Social media made me miserable, sucking me in, and seeing the metrics (how few people saw my posts) bummed me out - glad I'm no longer on social media!
It is ups and downs for me. When I have something particular to share, it can come easily and it's no big deal to throw something together. What I don't like is potentially having to share that thing in numerous places, and since I don't love copying/pasting the same posts across each platform there's some work involved in mixing things up. It all adds up to be far more work than it should, and that loss of time is HUGE. It would be far easier if there was just one place – and I realize maybe that place should be Substack, but the reality is that Substack is essentially just a social platform in different clothing. Checking metrics and activity and engaging with others here is not really any different to Instagram. Ultimately I need to put some kind of strategy down on paper, and stick to it. But going all-in on Substack is certainly on my mind. Thanks to you Seth for continuing to push the anti-social message!
i go through spurts. now that i’m past the embarrassment that weighed me down before in posting myself or my music, i’m doing much better. So the biggest issue I find now is that I have to wrestle with my compulsion to frequently check to see who “liked” or “commented.”
I want to get to the point like I do on this platform where I don’t care who likes or comments on my notes or whatever. I don’t even think about it. But on Tik Tok it’s like a stock ticker to me where feel driven to check back way too often or watch in real time
The caveat of this is that I get a lot more engagement over there than I do here, so checking TT is more likely to provide that dopamine hit which is probably why I crave it more.
This is a great question. It’s that feeling of going back somewhere that used to feel like home (a camp, a city, a college campus) and something is off. Like I WANT Instagram to make me feel the way it did in 2012: creative, excited, connected. Now it feels: empty and frustrating with a Russian Roulette for anxiety depending on what I see while I log in. I feel like I “have to” use it for my book launch next month, but I’m going to get some data on that this time around to see if it’s even true. I just know there are some folks (mostly visual artists) connected there who aren’t here yet.
Social media not only steals my free time, but also has led me to spend more money (influencers) than I would have without it. I just purchased a basic phone so I can’t access it away from home. Still spending way too many hours down that rabbit hole when home. My goal is to replace that time-suck with “real life” activities (nature, biking around town, little sewing projects), so I reduce the amount of my life I allow to be stolen by social media.
It makes me feel both good and awful. Like the toxic relationships on the reality TV shows I watch. Ultimately not healthy! I have to put strict boundaries in place to make sure I don't put too much energy into social media. It's hard!
Honestly. It made me feel really bad about myself and everything I did. Sure if feels good when you post something you made and people respond to it. However if feels much much worse when your posts are not shown to most of your followers. It's viscious.
A few months ago I left social media completely and just relied on my my fans to spread the word. At best I had more views on my YouTube videos than ever before and at worst they were the same as when I was posting on socials every day.
While I can still be contacted in socials and occasionally post now. I'm not in the business of begging for attention anymore.
I would be overjoyed if meta were wiped from the face of the earth. Trying to send my friends more letters these days. It can feel as if you loose contact with friends if you aren’t on the gram, but it feels much more valuable to just engage with friends in more intentional, meaningful ways.
it’s made me feel some semblance of misery. i found myself using my phone and social media as a crutch for boredom while at the same time trying as much as possible to prevent the existence of my presence online because of the utter anxiety that comes from “being perceived”. being active on apps like instagram and tiktok at the start of 2020 brought in this sense of surveillance in myself that i felt i was a wee prisoner in the panopticon and i had to perform my online “life” in real life as well. every time i think of reactivating my instagram to see what my uni & high school friends&/ acquaintances are upto i get nauseated & anxious because i get neurotic thoughts about my state of life being worse off than theirs and comparing myself to it.
recently i realised (in the case of twitter/x) that a lot of the discourse occurring online doesn’t necessarily apply in irl (especially in my country…i’m from the global south and the trivial twt discourse mostly centers on western (pop) culture). id think too much about whatever is the trending topic of twitter (and tiktok because things from their always find themselves being discussed on twitter). it would consume my thoughts and id be talking to myself…about it at 2am wondering whether i agreed with so and so’s opinion. and when id go to bed 2 hrs later id realise, that it’s primarily an online issue.
i found myself in my free time endlessly scrolling on twitter and sometimes tiktok and despite not being the biggest advocate for #alwaysonthegrind #100%productivity always…i’d find myself feeling guilty for not doing anything of “substance” for the first 4 hours of my weekend morning because i was glued heavily to my phone. like i am “wasting” my time…
i took the initiative to delete twitter (i tend to lack self control when it comes to that) and i only have substack in my home screen. substack is giving me the opportunity to combine my favourite thing: scrolling on my phone & reading. so even though i’m “on my screen” i’m reading an article or two because there’s only so much u can scroll on here as you read newsletters.
tdlr; social media makes me feel quasi-miserable,anxious and wasteful.
