When social media becomes anti-social, it’s time to take a break.
Social media’s promise of better connection is broken. The countless hours I spend scrolling are hours isolated from the world directly around me.
Staring into the hungry void gnaws at the foundations of my psyche as my body atrophies from lack of motion. My mind spins with the apparent successes of those I see (and my failures in comparison). The sharply shining light of my screen slices my thoughts into ever smaller fragments, until I can’t string enough together to make sense of my own place in this experience called life.
Those hours are the antithesis of sincere connection. I can sit on a beach in paradise and be in exactly the same place I was in my bed: scrolling into infinite emptiness.
5 REASONS I’M TAKING A BREAK FROM SOCIAL MEDIA
Do any of these resonate with you?
1. I spend too much time on it
I average over 3 hours a day on my phone. Most of that time is compulsive scrolling through social media.
Can you imagine what I could learn or experience if I did anything for three hours a day, every day of my life!?
The platforms are adding more and more addictive elements to eat more and more time. Now there are daily updates as ‘Stories’ on Instagram, Facebook and even Whatsapp (all owned by fbook). This means that people are spending more time watching snippets of other peoples’ lives, while also spending more of their lives capturing snippets to show to other people. Does this make any sense?
Some perspective about daily usage: 3hrs a day is 21hrs a week, 3.4 DAYS per month, 40.8 days out of every year…which is 12.5% of a year (if you count sleep, that adds up to almost 20% of my waking life…W.T.F)!*
If I don’t change, that is
20% OF MY WAKING LIFE!
HOT TIP: You can track your own time usage on iOS by using the Moment app or on your computer by using the Creature Kingdom Timer chrome extension. The results might shock you (they did me)
2. I am addicted
Social media is designed to be addictive.
I’m hooked on the rush of the refresh. I’m always searching for the next dopamine hit of a little red dot. I’m itching for a ping to remind me of my own existence as I sit in self-perpetuating solitude.
And when the ping comes? After only a moment I’m wishing for more, because the next hit is always just around the corner, and I’ve gone numb from living this way for far too long.
My desire to create the perfect perception of myself through a carefully curated instagram feed has been superseded by my deep need to really live. my. life.
The photos, likes, shares and comments will never add up to anything more than another ping on the radar of this addict’s quick fix.
3. It’s not making me happy
Being on social media does not leave me happier than when I started.
The more time I spend consuming the less time I spend healing, creating, self-caring, connecting with people in real life, exercising, swimming, surfing, reading, learning, loving, cuddling…
Basically: social media IS NOT REAL LIFE.
The human animal needs 9 critical things (according to the Blue Zones) for a healthy, long and happy life. Social media pretends, but it doesn’t seem to really help me with any of those.
4. I consume more than I create
The more I consume other peoples’ sharing, posts, videos, music, photos, stories, etc…the less time and energy I have for my own creations.
I spend hours watching ‘how to’ videos about songwriting, video production, social media marketing, ‘how to have an epic instagram’, etc…but those hours mean I’m NOT ACTUALLY CREATING!
I am a creator, it is intrinsic to who I am. Time to shift the balance back in the direction of creation.
5. I want to be present in my life
Yesterday at the beach, I saw a holidaying family lying on loungers. They were all on devices, with headphones in. Each isolated from the cool breeze, the gentle susurrus of the ocean on the sand, the rare gift of relaxing time together…the whole experience of life happening around them.
More and more, everywhere I go, I see people jacked in and checked out. What’s the point in travelling if I’m chatting with the same friends, browsing the same social media channels, spending the same amount of isolated time plugged into my dopamine-injection-device?
As far as I know, there are no reruns on life. All I get is this one, and I’m getting old enough to realise that my time is finite and I want to live it in the present.
TIME FOR AN EXPERIMENT
Which brings us to right here, right now.
I’m taking a break from social media. In a few hours I will deactivate my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts for one month.
Perhaps it will only remind me of how much value social media brings to my life. Maybe I can’t actually do my job without being on social media (if I can’t, perhaps I need a new job)? Maybe I’ll love it and will extend the time? Who knows? One way to find out…
The things I am looking for live outside of my phone and inside of my heart, friends, music, lover, body and nature.
Let’s see what the result of this experiment will be…
5 WAYS TO STAY IN TOUCH
I am not becoming a hermit and disappearing into a cave in the mountains (quite the opposite, in fact).
You can still enjoy all the things I create and connect and share with me. I aim to do more sincere connecting, not less!
It is my hope that being liberated from this addiction will give me time and energy to work on healing my chronic pain, creating lovely music, learning to manage depression, writing more poetry…and all the things which are part of a life well-lived.
