The Prolonged Social Media Hiatus

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If you’re reading this, you’ve probably followed the link from my Instagram profile.

As of writing this, I’m deciding to take a bit of time away from social media (SM). This isn’t a new thing for me – in previous years, I’ve often taken large chunks of time off all SM and have loved doing it. However recently, I’ve grown and more keen on the idea of taking a longer sustained break at this time in my life specifically.

It’s very hard to pinpoint one reason for this, it’s more of a culmination of a bunch of factors, thoughts and circumstances, around both my life and SM, in which the best general direction of those are to take a break.

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The Media isn’t Socialing right now

When I actually stop and think about the reasoning I have to be on social media, and compare it the reality of life at the moment, I realise that my activity engaging in SM, isn’t fitting the purpose for being there.

When I first joined Facebook in 2009 (not to get all ‘back in my day’), social media was new, exciting, radical – a sudden new connectivity to people that never existed before, particularly in the context of the alternative: pay-as-you-go flip phones, costing 10p a text, calls 16p a minute and sending images absolutely out the question. The only way I was sharing a piece of audio or photo with someone is if you stood next to them and held your phones 5cm apart. The introduction of SM revolutionised how to contact people and removed all the previous barriers.

SM is now different, as is the context, and that’s not inherently bad. I think there’s a lot of good: I do love to see a lot of what friends are up to; I get a lot of life and artistic inspiration and I get great recommendations for different things. I just feel like the reason I go to things like Instagram and YouTube and Facebook, has slowly slumped away from the reason I joined.

Now I feel like the way I see/use SM has shifted to:
1. (The expectation of) existing there as a presence/form of contact
2. A form of entertainment
3. A marketing tool (maybe that’s just the world I’m in)

When I see them as tools for these new purposes I think, if this is what I’m seeking here, is SM the best way to achieve those things? And what about some of the negatives that SM brings into my life?

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A little while back, I saw a video of comedian/writer Simon Amstell (host of ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’, one of my favourite TV shows of all time growing up) discussing a book called ‘Stolen Focus’ by Johann Hari and decided to read it myself.

Whilst not life changing (and I think parts need to be taken with a grain of salt/further research), I felt like this book reinforced a lot of the feelings I had towards SM, our interaction with it on a larger scale, and it’s impact on us as individuals.

One takeaway was on this quote from media theorist Marshall McLuhan, and Johann’s application to SM:

“The medium is the message….every time a new medium comes along, a new way for humans to communicate, it has buried in it, a message. It is gently guiding us to see the world according to a new set of codes. The way information gets to you”, McLuhan argued, “is more important than the information itself”…

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…TV teaches you that the world is fast – that it’s about surfaces and appearances. Everything in the world is happening all at once…

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Twitter tells us:
Firstly, You shouldn’t focus on any one thing for long. The world can, and should be understood in short simple statements of 280 characters. Second, The world should be interpreted and confidently understood very quickly. Thirdly, what matters most is whether people immediately agree with and applaud your short , simple, speedy statements.

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Facebook:
First, your life exists to be displayed to other people and you should be aiming every day to show your friends edited highlights of your life. Second, what matters is whether people immediately like these edited and carefully selected highlights that you spend your life crafting. Third, somebody is your friend if you regularly look at their edited highlight reels and they look at yours – this is what friendship means.

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Instagram:
First, what matters is how you look on the outside
Second, what matters is how you look on the outside
Third, what matters is how you look on the outside
Fourth, what matters is whether people like what you look like on the outside

This really highlighted something for me, as someone who uses Instagram as a main form of social media. When life is going well and you have a lot of exciting things to share, social media feels social, like you are contributing to something wider in your community. But when life isn’t as great, or less exciting, it almost creates even more of a barrier, like you’re not supposed to be sharing your life right now, and whilst you’re friends are continuing to share all the awesome and exciting things going on, you slowly feel more and more distant and isolated – it becomes harder to do what you joined social media for, to connect.

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Without getting too deep or melodramatic, the last 2 years have been incredibly difficult for me, and that can’t be displayed more clearly than my lack of outward presence on social media:

By only ever really posting the positive external parts of my life, I have been posting barely anything at all, having not posted anything permanently since the end of 2023. Yes, on my main platform I use for keeping connected with people, I have not posted for 2 years.