Some people can do social in moderation, some people can't - it's okay! For me, deleting was the answer... the FOMO wasn't strong enough vs the hours per day I was losing.
My IG was hacked in May, 2022 and that's when my relationship with social media began to change. I'd spent a lot of time posting to keep a presence and scrolling to keep up with what my friends and art peers were up to. After the hack, I lost control of my account and IG was no help, so I started a new one, albeit with a new perspective and a change in how I wanted to use it. Basically, I started seeing how algorithms and other aspects of the apps were being used to keep us locked into them 24/7. I started cutting back on posting so much and opted out of social media "advice" about posting.
Once I did that and started focusing more on my newsletter and returned to my blog (both of which I moved to Substack last August) and became more intentional in how I used socials, newsletter and blog, my relationship with online communication changed, in general.
I still had the issue of scrolling to try and quell anxieties and provide distractions, but since I've implemented some changes around my phone use, I feel a lot better. My sleep is better and I'm not checking the phone every 20 minutes.
Overall, I feel like social media is a huge time-suck and major contributor to mental and emotional health issues for younger and older people alike. The amount of real, relevant information to be found on socials and online in general is minimal. Most of what we're exposed to is too many other people's OPINIONS about everything, some of which is misinformation, disinformation and just plain made-up.
Social media can be useful, but the negatives outweigh the good, imho.
Social media made me miserable, sucking me in, and seeing the metrics (how few people saw my posts) bummed me out - glad I'm no longer on social media!
It is ups and downs for me. When I have something particular to share, it can come easily and it's no big deal to throw something together. What I don't like is potentially having to share that thing in numerous places, and since I don't love copying/pasting the same posts across each platform there's some work involved in mixing things up. It all adds up to be far more work than it should, and that loss of time is HUGE. It would be far easier if there was just one place – and I realize maybe that place should be Substack, but the reality is that Substack is essentially just a social platform in different clothing. Checking metrics and activity and engaging with others here is not really any different to Instagram. Ultimately I need to put some kind of strategy down on paper, and stick to it. But going all-in on Substack is certainly on my mind. Thanks to you Seth for continuing to push the anti-social message!
i go through spurts. now that i’m past the embarrassment that weighed me down before in posting myself or my music, i’m doing much better. So the biggest issue I find now is that I have to wrestle with my compulsion to frequently check to see who “liked” or “commented.”
I want to get to the point like I do on this platform where I don’t care who likes or comments on my notes or whatever. I don’t even think about it. But on Tik Tok it’s like a stock ticker to me where feel driven to check back way too often or watch in real time
The caveat of this is that I get a lot more engagement over there than I do here, so checking TT is more likely to provide that dopamine hit which is probably why I crave it more.
This is a great question. It’s that feeling of going back somewhere that used to feel like home (a camp, a city, a college campus) and something is off. Like I WANT Instagram to make me feel the way it did in 2012: creative, excited, connected. Now it feels: empty and frustrating with a Russian Roulette for anxiety depending on what I see while I log in. I feel like I “have to” use it for my book launch next month, but I’m going to get some data on that this time around to see if it’s even true. I just know there are some folks (mostly visual artists) connected there who aren’t here yet.
Also, I just learned today I can participate in Substack chat (if that’s what this is?) without the app. The URL opened this page right in Safari!
This is a Thread, but YESSSSS… chat is on the web!!!
They have too many discussion features. 😂
I will use it on occasion for announcing subscriber Zoom calls because it also has an option to send as an email, but that's about it.
Social media not only steals my free time, but also has led me to spend more money (influencers) than I would have without it. I just purchased a basic phone so I can’t access it away from home. Still spending way too many hours down that rabbit hole when home. My goal is to replace that time-suck with “real life” activities (nature, biking around town, little sewing projects), so I reduce the amount of my life I allow to be stolen by social media.
It makes me feel both good and awful. Like the toxic relationships on the reality TV shows I watch. Ultimately not healthy! I have to put strict boundaries in place to make sure I don't put too much energy into social media. It's hard!
Honestly. It made me feel really bad about myself and everything I did. Sure if feels good when you post something you made and people respond to it. However if feels much much worse when your posts are not shown to most of your followers. It's viscious.
