Escaping the social media trap

The key to consume less and create more

The moment I quit social media I felt its absence in my life. There was a big black hole where streams of colourful and loud entertainment used to be. All at once I was relieved and anxious. Thank goodness I had room to breathe, but how would I fill the hole now? Before I felt I had no time; after I immediately felt I had too much - and I wasn’t practiced in how to fill it without social media doing the job for me. 

A well-shared piece of advice for changing a habit is replacing that habit with a more desirable one. For all the times I previously tried to cut down on or quit my social media use, I forgot this. I would set a timer, log off, or delete the app for a week thinking ‘great, I’ll just crack on with my life outside of social media’. But within days or even hours I’d find myself back at the slot machine scrolling away my time. There was no ‘just getting on with life’. It didn’t ‘just happen’, like I thought it would. 

In his book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport advises “you have duties during the [digital] declutter beyond following your technology rules. For this process to succeed, you must also spend this period trying to rediscover what’s important to you and what you enjoy outside the world of the always-on, shiny digital. Figuring this out before you begin reintroducing technology at the end of this declutter process is crucial.”

In my experience, this is true - and I would go a step further to say I think it’s crucial to figure this out before you even begin your digital declutter. Not only that, but to plan the small steps you can take to engage with those things you want to rediscover so that you don’t have to make any decisions during the first week of the digital declutter when you’re unlikely to be feeling convinced and enthused by the process. 

When I quit social media for the last time eight months ago, the difference was I had pre-planned how I was going to fill the black hole I knew would loom over me. I wrote down what I wanted to do with the time I would otherwise be on social media. In journaling about this the phrase ‘creating over consuming’ came up. The answer landed on the page; this was my opportunity to finally create the art I had been so desperate to make. 

In making lists and mind-maps of all of the creative projects I wanted to invest my time in I felt a sense of expansion. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, and it felt entirely overwhelming to try, but I felt committed to the cause. I set my intentions, and picked a few ideas to start with. Things like: I would draw on my iPad (low effort and minimal friction to access), make collages (low effort and a new skill I was excited to develop), and create my first zine (high effort and a long-term goal I’ve been wanting to pursue for months).

This was my roadmap; I could pick these projects up whenever I felt the urge to scroll. I didn’t have to know what I was going to create, I just had to start the process: draw a line on my iPad, cut out a pretty picture from a magazine, or write a paragraph for my zine. I wasn’t aiming for perfection, or to all-of-a-sudden be able to complete a big multi-step project in week, but I was developing the muscle of starting - of creating over consuming. 

The challenge is that creating takes more effort and energy than consuming. Consuming, especially on social media, is a passive process. We are still, often sitting or lying down, whilst information is fed to us. In fact, social media feeds are infinite by design: their aim is to keep you wondering ‘what’s next’ and to keep scrolling. Big tech companies don’t want you to have to make decisions because that would feel too much like hard work. They want consuming to feel as comfortable as possible; a passive experience that keeps you in the experience, rather than giving you the opportunity to opt out. 

Aza Raskin, the man who invented the infamous infinite scroll, explains this in a post back in April 2006:

“The problem is that every time a user is required to click to the next page, they are pulled from the world of content to the world of navigation: they are no longer thinking about what they are reading, but about how to get more to read. Because it breaks their train of thought and forces them to stop reading, it gives them the opportunity to leave the site. And a lot of the time, they do.”.

The driver for the infinite scroll - “the now-ubiquitous feature that seamlessly delivers ever-more content to a passive user” - is clear: big tech companies employing engineers and developers encourage their development of addictive app features. At the time Raskin was working for Humanised, a computer user-interface consultancy. In an interview with the BBC in 2018, Raskin said that "In order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time that people spend on your app has to go up… So, when you put that much pressure on that one number, you're going to start trying to invent new ways of getting people to stay hooked.". 

Raskin since said “he regrets what his invention has done to society”.