Even looking through my old Instagram stories, in the last 2 years I have shared 7 pictures that include me in them: 5 of those are resharing other peoples stories, and 2 of the 7 are of the back of my head.

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The use of Instagram as my main form of contact with friends has ironically meant I’ve felt less connected, at a time where I could actually do with more connection. A lot of friends don’t know what’s been going on in my life, and that’s not their fault – it’s only once we bump into each other at events and catch up, that they ask why on earth I hadn’t reached out sooner.

Understanding the flaws and dangerous effects of SM isn’t revolutionary to me or you. However, it’s clear to me that staying on SM for relational FOMO, only just to lurk, is probably more detrimental to both me and to my relationships with people, than being consciously offline.

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I’m also super aware of the dopamine time sink that is doom scrolling… I absolutely hate it and one of the best decisions I made 4 years ago was to delete TikTok. However, Instagram reels have been clawing their way back into my free time and when I catch myself in a doom scroll of useless content, I just end up feeling disappointed and dissatisfied. I’m keen for the removal of short form content from my life to help open spaces and recreate the small gaps of quiet between life’s tasks that used to be there.

As I mentioned, I’ve taken time off social media before. However, I imagine this to be a more prolonged break. So…

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Why Write a Blog?

In short, to stay in contact with people. One of the main benefits of being on SM, is that I have a direct line to all the wonderful people I know across the country and the world, and can also keep updated with what is going on in their life. To be completely honest, I’m fearful to lose that. A blog like this, I feel is a great way to keep the positive of SM, promoting connection with people, whilst removing a lot of the negatives.

I was chatting to someone the other week about the tradition often our parents’ generation had (for some reason), of writing yearly update letters and sending them out to friends, or putting them inside their Christmas cards at the end of the year. Whilst feeling like a bizarre concept for someone my age, there is something so appealing and endearing about being able to offer longer form, general life updates to friends as a way of keeping up with each other and almost giving context to life, for the next time they see each other.

I’m a big letters guy (as in mail, not words typed in a ridiculously sized font) and I feel like blogging is the virtual, wider reaching, version of that.

Also, I feel that a blog where I am actually discussing aspects of life will remove the barrier of “I want to reach out again, but it feels awkward to chat for the first time out of the blue. I don’t know what’s going on in their life at the moment”. If I write about something in life you want to discuss more, let’s chat! Maybe I’ve mentioned a new album I’m listening to, you check it out and love it, and have a suggestion for me off of that – let me know! The goal of the blog is not to socially disconnect, but the opposite.

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A few secondary reasons:

• To be consciously creative – I’ve recently had a resurgence of engaging in creative mediums, not because I’m necessarily great at them, but because the process of doing them is important. I think consciously writing is a very important creative process, and I’m really rubbish at journaling, so this is a way to do that.
• To record life better – Basically, I’m often really bad and taking time to consider the moment I’m in, and sometimes when I look back at parts of life, I wish I had a better record of it, so this can do that.
• To make progress and record progress – A lot of times in life, I have relied on major life changes as a catalyst to change how I live my life (i.e. moving, covid, new job etc.) but I don’t have this at the moment. This shift off social is definitely a catalyst, but also I think a great way to encourage small, gradual change in my life better.

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What/When are you Posting?

In terms of what I’m planning to post, it will probably be a variety of stuff: General thoughts on the brain, what’s going on in life, what I’m finding fascinating/exciting, maybe some chat about faith, probably a bunch of music content, books, maybe some pottery stuff, etc. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I’m also considering making audio/video versions of this blog as some people don’t like/struggle to read and, whilst I think reading is awesome, I don’t want it to get in the way of connecting with friends. Also, it’s creative, so why not?

In terms of when I’m posting, I was considering some sort of schedule such as weekly/bi-weekly. However, I feel this puts a pressure and expectation on blogging that partially defeats the point of it. I’m aware that makes it more awkward to read for those that want to keep up with it regularly, but maybe I’ll make some sort of email update option for those that want to know.

For the time being, you can subscribe to email notifications here:

(You need to confirm via the email it sends)

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