Here are 5 simple ways to keep in touch:
- If you’re a friend, you have my number. I would love to speak or meet up 🤙💬💑
- Subscribe to my creations on Youtube 🎶🎥
- Become my patron on Patreon 💞(this is where I will remain most active online)
- Listen to my weekly podcast 🎙(honest conversations about humanness)
- Subscribe to my newsletter below so I can email you directly 💌⬇️
A special thank you
I want you to know that I do this with huge gratitude to every one of you who shares my journey through social media. Your comments on instagram, twitter and facebook have often brought me to tears and laughter.
It’s not you, it’s me (well, it’s my addiction to social media, but ya know what I mean).
So please, do stay in touch via the channels mentioned above, or even just by leaving a comment below.
My intention with this is to DEEPEN our connections, to bring them into sincerity, love and empowered action.
Thank you for your presence, may we all learn and grow together and may my experiment inspire you to find your own way to a balanced, healthful and long life filled with love.
Your companion on the journey
Nathan
PS: did any of my story resonate with you? Let me know in the comments below and please do share if you think this has value (yes, on social media, where these conversations need to happen).
NOTE: I am not saying that social media is bad for you or anyone else. This post and experiment is for me, because I, Nathan, need a change in my life around my relationship with social media and my phone.
* thanks to Martin for the data correction, I love having a data-analyst for a friend 💛
Love it Nate! I try to go on an unplugged retreat at least once a year. When I return I feel completely refreshed. Way to be
Ari, what an pleasure to hear from you sir! Yeah man, I’ve gotta find another way of running this social media gig, it’s sucked the life outta me, haha. Stoked to hear you do things like this too, excited to see what it brings
Great decision Nat. I unplugged from BookFace several years ago and not a day goes by that I regret that
That’s lovely to know, thank you Jim!
Make sense to me! No sense stressing yourself for the sake of being stressed! Take it easy.
Well said
“The things I am looking for live outside of my phone…” this resonated strongly with me. It’s so true. You recently posted something about muting the stories on your Instagram feed. It sounded like a good idea to me, so I did the same, and it was wonderfully liberating. Not only did I feel less pressure to stay updated on what other people were doing, I felt less pressure to create my own stories.
I applaud you for taking a break, and trust that you’ll find much deeper connections and greater peace.
I’m so glad you told me about the Instagram stories. I figured people just thought I was being silly . Part of what frustrates me is that Instagram doesn’t have an option to just turn stories off ♂️. They force us into new behaviours, and it’s sneaky. Anyway, thank you for checking in, wishing you continuing success with using your time healthily
Make sense to me! No sense stressing yourself for the sake of being stressed! Take it easy.
Well said
“The things I am looking for live outside of my phone…” this resonated strongly with me. It’s so true. You recently posted something about muting the stories on your Instagram feed. It sounded like a good idea to me, so I did the same, and it was wonderfully liberating. Not only did I feel less pressure to stay updated on what other people were doing, I felt less pressure to create my own stories.
I applaud you for taking a break, and trust that you’ll find much deeper connections and greater peace.
I’m so glad you told me about the Instagram stories. I figured people just thought I was being silly . Part of what frustrates me is that Instagram doesn’t have an option to just turn stories off ♂️. They force us into new behaviours, and it’s sneaky. Anyway, thank you for checking in, wishing you continuing success with using your time healthily
Hey, Nate – I totally relate to your post! I took a 6 month break from social media recently – and I didn’t miss most of what I left behind. Friends remain friends regardless of the platform used to communicate. The others – well we can drop in and out of each others lives anyway. What I DID miss was updates about shows and gigs – since so much is only ever posted on fb based on the assumption that everybody is always connected via that platform. So – i missed out on some stuff I would have liked to have been part of – but did i seriously miss out? Probably not. I rejoined fb but have been more more selective about my use – and don’t feel obliged to read every post or like everything in order to show connection! I post what I want to, read what I want to – and have been much more selective. I would like to be even more selective still! And I totally get the point – 3 hrs a day – that is a lot of time to perfect something else!! I am soooo trying to play more music, see more friends in REALITY not in the virtual world, and generally to communicate in person if possible, even if via a phone call rather than any other form of electronic message. But anyways, – this is really to wish you good luck on your detox – and hope that the world reveals even more of itself to the external facing Nate! Go well, dude… and look up 🙂
Yes, I’m already feeling like I have less access to events around me, but I wasn’t going to them anyway due to my depression and addiction to my tech . Hoping this break can help me shift the relationship into a better space. Yay to looking up! Thank you Ann
Thank you for everything. The music, the words, the look into your journey of life, The inspiration to keep going after the worst thing imaginable happened to me.
