This is really good and your self-observation is honest and helpful and I am glad to be away from the hegemonic panopticon of social thought enforcement and self-display- especially of the particularly female sort- and also since deactivating my Facebook there is a squirrel that visits and accepts nuts from my hand every morning and that is way more satisfying and real.
I've watched technology impact our species behaviours for almost six decades, I'm 71 and earned a wage as a psychologist. The advent of social media, app technologies recalibrated personal boundaries specifically work and life balance. We are all of the stars. I am incarnate here at this time in this body not by happenstance but by design. I subscribe a lot to Jung's existential theories and psychological frameworks. Because we are spirit in flesh technology intrinsically affects organic development, are virtual relationships and transactions valid as real-time, three dimensional experience? Some consider a schism has begun in the space physical and spiritual share. I've observed and lived socio-economic, psycho-social and cultural shifts as our species accommodates cloud technology and integrated AI life.
I've been feeling similar lately. I spent much of the last year off of social media and was truly amazed at how much easier it was to accomplish goals—I was reading three books a week at the beginning of the year. I've scaled back on that, but scaled up on things like practicing music.
At the same time I've been noticing increasingly more time spent reading blogs, short-form essays, etc. It's certainly better than social media; more nuanced, fewer algorithmic filters, less social reinforcement... but still think it's unhealthy, in the same way that I think people were right to be concerned about TV in the 80s, even if TV is nowhere near as pernicious as social media is. It's better to know two sides of a debate than one, but lately I think it's even better to simply not be aware the debate exists at all.
It was your facebook posts that I missed the most when I stopped logging on in July of last year. I'm so glad to be able to follow your writing on Substack. Still, my gift to myself for my birthday this year was to *delete* my facebook account. What's been interesting is the discoveries that pop up of how scrolling every day had affected me - definitely it reinforced the black and white/us versus them thinking, but I think it also caused issues with memory and a reflexive habit of "blocking" memories of people in real life due to being in an uncomfortable emotional state with them. Also, my dreaming mind has become active again, while it had been rather dormant in my social media scrolling days. People ask me why I left and I usually say, because it's dangerous in ways we don't fully understand.
Thanks for this nudge. I find SM suffocating - especially since the pandemic. You nailed so many points but I particularly resonate with the "algorithm life" that we are spoon fed in our daily scrolls. I can't believe ppl are on there that much! Omg. It's kind of freaky to think about the newer generations who know no other method of thought. Total thought-control.
I'm glad to see this thing is finally turning. I can remember saying to people years ago "if you don't like F-book and find it toxic, JUST STOP USING IT!". But F-book had convinced even the most thoughtful people that it was the "only" way to keep up with friends and see what was going on. It seems to be a genuine addiction or even cult-like, as your program of drawing down and de-programming yourself from it suggests. Congratulations on moving beyond it and taking back your precious time!
Great essay. I especially loved the comparison made to time spent attending church. That's revealing.
This is really good and your self-observation is honest and helpful and I am glad to be away from the hegemonic panopticon of social thought enforcement and self-display- especially of the particularly female sort- and also since deactivating my Facebook there is a squirrel that visits and accepts nuts from my hand every morning and that is way more satisfying and real.
I've watched technology impact our species behaviours for almost six decades, I'm 71 and earned a wage as a psychologist. The advent of social media, app technologies recalibrated personal boundaries specifically work and life balance. We are all of the stars. I am incarnate here at this time in this body not by happenstance but by design. I subscribe a lot to Jung's existential theories and psychological frameworks. Because we are spirit in flesh technology intrinsically affects organic development, are virtual relationships and transactions valid as real-time, three dimensional experience? Some consider a schism has begun in the space physical and spiritual share. I've observed and lived socio-economic, psycho-social and cultural shifts as our species accommodates cloud technology and integrated AI life.
I've been feeling similar lately. I spent much of the last year off of social media and was truly amazed at how much easier it was to accomplish goals—I was reading three books a week at the beginning of the year. I've scaled back on that, but scaled up on things like practicing music.
At the same time I've been noticing increasingly more time spent reading blogs, short-form essays, etc. It's certainly better than social media; more nuanced, fewer algorithmic filters, less social reinforcement... but still think it's unhealthy, in the same way that I think people were right to be concerned about TV in the 80s, even if TV is nowhere near as pernicious as social media is. It's better to know two sides of a debate than one, but lately I think it's even better to simply not be aware the debate exists at all.
It was your facebook posts that I missed the most when I stopped logging on in July of last year. I'm so glad to be able to follow your writing on Substack. Still, my gift to myself for my birthday this year was to *delete* my facebook account. What's been interesting is the discoveries that pop up of how scrolling every day had affected me - definitely it reinforced the black and white/us versus them thinking, but I think it also caused issues with memory and a reflexive habit of "blocking" memories of people in real life due to being in an uncomfortable emotional state with them. Also, my dreaming mind has become active again, while it had been rather dormant in my social media scrolling days. People ask me why I left and I usually say, because it's dangerous in ways we don't fully understand.
Thanks for this nudge. I find SM suffocating - especially since the pandemic. You nailed so many points but I particularly resonate with the "algorithm life" that we are spoon fed in our daily scrolls. I can't believe ppl are on there that much! Omg. It's kind of freaky to think about the newer generations who know no other method of thought. Total thought-control.
I'm glad to see this thing is finally turning. I can remember saying to people years ago "if you don't like F-book and find it toxic, JUST STOP USING IT!". But F-book had convinced even the most thoughtful people that it was the "only" way to keep up with friends and see what was going on. It seems to be a genuine addiction or even cult-like, as your program of drawing down and de-programming yourself from it suggests. Congratulations on moving beyond it and taking back your precious time!
I left a namby-pamby Christian church when I realized how much I wanted those two hours a week back.