Unplugging after my social media meltdown
Humanity distorted by the wrong things and superficial values
SOCIAL media has given us a false sense of connectedness and we have fallen for it. Our social interaction has been reduced to mere likes, hearts, views and comments that don’t hold much meaning. When the chips are down, what you find is many people who are lonely, depressed and whose humanity gets distorted by the wrong things and the wrong values. Problematic online behaviours point to our humanity being sold cheap: since everyone hides behind their smartphones to harass, intimidate, fight and compete with other people online.
Facebook, Instagram, Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, even WhatsApp sap energies from us, they make us judgemental of others, they eat up our time, they reach for our souls and turn us into something we are not. Furthermore, an unchecked social media use may engender certain negative outcomes – from depression, loneliness, detachment, identity crisis, body image problems, feelings of inadequacy, narcissism, laziness, anxiety to unproductivity.
Late last year, I suffered an intense triple spell of depression, anxiety and loneliness. I was caving in under the crushing influence of my continuous internet use and my presence on social media. Each time I picked up my phone, I felt my heart racing, and then I’d feel nauseous and light-headed. It was always such an important routine for me to check who liked my posts, the number of persons who did, who commented, who did not, how good the comments were. It was like some drug that I took each time, one that determined how high or low my happiness-level tipped.
For an adult and academic like me who was “woke” and who is familiar with research around the new media, I found myself struggling with the idea that I may be fraught with social media addiction occasioned by internet and cellphone use. Finally, I decided to embark on a social media break and to use my cellphone sparingly.
The first two days, I felt all manner of emotions at the same time and each one seemed to reach for my soul, to strangle me: from a deep “FOMO” (fear of missing out), a sense of loss, cluelessness, emptiness, boredom, inactivity, to sadness. After a week, I was negotiating an extension with myself. A seething dislike for social media followed. It now seemed that I had the answers to my initial depression and feelings of loneliness.
I did other things during my week-long break. I cheated on social media and my phone with books. I read a novel and a non-fiction, both of which I had been unable to read for several months due to procrastination. I went for long-distance walks and runs in my neighbourhood and beyond. I did this every evening for eight days and continued thereafter. I discovered road intersections. I learnt about new places. I experienced the joy of passing and making eye contact with strangers on the road. I saw the priceless beauty in talking with random strangers, and I appreciated God’s beauty, our humanity, veiled in small things.
I thought. You’ll never know the boundless delight in thinking while taking a walk. I got one of the best ideas I ever had in a long while, during my walks. I got solutions to conflicting situations I was experiencing at the time. Research evidence abound on the possibility that exercise of any sort releases happiness hormones – endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. I wrote.
The ideas that filter effortlessly into your mind when you’re taking a walk are meant for you to use them. Slowly, days after I reactivated my social media accounts, I began to lose interest in the toxic social media routine I was used to. I reached out more to people around me. I fell in love afresh with myself and I learnt to enjoy my own company. I rediscovered myself.
It becomes clearer what a random stranger with whom I interacted in an airport on my way to Paris in October, had said: “The reason people often need people around them before they can enjoy their lives or their travel is because they don’t like themselves. If you like yourself, you’ll learn self-care and enjoy your own company.”
Social media has the potential to cause us to let go of the autonomy we have of ourselves and to rely on other people’s validation of who we are or want to be. It becomes normal to watch other people’s lives, rather than perceive the beauty in ours.
There are many recorded landmark impacts of social media to democratise information, connecting people, affording opportunity to participate in politics and upturning hegemonic structures and social injustice through activisms. However, the point must be made that life, people, are more beautiful than what we see on social media.
Technology seems to have become the human, and we on the other hand, the tool. Reports point to the fact that many technology gurus and experts and their families are either not on social media or have a controlled social media use.
Chamath Palihapitiya, a former vice-president at Facebook has acknowledged feeling tremendous guilt about the company he helped to build. He reasons that Facebook and other social media platforms are ripping apart the very fabric of how society works; arguing that the short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loop and people’s overreliance on technology is breeding poor civil discourse, misinformation and mistruth.
Bill Gates, the billionaire tech guru has set strict rules for how his kids can use technology. Gate’s domestic policy for technology speaks to the growing consensus that consumer technology is addictive, and potentially harmful to young minds.
Might we have the courage to regularly unplug from and detox ourselves of social media, or to keep a disciplined schedule for its use?