I did the same thing. I’ve been free of facebook for almost a year now and never missed it. I’ve never used instagram much. I still occasionally tweet, though.
Charles, the fact that my sharing could be of such service to you is an honour for me. Excited to see what the journey brings
Hey, Nate – I totally relate to your post! I took a 6 month break from social media recently – and I didn’t miss most of what I left behind. Friends remain friends regardless of the platform used to communicate. The others – well we can drop in and out of each others lives anyway. What I DID miss was updates about shows and gigs – since so much is only ever posted on fb based on the assumption that everybody is always connected via that platform. So – i missed out on some stuff I would have liked to have been part of – but did i seriously miss out? Probably not. I rejoined fb but have been more more selective about my use – and don’t feel obliged to read every post or like everything in order to show connection! I post what I want to, read what I want to – and have been much more selective. I would like to be even more selective still! And I totally get the point – 3 hrs a day – that is a lot of time to perfect something else!! I am soooo trying to play more music, see more friends in REALITY not in the virtual world, and generally to communicate in person if possible, even if via a phone call rather than any other form of electronic message. But anyways, – this is really to wish you good luck on your detox – and hope that the world reveals even more of itself to the external facing Nate! Go well, dude… and look up 🙂
Yes, I’m already feeling like I have less access to events around me, but I wasn’t going to them anyway due to my depression and addiction to my tech . Hoping this break can help me shift the relationship into a better space. Yay to looking up! Thank you Ann
Thank you for everything. The music, the words, the look into your journey of life, The inspiration to keep going after the worst thing imaginable happened to me.
I did the same thing. I’ve been free of facebook for almost a year now and never missed it. I’ve never used instagram much. I still occasionally tweet, though.
Charles, the fact that my sharing could be of such service to you is an honour for me. Excited to see what the journey brings
Great move Nate,
I have been thinking of doing this for ages and have the task of detangling my business from SM.
It is a good move and one I think many people will be taking over the next few years.
Looking forward to staying connected and being a fan towards your success.
I have that task too, if I choose to make this break more permanent. Not sure if it’s realistic for me to do the job I do without using social media, but that’s why this experiment . Good luck to you on your journey too
Great decision Nat. I unplugged from BookFace several years ago and not a day goes by that I regret that
That’s lovely to know, thank you Jim!
Great move Nate,
I have been thinking of doing this for ages and have the task of detangling my business from SM.
It is a good move and one I think many people will be taking over the next few years.
Looking forward to staying connected and being a fan towards your success.
I have that task too, if I choose to make this break more permanent. Not sure if it’s realistic for me to do the job I do without using social media, but that’s why this experiment . Good luck to you on your journey too
Love it Nate! I try to go on an unplugged retreat at least once a year. When I return I feel completely refreshed. Way to be
Ari, what an pleasure to hear from you sir! Yeah man, I’ve gotta find another way of running this social media gig, it’s sucked the life outta me, haha. Stoked to hear you do things like this too, excited to see what it brings
I really admire your courage to make the break….Something I have thought about doing myself…I really wish you well and look forward to hopefully seeing you back on media soon…Take care Nate and keep safe…
Thank you, Cynthia. I hope that this post can support you by giving a little nudge in whatever direction you feel would serve you
You’ve just empowered me to do the same. Thank you in advance, though I could never thank you enough for the countless hours I am about to regain with my hobbies, my children and my spirit. Because of your post, I will learn more, love more and literally heal more over the next 30 days. I sincerely hope you enjoy your journey. I know I will.
Wow, Eric, what an amazing thing to hear! I didn’t think that my little experiment would inspire anyone else, I just knew I had to do something to shift my own experience with social media! Thank you for your courage, and I wish you so much the best on your journey! Let me know how it goes
I think this is great for you! I do believe these platforms can be addictive! One of the reasons I left Patreon was because I felt a lack of connection-all people whom I have never met-and probably never will. We should connect with the people who are present in our lives! Getting off social media will give us time to be more creative and do the things we love! Good on you for making this change for yourself!!
Thanks Erryn, I definitely don’t feel the way you do about Patreon, I’ve received SO MUCH joy and sincere value from the people who support me there. That support pays my bills and keeps me clothed and homed, so I am eternally grateful for that. I’ve also met many of my patrons in person and have always been delighted to do so. I understand what you’re saying, and feel that time off social media is going to be a wonderful thing ☮️
Yes, this makes sense to me as well… And the best thing that happens to me when outthere working as a cruise ship crew member is the super expensive internet and when I go ashore for a walk in a new town my battery is dead or I even don’t bring my smartphone so I have only me and my camera, and the change to really live the world .
