SO LONG, SOCIAL MEDIA
Columnist says goodbye to distraction
My record with New Year’s resolutions is spotty, as evidenced by my (still) considerable frame and closet of (grossly) underused gym gear. But this year, I need to deliver, because I’m giving up something that’s killing me: social media.
Now, kicking a bad Twitter or Facebook habit is obviously nothing compared to the physical horrors plaguing others in this world: Witness the famine and civil war in Yemen; the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims hemmed into refugee camps in Bangladesh; or the prime minister having to settle for a Christmas vacation in Lake Louise because the killjoy ethics commissioner says he’s not really friends with an island-owning billionaire spiritual leader.
While it’s admittedly a firstworld problem, my Olympic-level consumption of social media was getting in the way of me being as grateful, present and attentive to the wonderful things in my life as I ought to be, and that made it a problem. Its endless distractions were also making it harder to get down to work. So, out the window they go. Like most addicts, I hit a rock bottom: it was noticing that not even my daughter’s bath or bed times could escape a quick scroll of my social feeds. These are the best moments of my day and I had to sully them by going elsewhere. She’s not yet two, but my kid already brings me my phone whenever she sees that I’ve left it somewhere at toddler eye-level. Is it that she sees a deep worry etched into my face? A twitchy thumb?
Either way, I could actually feel my brain craving the drip feed of social media. Watching a good film? Not good enough to avoid dozens of looks at the feed. Great meal with your loved one? Not tastier than the next online sound bite. But that’s the point of social media: They’re the “grass is always greener” apps.
Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, says social media is designed to hook its users into a “social-validation feedback loop.” We used to call this kind of thing “keeping up with Joneses,” and it was bad enough when it was literally the Jones family at the end of the street flaunting their remodelled kitchen and colour television. Now we can rubberneck every Jones — especially the famous ones — with the click of a button and feel envious, even if we know deep down they’re only presenting the best version of their life and not the real thing. Other than a former colleague who is literally chronicling his decline on Facebook (replete with repeated hospitalizations), I can’t think of any online “friend” who shares any downs with their ups, which really doesn’t make the platforms all that useful to the true friends who might like to help in a time of need, which is, you know, the point of friendship. “Social” media doesn’t give us friends or make us more social; it merely deceives us into thinking we are with acquaintances we can’t be arsed to truly know.
Nor does social media make the average person any better at their job. Absent media and politics, there’s really no reason to be on social media for work, and even in those fields its heavy use has only reinforced and insulated the traditional elite bubble, rendering much of the talk of our nation’s affairs unrelatable to those with more quotidian concerns.
Which isn’t to say I won’t miss it. Twitter, in particular, is crack for people like me who love current events. I’ll miss the chatter about what I wrote, and I’ll miss having a platform for snark and commentary, even if it was (mostly) to please an audience of one.
I still don’t know what to do with the spasms of boredom while waiting for the bus or train, or when queuing at the coffee shop. Instead of fiddling with my phone like everyone else, I’m left alone with my thoughts and observations.
And you know what? The early returns are good. My mind feels quieter, the world is still there (if unnoticed minute to minute), and my daughter seems to appreciate that she now outranks Donald Trump’s latest Twitter stupidity, which is how I’m choosing to interpret the fact that she now offers me a sip of her milk during bedtime stories.
There are other benefits, too. Looking forward to the paper or broadcast for my dose of news is an interesting feeling to rediscover.
Being without the new portals into the world has certainly whet the appetite for the old; I’m actually eager to hear about the day that was.
Maybe once I’ve convinced myself I’ve changed I’ll try to dip my toe back into social waters. Everything in moderation, etc.
But for now I’ll enjoy the silence. And keep my Kindle at the ready to fill those pockets of boredom. Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.
‘Social’ media doesn’t give us friends or make us more social; it merely deceives us into thinking we are with acquaintances we can’t be arsed to truly know.