We need to talk about social media fatigue 📱

Reclaiming an offline life in an increasingly online world

Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash

I am currently going through a breakup.

It’s not a romantic breakup, though, or even a platonic one.

No, no. This is another kind of ending entirely. One that, in many ways, has proved more complicated and fraught with guilt, confusion, and conflicting emotions.

As you have likely guessed, I’m talking about a social media breakup. And it’s been pretty damn messy.

But First…

Social media has transformed the way we live, work, and simply exist.

An entire industry — influencership — has allowed everyday individuals to acquire celebrity-level fame (and fortune) by selling their lifestyles to an audience of online onlookers. A quick LinkedIn search for “social media manager” pulls up 1,580,000 people, and that number is only expected to grow. Don’t have the budget to spend on ads? Promote your business or services through short-form videos or catchy Instagram carousels!

The digital domain has lowered the barrier to entry for what industry gatekeepers once guarded diligently.

According to research by Demand Sage, 4.9 billion people — over half the global population! — use social media. And Statista reported that 66 billion dollars were spent on social media advertising in the U.S. alone last year.

Furthermore, new platforms emerge from the digital ether, attracting an instant user base of “early adopters” (we most recently saw this with Instagram Threads, with 100 million sign-ups in the first five days).

All that’s to say, I acknowledge the power social media currently has on society. When used with intention, it has the potential to inspire positive change. I must also recognize the benefits it’s given me personally. Social media has allowed me to meet many of you (hello!). It’s helped me land stable employment. It’s given me a creative outlet (the amount of time I have spent creating Instagram carousels in Canva isn’t even funny, y’all!).

But for the past year now, I’ve been increasingly frustrated with social media. So much so that, what once seemed inconceivable — taking days, weeks, and even months off from certain platforms — has become a necessary pillar of protecting my mental well-being.

While once exciting and intriguing, social media now feels… utterly soul-sucking.

How It All Began

In the past 17 years of being online, I’ve had my fair share of digital entanglements.

Like many younger millennials, my first foray into social media was the one and only Myspace. The platform offered so much promise. Suddenly, you could create an alter ego for yourself in the virtual world — a seemingly cool, confident, and capable persona. I was hooked.

As a very shy, introverted 12-year-old, Myspace gave me a place to express myself. I could now share my thoughts through little status updates. I could spend hours perfecting my profile layout and finding a song to accompany it. I could send connection requests to people I was too scared to approach in person, allowing the dopamine hit to wash over me each time the friend count ticked upward.

Once the Myspace hype fizzled out, you best believe I hopped straight onto Facebook. By this time, as a freshman in high school, self-esteem issues, pressures to perform well academically, and good ol’ teen angst were in full swing. Facebook became somewhat of a haven, allowing me to escape the discomforts of the real world and lose myself in hours of scrolling and sleuthing.

My sophomore year of college, while in my first relationship, I became a self-proclaimed Snapchat queen. I’m not proud to admit this, but I enjoyed documenting the relationship through silly Snaps more than I enjoyed the relationship itself. (My friends, not unkindly, joked that they were ready to stage an intervention for me at one point.)

Of course I can’t gloss over Instagram, which in its early days, was a lot of fun. With aesthetic filters and a seemingly frictionless way to broadcast little (largely positive) snippets of life, it felt like the platform I’d been waiting for. Instagram allowed me to go from Brina (the person) to Brina (the brand).

It didn’t stop there, though. I played around with TikTok and Twitter for a year or so before deleting them out of apathy (and self-imposed pressures to keep up).

To round out the list, I will say that I still use — and plan to keep using — LinkedIn and YouTube. But even these platforms, and social media-adjacent sites like Medium and Substack, can contribute to social media fatigue if used to excess. So far, though, I’ve found them much harder to overuse to that point.

Overwhelmed by the Noise

Some of you may have a healthy relationship with social media. You may not be feeling any mental health-related impacts from using it. And for that I commend you (no sarcasm intended here).

However, I know many of us struggle with our social media use. We’re familiar with the emotional turmoil they’re capable of eliciting — from the subtle pangs of FOMO to full-blown mental health crises. These platforms inundate us with so much stimuli — so much information that we’re expected to care about and form opinions on — and it’s easy for their influence to seep into our subconscious. They make us question our self-worth. They convince us we aren’t doing enough with our lives. They urge us to portray carefully curated versions of ourselves to the world, even when we’re miserable.

Social media platforms can carry many of the same toxic qualities as controlling partners or overbearing friends — convincing us we need them, and making us feel guilty for stepping away.

Photo by Pablo Arenas on Unsplash

There’s also the addictive side. If any of you have seen The Social Dilemma, you’ll know how these platforms are designed to hijack the primitive parts of our brains. The slot machine-like “refresh” features and red notification icons keep us tethered to these apps. We crave the dopamine hits they provide, our attention spans and capacity for delayed gratification continuously shrinking.

