Dear reader, it’s time for another blog about one of our bigger problems we face in these modern times. Social media and news consumption! It is certainly a topic that I have been meditating on a lot lately. The geopolitical situation has really been tearing up the lives of those not in power and we all feel the economic consequences of wars being waged for what seems to most of us as completely pointless. Even now, writing these few sentences are enough to get an uneasy feeling and this is really just part of the “tactic” that these companies and people employ to keep us occupied and “engaged”, as they like to call it. It is basically a form of mental hijacking.

The Social Dilemma

Recently I watched a documentary called The Social Dilemma on Netflix. It’s a couple of years old by now, but it can be a real eye-opener. In it, many ex-employees of large social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google try to explain how hurtful the design of these platforms really are. They don’t care about our wellbeing, instead they want to keep us engaged with their platforms. One of the most scary things was that many of these companies used to have people who were hired to make sure that the platforms were ethical and almost all of these teams were disbanded, or the people who were hired decided to go, because what the companies were doing was very unethical. Perhaps once, when these platforms started, they had some pretty good intentions. Facebook says they want to connect people, but what they have really done is help create one of the biggest divides between people. They even contributed to genocide in Myanmar, because they allowed people to spread videos to incite violence against one another. That is just how bad things are.

What these platforms are, is basically the opposite of what we call them. They are anti-social and sure, they might be good for some part, but as we can see they are way more damaging than they are good. Depression and feelings of hopelessness under teenagers have gone up significantly as a result of what social media teaches them about how they should look and how their lives should be. But it’s nowhere near how reality works. This is why many countries are now trying to impose an age limit for social media, but to be honest, I’m not even sure if adults should be allowed on social media, especially for extended periods of time.

So, as you can see I am not very happy with what social media brings. I quit Facebook and I also quit WhatsApp, although the latter was more because I don’t want to support Meta in the slightest. The only “problem” I have now, is that I still use Instagram, which is also owned by Meta. And seeing as they are going to train their AI with your content, well, that’s just sick, isn’t it? I think AI has its uses, but not the way we see it being used now. Basically all of these AIs are thiefs that copy off of hard working people, especially artists. And I believe only a mass exodus from these platforms would be a good way to send a message.

Digital Detox

What I want to advocate for in this blog is that we need to guard our own mental health and we can do so in many ways. From pretty “light” stuff, to the most rigorous. I will start with the quick wins and then, if you feel up to it, continue with the harder ones. I know quitting social media can feel like something you really don’t want to do, even if deep down you know it’s best to end this toxic relationship. The same applies to your news consumption. We really don’t need to stay “on top” of things as we think we should. So let’s dive in!

Quick Wins

Let’s begin with the easy steps you can take to stop feeling so flooded. Turn off all your notifications and push messages from apps, especially social media apps. You can easily do this by going into your phone settings and simply disabling notifications. I would recommend doing this for things like email, too. You really don’t need to be notified of all messages every time something “happens” on any type of media. Besides, this will just distract you from whatever you were doing in the first place.

Second, it is a good thing to put timers on apps. If you have an Android phone, there is an app called Digital Wellbeing. This app shows you how much time you spent on your phone and which apps you used. The first time I ever opened this app I was absolutely stunned to see how much time I spent on my phone during a single day! And I am by no means in the top percentile of phone (ab)users. Speaking of which, I heard this nice quote: “There are only two industries that call their clients users; drugs and software.” This says a lot about how the software industry looks at us, if you ask me.

Another one that is really helpful is Sleep Mode, which allow you to turn your screen into a black/white mode from a certain time onward and also turns on Do Not Disturb mode, which turns off all app notifications. To be perfeclty honest with you, this was a big win for me. As it turns out a black/white screen is really dull and it was so weird to experience this myself. I found that my phone was no longer that interesting to my brain. Colours apparently help to keep us attached to our screens. If it helps for you, you could even consider turning it on permanently!

Digital Wellbeing

I really can’t recommend this app enough. Not only can you see how much you’ve used your phone and which apps drained the most of your valuable time, it also allows you to set daily goals. My current goal is to use my phone a maximum of 2.5 hours a day. Which is already about 10% of the hours in a day, but also if you think about your waking hours (roughly 14 hours), it is a staggering 18% of your day, almost a fifth of your total time! And this gets worse the more time you spend. I am currently trying to cut back even more, to say 2 hours. But it is rough. Especially messaging apps take a lot of time.

Another really good thing about the Digital Wellbeing app is that it allows you to set timers on apps. I currently have two of these in place. One for Instagram and one for Reddit. I set the timers to 30 minutes, so after I spend that amount of time on the apps, it’s “Bye bye for today!” And even as I write this, I think 30 minutes each is an hour total… That is a lot of time that I could have spent differently. And surely, this time is usually spent spread across the day, but still, it is an entire hour worth of watching useless reels and memes that I feel don’t really enhance my life by that much.

If you have never heard of this app before, I recommend taking a look and seeing if it works for you. It has helped me reduce screentime significantly. Especially because the app also gives you a weekly report and tells you if you did better (or worse) than the previous week. Usually the only days when I can’t reach my daily goal is when I have to use my phone as a navigation device when I make a trip with my car to some place unknown and need guidance to get there!

Deleting apps and accounts

Perhaps there are less rigorous steps, but if you really feel that an app is becoming an addiction, it is best to get rid of it entirely. No social media platform has felt like it truly made my life better. I didn’t have a Facebook account on day one and was pretty reluctant to get on the platform. When I did I wasted years of my life on a stupid platform, sharing pictures of my food and documenting everything I did. And all for what? Likes and “friends”? What a waste of time. Once you figure out that it doesn’t bring you anything but a quick dopamine fix, it is really depressing that we all fell for it.

So, your next and final step should be to just get rid of the accounts and apps. The final ones for me are Instagram and to a lesser degree Reddit. Although I feel that Reddit actually does bring me something, while Instagram doesn’t. I guess this is because Reddit isn’t necessarily designed to force you to post and share your pictures and thoughts. I also get a lot of my news from Reddit, both on topics that are of interest to me, and world news. But as soon as it fails to do that, I will quit.

Deleting your accounts and apps can be truly daunting. This is mostly because, in the case of social media, we have friends there who we don’t want to disappoint. We also feel forced to stay because of the “How else are we going to stay in touch?” dilemma. Well, as it turns out, those who want to can and will stay in touch with you. Those are your real friends, anyway. We really don’t need much friends, as it turns out. In fact, I would argue that you only have a limited amount of time to spend on real, close friends. I only have a handful of people I consider to be close friends and those will go out of their way to stay in touch with you. They will find a way to make it work. There are so many ways to stay in touch without social media, after all.

Getting rid of smartphones altogether

The final step would probably be to get rid of your smartphone altogether. This is probably the hardest, because so many of our modern day living pretty much requires us to have one. You need apps to check your bank accounts, log in to government websites, check your emails, turn on the lights, meditate, get into the gym, etc. It’s almost unheard of if someone doesn’t have a smartphone and if they don’t it’s usually an elderly person. Another option is to get a dumb phone. It is one I am seriously considering. Just a phone that has very little functionality besides what it is meant for. To contact other people.

I don’t know when I will enter this stage, but it is something that seems all the more alluring the longer I think about it. If there’s anything we should long for it’s a simpler and slower life. We were never meant to be swept into this deluge of modern technology. Everyone might be saying that AI is the future, but to me it is nothing but a threat and what we really need right now is to heal our planet and do what we can to make it a better place for all life to live in. It all starts with us and how we break up with social media. It is a toxic relationship and it needs to end.

Have a good one!

Jeffrey