Mark Zuckerberg Ate My Brain (and yours, probably).
I’ve been thinking a lot about both the destructive effects of social media and the billionaire jerk faces who make money off of thoughts, images, and human connections and how I’d really like to not be so much at their mercy anymore. I’ve still got a long way to go, but this space is my attempt to meet one of the desires that Facebook fills: spouting off. I did look into Bluesky, but short form isn’t a great fit for me and I’m really not interested in interacting with random strangers, many of whom are bots (at least in my own space, I have some control over how accessible I am to both). Now, when something is sticking in my craw, I have a non-
Meta place to put it.
The evidence of how social media affects our focus and our mental health has been mounting for a while. The evidence of how these companies manipulate our attention that came out in recent cases involving Facebook and TikTok are RJ Reynolds level shit.
TikTok’s own research states that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” according to the suit.
In addition, the documents show that TikTok was aware that “compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”
Like with smoking, quitting isn’t going to be easy, and harder for some of us than others. Here are some things I’ve done to try to make the platform a little less horrible and ways I’m trying to spend less time there:
In 2020, I hid everyone I was friends with. There were plenty of people that are perfectly nice, but honestly, why was I spending time hearing about the details of their day to day? We don’t have the capacity to keep up with so many people, and half of them were just manically sharing things that I either found trite or enraging. Then I went through and though about who I really wanted to keep up with on a day to day level. I can still check in on people I don’t follow, but now my feed is more in line with my community. There are cons to this - I missed that several people had died, for instance. But that happens to people who do follow everyone - just check out your dead friend’s wall on their birthday.
I also highly recommend blocking, unfriending, and putting people on restricted lists without guilt. Just as you get to decide who comes into your house, you get to decide the access to your life you give to folks.
Instead of looking at the main page, go to my feed, which is in chronological order and doesn’t contain distracting suggested posts or reels (90% of which I hate). Because I follow a smaller number of people and it’s displayed chronologically, I know when I’ve caught up and can more easily disengage.
I heard the author of Peak Mind on NPR and have been (slowly) reading the book and starting the science-back mindfulness exercises she recommends to improve focus. Luckily, Geoffrey finished the book so can lead them.
I turned off notifications for Facebook and Instagram several years ago and I’ve taken Facebook off of my phone for the millionth time. Usually, I end up putting it back on because I have something I want to post for work, but I’m trying to figure out workarounds for that, too. Suggestions welcome!
I’m taking/posting fewer pictures during times that I should just be enjoying the moment. A reel of film a month used to preserve plenty of memories in the before time, and honestly the volume of the last 15 years makes it HARDER to find the memories I want to revisit.
I’m still trying to figure out how to keep up with stuff going on in the community. I’ve got some ideas I’m going to try out and I’ll let you know if any of them are worth sharing.
I have a lot of respect for the people who have totally left the platforms or never got on them in the first place, but I identify with the many more folks who hate this but also recognize that many of the ways we communicated and builty community prior to social media have been damaged or destroyed (along with our brains!), so at least for me, disentangling will be a process. But I’d encourage us all to start plotting our course out of this hellscape while we still have the cognitive capacity to do so.
Thanks for making it to the end of my yap,
K