A few months ago I left social media completely and just relied on my my fans to spread the word. At best I had more views on my YouTube videos than ever before and at worst they were the same as when I was posting on socials every day.
While I can still be contacted in socials and occasionally post now. I'm not in the business of begging for attention anymore.
I would be overjoyed if meta were wiped from the face of the earth. Trying to send my friends more letters these days. It can feel as if you loose contact with friends if you aren’t on the gram, but it feels much more valuable to just engage with friends in more intentional, meaningful ways.
...what actions would need to happen for social media to actually go away tomorrow?...
For you, or for everyone? haha
...like a gif of gary oldman in the professional...everrryyyyoooonnneee....
it’s made me feel some semblance of misery. i found myself using my phone and social media as a crutch for boredom while at the same time trying as much as possible to prevent the existence of my presence online because of the utter anxiety that comes from “being perceived”. being active on apps like instagram and tiktok at the start of 2020 brought in this sense of surveillance in myself that i felt i was a wee prisoner in the panopticon and i had to perform my online “life” in real life as well. every time i think of reactivating my instagram to see what my uni & high school friends&/ acquaintances are upto i get nauseated & anxious because i get neurotic thoughts about my state of life being worse off than theirs and comparing myself to it.
recently i realised (in the case of twitter/x) that a lot of the discourse occurring online doesn’t necessarily apply in irl (especially in my country…i’m from the global south and the trivial twt discourse mostly centers on western (pop) culture). id think too much about whatever is the trending topic of twitter (and tiktok because things from their always find themselves being discussed on twitter). it would consume my thoughts and id be talking to myself…about it at 2am wondering whether i agreed with so and so’s opinion. and when id go to bed 2 hrs later id realise, that it’s primarily an online issue.
i found myself in my free time endlessly scrolling on twitter and sometimes tiktok and despite not being the biggest advocate for #alwaysonthegrind #100%productivity always…i’d find myself feeling guilty for not doing anything of “substance” for the first 4 hours of my weekend morning because i was glued heavily to my phone. like i am “wasting” my time…
i took the initiative to delete twitter (i tend to lack self control when it comes to that) and i only have substack in my home screen. substack is giving me the opportunity to combine my favourite thing: scrolling on my phone & reading. so even though i’m “on my screen” i’m reading an article or two because there’s only so much u can scroll on here as you read newsletters.
tdlr; social media makes me feel quasi-miserable,anxious and wasteful.
To be honest, I would be happy if social media went away tomorrow. Nothing that can take my mind off the things I really want to do.
And I need to stop trying to go back to them now and then. Its not working. 😩
Some people can do social in moderation, some people can't - it's okay! For me, deleting was the answer... the FOMO wasn't strong enough vs the hours per day I was losing.
Deleted all my social media account except Facebook because I’m still an admin for an old business page 🙃
No Twitter, IG, TikTok, LinkedIn…
Genuinely curious, Seth: How do you explain you being on Substack? Isn't it social media too?
In a way, but the value proposition is in my favor - the time I spend here helps me build an email list, which I can export and move if I want.
Regular social media just lets me amass likes and “followers” that I can’t reach, and monetizes my time spent on site with ads.
For now, I’ll take the Substack bet.
My IG was hacked in May, 2022 and that's when my relationship with social media began to change. I'd spent a lot of time posting to keep a presence and scrolling to keep up with what my friends and art peers were up to. After the hack, I lost control of my account and IG was no help, so I started a new one, albeit with a new perspective and a change in how I wanted to use it. Basically, I started seeing how algorithms and other aspects of the apps were being used to keep us locked into them 24/7. I started cutting back on posting so much and opted out of social media "advice" about posting.
Once I did that and started focusing more on my newsletter and returned to my blog (both of which I moved to Substack last August) and became more intentional in how I used socials, newsletter and blog, my relationship with online communication changed, in general.
I still had the issue of scrolling to try and quell anxieties and provide distractions, but since I've implemented some changes around my phone use, I feel a lot better. My sleep is better and I'm not checking the phone every 20 minutes.
Overall, I feel like social media is a huge time-suck and major contributor to mental and emotional health issues for younger and older people alike. The amount of real, relevant information to be found on socials and online in general is minimal. Most of what we're exposed to is too many other people's OPINIONS about everything, some of which is misinformation, disinformation and just plain made-up.
Social media can be useful, but the negatives outweigh the good, imho.