Thanks for the inspiration,
Cristina.
My lady and I are going out more and more without our phones. It is such a RELIEF! The whole world is waiting, if we just lift our eyes from the screens. Thank you for sharing, Cristina
Hi Nate, spend those 3 hours a day looking up instead of looking down at you phone. You will be amazed by what you learn
SO well said! Here’s to looking up
Your introspection and sincerity continue to amaze me! Enjoy your beautiful journey.
Thank you, Christy, I’m just seeking my centre and inviting y’all along for the ride ♂️
I really admire your courage to make the break….Something I have thought about doing myself…I really wish you well and look forward to hopefully seeing you back on media soon…Take care Nate and keep safe…
Thank you, Cynthia. I hope that this post can support you by giving a little nudge in whatever direction you feel would serve you
I understand completely. I often consider doing it myself, but I actually am a hermit and some days, most days, it’s my only window to the world. You’ll be missed here, there, and everywhere, but I am sure your life will be all the better for it.
Aww thanks for the sweet words. I know what you mean, and I’m definitely a bit scared of what my life will be like without the ‘window’. Fortunately, I will still be here on this blog, on youtube, on my mailing list, on patreon…so we can still be connected and you can hop in whenever you feel to
You’ve just empowered me to do the same. Thank you in advance, though I could never thank you enough for the countless hours I am about to regain with my hobbies, my children and my spirit. Because of your post, I will learn more, love more and literally heal more over the next 30 days. I sincerely hope you enjoy your journey. I know I will.
Wow, Eric, what an amazing thing to hear! I didn’t think that my little experiment would inspire anyone else, I just knew I had to do something to shift my own experience with social media! Thank you for your courage, and I wish you so much the best on your journey! Let me know how it goes
I think this is great for you! I do believe these platforms can be addictive! One of the reasons I left Patreon was because I felt a lack of connection-all people whom I have never met-and probably never will. We should connect with the people who are present in our lives! Getting off social media will give us time to be more creative and do the things we love! Good on you for making this change for yourself!!
Thanks Erryn, I definitely don’t feel the way you do about Patreon, I’ve received SO MUCH joy and sincere value from the people who support me there. That support pays my bills and keeps me clothed and homed, so I am eternally grateful for that. I’ve also met many of my patrons in person and have always been delighted to do so. I understand what you’re saying, and feel that time off social media is going to be a wonderful thing ☮️
Yes, this makes sense to me as well… And the best thing that happens to me when outthere working as a cruise ship crew member is the super expensive internet and when I go ashore for a walk in a new town my battery is dead or I even don’t bring my smartphone so I have only me and my camera, and the change to really live the world .
Thanks for the inspiration,
Cristina.
My lady and I are going out more and more without our phones. It is such a RELIEF! The whole world is waiting, if we just lift our eyes from the screens. Thank you for sharing, Cristina
Already missing you, your life will be more enriched mine will be lonelier not reading your lovely insights stay happy and safe x
What beautiful things to say. But truly, I will still be here, creating and sharing with you, just not on social media for a while. So get yourself on the mailing list, or my youtube, or whatever creative channel you choose. All the links are in the article above . I so much appreciate your high regard, thank you Marion
I hope you find your peace,harmony,true happiness,love within this universe called earth.That you reconnect with all that is and more.Take care on your Journey.
Thank you for your kind words, Beverley! I hope so tooooo
Hi Nate, spend those 3 hours a day looking up instead of looking down at you phone. You will be amazed by what you learn
SO well said! Here’s to looking up
Your introspection and sincerity continue to amaze me! Enjoy your beautiful journey.
Thank you, Christy, I’m just seeking my centre and inviting y’all along for the ride ♂️
I understand completely. I often consider doing it myself, but I actually am a hermit and some days, most days, it’s my only window to the world. You’ll be missed here, there, and everywhere, but I am sure your life will be all the better for it.
Aww thanks for the sweet words. I know what you mean, and I’m definitely a bit scared of what my life will be like without the ‘window’. Fortunately, I will still be here on this blog, on youtube, on my mailing list, on patreon…so we can still be connected and you can hop in whenever you feel to
Already missing you, your life will be more enriched mine will be lonelier not reading your lovely insights stay happy and safe x
What beautiful things to say. But truly, I will still be here, creating and sharing with you, just not on social media for a while. So get yourself on the mailing list, or my youtube, or whatever creative channel you choose. All the links are in the article above . I so much appreciate your high regard, thank you Marion
I hope you find your peace,harmony,true happiness,love within this universe called earth.That you reconnect with all that is and more.Take care on your Journey.
Thank you for your kind words, Beverley! I hope so tooooo