Media Saturation
I quit Instagram and now all I do is take naps and listen to reggae.
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Mine is the last generation that experienced a computer-free childhood. As an elder millennial—the generation which, you might be surprised to learn, spans the years 1981-1996—nobody I knew had a computer in their house until junior high. Computers were already around, however: I remember having computer lab a few times per week in grade school, where we’d clack away at the keys, learning to type, finishing out the hour with a few trips down The Oregon Trail. I remember getting an at-home computer in eighth or ninth grade, which would have been 1998 or 1999, and playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? setting up my email account (lovelydani@hotmail.com, omg), and typing up essays for my English classes. I remember the dial-up modem—such a specific noise (close your eyes and listen, I know you hear it too)— the sound an electronic proxy of nails-on-a-chalkboard. Occasionally I dipped my toe into message boards and chat rooms, but entertainment online back then was not what it is now and I’d quickly grow bored, or be distracted by someone hitting me up on my pager (RIP to all the pagers).
I finally got an iPhone in 2012, a later adopter not so much by choice but because those were the broke-ass years, the $500/month rent years, the living off beans, tacos and cheap booze years, and for a long time I could not justify spending my pennies on a pocket-sized computer (I held onto that Nokia 3310 as long as possible, and had a couple of unmemorable flip phones after it’s demise). Anyway, I finally got one. I remember sitting at Shotwell’s with Dave, and downloading my very first app: Instagram. I am nostalgic for the early days of Instagram, before the onslaught of ads, before everyone became a brand, when it was still inane and innocent and we thought those sepia filters made us artists (RIP to the early days of social media, back when it still felt friendly and uncomplicated).
I know I’m not alone in how much I struggle with social media. I revisit the past to shine light on how much hanging out online has changed, and to remember that it didn’t always feel so confusing. “Social media habits” didn’t used to be a concern. Now, it’s so bad that even the phones themselves include software to help you control yourself (which I don’t even bother with because I just…override them).
Sometimes, I try to remember how I spent my time before I carried the whole world in my purse. As a kid, as a teenager, what did I do to pass the time? College was the first time many of us had our own computers, but aside from homework and downloading music from Limewire, the computer just kind of sat there, a hulking, whirring backdrop to a life spent—doing what? I want to reconnect to these things so that I might return to them now. I weary of how much of my life I funnel into a screen.
I fantasize about what it would be like for it all—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—to just disappear. I imagine a return to a time that in my memory is far simpler, even as I acknowledge that comparing the desires—not to mention responsibilities—of the woman I am now to the girl I was at 10 or 12, while a fun little thought experiment, is ultimately a false equivalency. I know that to call for abandoning all social media that would be as absurd as wishing we’d all throw our TV’s out the window. Mostly, all of this remembering is just another doorway into the ongoing inner-conundrum I am never not in conversation with, which is to say, a persistent longing for all that would open back up: Attention. Time. Dignity. Entire relationships. Less stress and urgency. Peace of mind (can you imagine).
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Longtime readers of this newsletter will be surprised precisely not at all that I am once again inside this conversation. At least once a year, I hit media saturation. I know I’ve hit it when I notice a diminishment of my own voice; said another way, I am no longer able to hear myself think.
Here’s what happens next:
I delete Instagram off my phone
I log off of Facebook on my laptop (far less tempted here these days, thank god).
I mercilessly unsubscribe from newsletters.
I delete all the podcasts episodes sitting unlistened to in my feed.
Here’s what else happens:
I start reading fiction again.
My anxiety dissipates considerably.
I sleep slightly better (sleep is rarely straightforward for me).
My self-esteem gets a surprise boost.
No longer flooded by images of everyone else’s lives, I am less stressed about mine.
In general, I experience an expanded sense of calm and ease in my days. Said another way, I no longer feel so at the mercy of the inner engine.
Usually I can sniff out the the impending saturation, and so I make a plan to go offline for a certain amount of time. This time it was overnight: I woke up a few weeks ago and knew it was time for a hiatus. Often, I experience FOMO, or worry that I’m missing big news, and there are a few friends who I really only interact with online, so I miss seeing them. I’m usually happy to get back to it, reconnect, and I count the days until the break is over.
This time, I’m having a different experience. It feels GREAT. I am not missing any of it. Not even memes. I’m reading. I’m listening to music. I’m staring at the ceiling. I’m taking naps. Mostly, I’m noticing a sense of relief, and, well, if that isn’t what I’ve been searching for since the beginning of time.
As someone who is building things (writing workshops, a private coaching practice, community, a readership), I am in a conversation with social media always. I want it to be this easy breezy thing where I can just post and not get so hung up about everything but I can’t, and I’m tired of trying to push through this. None of it is “easy breezy.” Maybe it started that way. But it’s morphed, not unlike how a certain substance was fun and easy breezy and worked and added to my life, until it absolutely didn’t and I realized how much it was detracting rather than adding to my life.
I also wonder if by opting out if I’m somehow delinquent in my responsibilities here on the planet as someone who cares about humanity and our ability to evolve in a way that causes less harm. Is this just another way I am willfully sticking my head in the sand? Or is it a choice that opens up my capacity to be of more effective service in the world? What I do is glorious and it is also heavy. When I remove the stressors intrinsic to losing hours of my week in service of the scroll, I can work from a place of grounded centeredness rather than depletion. Also, just spelling that out I realize how ridiculous it sounds to think that if I forego social media, I can’t be an active participant in the world (not to mention how few people would even notice).
So now I’m in the conversation of…what if. What if I let it go? What if I trust that I can still build things without it? What if this is the next stage of the Self Made experiment, the one where I continue to trust that I know what I need better than anyone else?
From the archives ~ this time last year:
SELF MADE is a newsletter for fellow 🌺late bloomers🌺 with a focus on recovery, creativity and community. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, coach, and recovery advocate in San Francisco, CA.
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I have two things to thank you for, and first is the word "dignity," which seems to me the exact right one of how to speak about life when we're unplugged. It has a dignity.
The second is this line:
"College was the first time many of us had our own computers, but aside from homework and downloading music from Limewire, the computer just kind of sat there"
Oh, how I love this line, and thank you for the memory. Because it DID just sit there (My "laptop" might have weighed ten pounds). The computer, then, wasn't a portal it was a destination: a place where I sat to write papers and very, very long emails. Remember when we wrote emails like letters?
With you in the resistance,
Sarah
I remember the days of dial up. That's when childhood was so pure.