I started writing this post back in December to announce that I’d be taking a social media hibernation for the winter. As I saw myself put that statement in writing I observed an old pattern — self-imposing a cold turkey detox from something I knew was interfering with my life, and announcing it to the world to create some form of external accountability. It never worked in the past.
So instead of posting, I quietly set the intention to cultivate moderation in my online life.
Like so many of us, if I’m not mindful I might find myself reflexively taking out my phone and scrolling throughout the day — while waiting in line, while drinking tea, sometimes even at a particularly long stoplight. Sure, I have my excuses: several groups I’m part of communicate solely on Facebook; friends post beautiful glimpses of their lives that I’d otherwise miss; people I admire post valuable information and inspiration I’d otherwise lack. But does the cumulative benefit of taking all this in outweigh the risk of overloading my psyche with the content of other peoples’ minds and lives?
Is social media another addiction to something that takes me outside of myself?
Having done deep inner work on addiction recovery over the past five years, I knew this one warranted deeper investigation.
According to the Addiction Center, “Social media addiction is a behavioral addiction that is characterized as being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas. Addictive social media use will look much like that of any other substance use disorder…”
While many of us may be hanging out just under the threshold of full-blown addiction, we’re treading the waters of behavior that is probably borderline compulsive, certainly less than mindful, and by nature avoidant of being fully present in the moment where we are.
So how do we navigate these waters as people whose lives and livelihoods often require some presence in the social media sphere?
As one of my teachers, Ethan Nichtern, wrote years ago: “Whether or not you view your time online as a practice or an escape makes all the difference in the world.”
He offers some excellent advice on cultivating such a practice, centering on creating boundaries of time, space, and intention.
Another practice, modeled by the awesome Sharon Salzberg, involves using those in-between times (waiting, traveling, etc, when so many of us habitually scroll through our phones) for some form of meditation.
Of course all this gets trickier when we use social media for our livelihoods, which by now most of us do.
When I started posting about my coaching practice last year, I was ensnared by digital marketing algorithms practically overnight . Dozens of people suddenly wanted to coach me to ramp up my business BIGGER and FASTER and MORE PROFITABLY— to create marketing funnels and digital courses and multi-tiered launches. Once or twice I was intrigued and opted in to a lead magnet, only to be barraged by multiple daily messages from these valiantly persistent entrepreneurs.
With so much virtual noise coming at me it was that much harder to connect to the most reliable source of knowledge about what course to take in my business and life: my inner wisdom. So I knew that this winter, as I dove deeper into work with my coaching clients as well as my own inner work, I needed to clear out all that noise.
I took the Facebook and Instagram apps off my phone for a few months. I logged on from my computer maybe once a week, briefly, and sometimes less. I shaved down the people I was following who I don’t even know. I made phone calls or wrote personal emails to people I wanted to connect with. And as I did, magically, more clients started coming to me through old fashioned word of mouth. The dead space of social media scrolling cleared time for more exercise, more time outside, more presence with my partner, more sleep. Limiting my exposure to digital content cleared space in my mind and forged a clearer channel of intuition and a deeper channel of connectivity. And now as I ease my way gently back into a bit more online activity I have these few months as a benchmark for my own accountability.