When I think about my own relationship with social media, I think about my former relationship with alcohol. I was never an addict, but I definitely struggled with moderation. The best approach for me was to go completely sober, and even though it didn’t magically solve my problems, it forced me to face the feelings I’d gotten so used to drowning out. I’d say many of my motives for using social media are similar. It’s an easy escape from unpleasant emotions and difficult realities.

In terms of social media, Instagram has messed with my mental health the most, and I’ve tried to save my relationship with it by moderating my use. Over the past year, I’ve taken several weeks- and months-long breaks from the app. I’ve experimented with setting stricter time limits on my phone. I’ve become well-acquainted with the “Mute” and “Unfollow” buttons. But despite these attempts, it still hasn’t been enough to block out the feelings of inadequacy, endless comparison traps, and information overload.

Plus I think of all the times I’ve pressured myself to document special moments and experiences. I can’t tell you how many concerts I’ve attended where I’m trying to get the perfect video for my Instagram stories (instead of savoring the music). Or how many historical monuments I’ve visited, attempting to get a captivating shot for the ‘gram, while never fully taking in the significance of my surroundings.

I could continue this rant but I’m not trying to write a novel here. I’m just trying to say that it’s a lot. And I’ve been feeling this deep, unignorable desire to protect my emotional energy. So far, social media has gotten in the way of that.

Reclaiming an Offline Life

The digital lives we create become a stand-in for the real lives we wish we had. It’s easy to create an identity for ourselves based on the likes we receive, the followers we amass, or the eye-catching feeds we cultivate. We get so absorbed in the digital world that we lose sight of where our online lives end and our real lives begin.

We need to stop being used by these platforms, and start using them with more intention. This might look like forgoing certain forms of social media altogether. (I can confidently say that alongside TikTok and Twitter, I’m very glad I deleted Snapchat.)

It might also look like taking an extended hiatus to reevaluate the role we want social media to play in our lives. For the sake of accountability, I’m in the midst of a 6-month (and maybe even longer!) Instagram and Facebook break. I’d like to cut down my LinkedIn use to once a week, and to only use YouTube for educational content. I still have a ways to go until I can proclaim a healthy relationship with social media — to not experience the fatigue these platforms bring about — but I feel like I’m headed in the right direction.

I don’t think permanently leaving social media is the answer for a lot of us. Some of us may rely on social media to promote our work, build awareness around issues we care about, or scratch a creative itch. And all of that is valid.

I think we should spend much less time on them, though. We should question the impact they have on our emotions, our attention spans, our spending habits, and even major life choices such as which professions we enter or where we go on vacation.

Let’s focus less on appeasing the gluttonous algorithms, and instead, make things for their own sake. Let’s consider alternative ways to fulfill the needs for which we turn to social media. Perhaps we might brainstorm additional tactics for promoting our businesses. Or attend more in-person events to meet new people. Or experiment with blogging (or starting a newsletter!) to express our deeper thoughts and feelings without confined character limits.

I’m tired of how much time and emotional bandwidth I’ve given to social media for nearly two decades. I’m tired of performing my life for an online world. I want to live not for algorithms, “like” counts, and virtual validations. But for the moments — peaceful, perplexing, and profound — that comprise our precious existence in this world.

The real FOMO, I believe, shouldn’t come from missing out on the experiences we see on social media. Rather, we should fear missing out on the richness of our own lives.

Take care and until next time,

Brina

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🌹Reflection

How would you describe your relationship with social media? Are there any platforms you’ve quit using, or significantly scaled back on?

What are your primary reasons for using social media? In what ways can you fulfill these desires without social media?

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👋🏽 Welcome!

… to newest subscribers Donald, Mimi, David, Katherine, and Joe. Happy to have you all along for the journey!

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🎨 Content Corner

Song: “I Want You Around” by Snoh Aalegra (her voice is like a warm hug from a long-lost friend)

Book: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (a gripping story that takes place in a small plague-stricken village in 1666 — based on true events!)

Newsletter:

Things That Don't Suck

(Heartwarming reflections by Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s Poet Laureate)

Movie: Friday Night Plan (a coming-of-age story about two brothers who enjoy a night of mayhem in Mumbai behind their mother’s back)

YouTube Video: “drowning in entertainment: the age of distraction” by OliSUNvia (a compelling video essay that talks about the impact of modern media consumption, particularly short-form content)

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📝 Insightful Reads

Some of my favorite Substack pieces from the past couple of weeks:

• “Sorry I’m Late - I fell in love too young” by

  Jess Pan

• “Tech doesn’t make our lives easier. It makes them faster” by

  Brett Scott

• “What I heard in the silence” by

  Alya Mooro

• “WTF is a ‘grown up’?” by

  Tacita B

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📣 Announcement

Sacramento friends!

I’m thrilled to be speaking at this year’s Design Week conference on Saturday at The Urban Hive!

I will be part of the Origin Stories of Creative Professionals panel, talking all about my journey to becoming a writer.

Swing by and learn about a diverse range of topics, from marketing to graphic design to branding.

It’s going to be a fun time and I hope to see you there!

(Tickets and more info can be found here.)