If the multi-billion dollar tech industry created these apps precisely to promote consumer passivity, no wonder it feels challenging to make active choices for ourselves on an individual basis. And, even if you escape this engineered trap, you’re faced with the jarring experience of adapting to living life offline after years of falling back on scrolling in moments of downtime. This in itself is a challenge; it feels as if life is monotonous and boring, the colour drained. Your mind is still whirring a million miles an hour, but everything around you is moving so much more slowly than you’re used to seeing on screens. To do things, it takes effort. To entertain yourself, it takes effort. To find moments of joy, it takes effort. And, at the beginning, it is easy to feel as though that effort isn’t worth it. That it’s too hard. That you might as well just scroll for another few minutes. You find yourself saying; what’s the harm? 

The challenge is to keep going. Because when you persevere, the world starts to come back to life. You start to rediscover what it was you enjoyed about physical reality. You re-learn how to play with your art supplies, keep your hands busy with crochet whilst you’re watching TV at night, fit a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together over breakfast. These little moments, that felt so boring, become the big things you look forward to each day. The effort that at first felt so uncomfortable now feels negligible, and you learn to enjoy the delayed gratification of following through.

You start to see that creating is not just for artists, but for everyone: creativity is in the way we put together clothes, prepare food, and pour tea, just as it is in the way we put pen to paper, paint to canvas, and needle to thread. The act of creating the little moments flows into the big moments: an energy exchange between you and the universe. Soon, your creative energy is blooming and naturally expands into bigger containers. 

At least, this is how it unfolded for me. Before I knew it I was creating over consuming every day. Drawing, painting, collaging - and, finally, zine-making. Creating my first zine was a big moment of celebration. Not only because it was an example of me choosing to create over consume, but because I had not completed a creative project like that since I was a kid at school.

During this time I also started ADHD medication, so that most likely had an impact on my ability to see my zine-making goal through to close too - but I feel the months of creating over consuming after quitting social media was a fundamental foundation. If I had still been on social media - both consuming and creating content - I don’t believe my first zine would be out in the world by now. I wonder if it ever would have made it out of my notebook. 

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me promoting productivity over down-time. Aside from being able to survive day-to-day, I don’t give two hoots about productivity. It’s a story about creativity, the circumstances required to experience it, and how - in a positive feedback loop - it can help us escape the infinite scroll.

I would be lying if I said I never think about going back to social media. My mind will often try to persuade me of the reasons why I should. ‘More people would find your writing and art’, ‘You might look more successful to others’, ‘You would probably get more opportunities for work’. These things could be true (though I caution, just because they could be true doesn’t mean they would come true), but the question I counter with is: ‘What is the cost?’. 

The cost is creating. And, right now, I’m not prepared to pay for the ‘what ifs’ with what I have: a creative spark. 

WEEKLY NOTES

Thank you to everyone who bought a copy of the first edition of my zine Burned Out, Baby. I was overwhelmed by the orders I received (in the best way!). It’s not too late to purchase a copy; if you’re shipping to the UK, you can purchase a physical copy here, or otherwise if you’re from outside the UK you can download a digital copy here. Thanks again for making my first launch so special!

On the topic of zines, this beauty from

Natalie Harney

arrived in the post recently. Love, love, love it.

As a rule, I buy all of

Emma Gannon

’s books! I so frequently find she speaks to topics I am personally interested in and thinking deeply about myself. Recently I received a copy of her latest project with The Pound Project titled How To Do Nothing. Emma’s experiences with burnout mirror my own in many ways, and this is one of her most personal writings on the topic yet, so I’m excited to delve in.

I have no other notes to share because I’ve been reading so little by way of books, articles, and newsletters over the last few weeks. The run up to publishing my zine, the adrenaline of that process, the come-down afterwards, alongside having to do the things one needs to do to exist, has been all-encompassing. But I have no doubt that, just like boomerangs, hyperfocusing on researching my interests will come back to hit me square between the eyes at some point.

Take care of yourself, and thank you for reading! xoxo

REWILD is free to read, but paid subscribers (a.k.a. patrons) help financially support the creation of this weekly newsletter, the videos I make on YouTube, and the development of other creative projects. If you enjoy my work, consider taking out a paid subscription - I thoroughly appreciate it. THANK YOU. Charlie xoxo