be nice to not feel so down all the time.

[valleyviolet]

Don't be too hard on yourself. Sometimes depression can seriously screw with your focus regardless of how you're managing it. I'm glad to hear you've found some things to try to help with it, but try to be kind to yourself. Sometimes you're just going to need more time and patience to get through things.

[breakinglight11]

Thank you, I appreciate the kindness and encouragement. <3

[jducoeur]

Sympathies. I'm dealing with some of the same, although with different vectors: blessedly, I've never taken FB all that seriously, and have never gotten into using it much on my phone. (95% of my FB usage is Groups, and I get notified of new threads there via email. I warn my friends that if it's just posted on FB, odds are I won't notice it.)

But email and Slack have gotten to the point where they're actively getting in the way of me getting stuff done. Still figuring out how to address those...