Social distancing and the big why

Being on social media feels like you’re in a very big arena full of people and as you’re walking people start turning your face toward them or pulling your hand or your clothes asking for your attention, everyone is demanding to get at least 15 seconds of your time, some tell you jokes, some tell you about their lives, some tell you how you should live yours, some show you the last picture they painted, some make you cry, some tell you hard truths about life, some teach you how to cook, some tell you to buy their product, some show you that you’re doing it all wrong, some suggest that one job isn’t enough and you need another, some tell you that you're mentally ill etc… and you go willingly to that arena everyday and sometimes you participate too. If this doesn’t make you feel something then this article is not for you but keep reading…

Why did I quit?

“I'm bored, i'll check what people have posted,… has it been 25 minutes already? oh OK that's enough....” 

“I'm bored again,Instagram is gonna fix that …wait, have I been watching reels for 30 minutes?? I think someone talked to me but I was hooked on some content.”

 Should I do that thing that I have been putting off? It's not gonna take me a lot of time, nahhh I'll just go on my Instagram for a while..... 

“Why is everyone on their phones? Can’t we have a normal conversation anymore? We’re eating for the love of god.”

And that's how my days went for a while until I started noticing that when I woke up I would start mindlessly scrolling, waking up eager to see what people have posted. During the day when I unlocked my phone my finger automatically went to Instagram and that had me pausing, is that normal? Is that healthy?Do other people do that or is it just me? I spent an average of  2.5 hours on Instagram alone everyday just scrolling and watching people living their lives which seemingly are far better than mine, I was bored all the time but I rarely got the chance to feel the healthy kind of boredom and there was this constant noise in my head which came from nowhere I know and It would not go away. I was feeling bad, pressured and unproductive because I was spending that much time on it so I decided to delete it, even though it was hard but I thought to myself I'm a champ. I can do this!

Why did I stay off social media?

After 2 weeks, 

“Wait!!! Really? Do I feel this clear headed because I'm off insta??? It's just an app, how much harm can it do? (alot) “

“OK I guess I'm gonna try this a little longer, ugh I miss my online friends, it's gonna be only a month tho, no biggie.”

It doesn’t take a lot of time for me to start noticing the positive changes on my mentality, The noise in my head, feeling like a lot of people talking in my head all the time was fading, I was feeling more comfortable and calmer because there wasn’t so much stimulation and unneeded unnecessary informations… but I miss sharing with my online people! I have met so many great people online, few of them have been following me for 6-8 years I have witnessed their graduation, marriage, babies, getting a job, getting a higher degree of education,  I know their birthdays and their favorite actor and I still remember them when I see something I know they liked but I wondered if they notice that I am gone? I am sure they’ll notice when I post something again because that’s just how it works now, when we post, it’s like a little reminder that we still exist. And that is the same case with “real life” friends and acquaintances , when they saw me after I had left Instagram for a while, it was like something clicked in their brain and they noticed that they have not seen me recently but that is not the same feeling as being missed! In the big bang theory Leonard was going on a trip that was going to last for 3 months and Penny (his crush at the time ) told him that she was gonna miss him,  he asked her “what did you mean when you said you were going to miss me ”  and she replied “umm I don’t know, you’ll be gone and I’ll notice” but they did not notice until they saw me! And when they said they missed me it meant that they missed my happy, aesthetic online presence and they missed me as an audience member and that is ok as long as I know the difference because I don’t want to get things mixed up and do some actions for the wrong reasons, some of them did not seem to care when I told them that being on socials had a bad effect on my mental health. 

And on the other side I have some amazing real and online friends who are kind and understanding, those are the ones who are important and who I keep contact with. I will always remember the two people from my “online friends” who checked up on me after a short while  of disappearing from the digital world and supported me all the way and I am truly grateful for them. Being off socials is isolating so when someone makes an effort to say “how are you?” “how’s life” “ good for you, you’re doing the right thing” that is gonna be remembered and appreciated. 

Am I doing the right thing? (yes). Is it really worth it ? (absolutely). I do want to extend the comfort I have been feeling lately. 

It's been 2 months!!!

At this stage I have stopped missing Instagram, feeling even clearer, more grounded and more focused... I did things with better care and I didn't mind the slow pace of life... I started noticing a shift of intentions as to why I do things, specially the things that fall under the categories of “cool” or “aesthetic” so when I do things it would not be to post about them later even though that was not the whole intention but it was a big part of it, living for the gram! And let me clarify why that was a problem for me, when I post something that I know is good and it does not get the attention it deserves my thought process would be “ maybe it is not good enough” “maybe I am wrong this time” “ maybe that picture of me isn’t flattering!” and that would cause a dent on my self confidence because it is a straight blow to my taste and work so I keep needing the validation and that need for validation keeps nudging me and urging me to post more of the things that satisfy the general taste so I could get the number of likes my neediness deems to be enough to repair the damage, over the years that becomes kind of the default and self worth becomes determined by external data coming from all kinds of different people who are not a trustable standard instead of the rational loving feelings that come from within.

 I started doing things for myself and for the people around me who I cared for and that made me feel joy and productivity... I started being intentional with my friends, connecting with them using words not reels asking how they are doing and what they have been up to every conversation became a bit better. Sharing reels of beautiful things felt amazing but at some point it was all I was getting and I craved the “ how are you?” messages. I know socials are supposed to connect us but damn, it felt deeply lonely at times.

It's been 6 months! 

“Why the hell did I listen to all those people telling me what to do, wear, eat and how to live to be happier? What do they know anyway? I can't fit into their mold of life and they can't fit into mine so why did I feel the pressure to listen and follow? I really believed I was immune to that kind of influence. I know better now.”

That’s when the real change started showing, I felt like I had just stopped running but I was not running toward a destination, I was running just to keep up with everyone else, I was working a full time job, I read a lot and I made a lot of beautiful art but I was constantly feeling like I wasn’t doing enough, there was this pressure to do more work to be productive and it felt kind of a taboo to sit back, relax and enjoy life and not be doing multiple things simultaneously, living a balanced life was not a good option at that time but after 6 months it felt so good to stop and catch my breath, it was time to learn how to slow down again. My life was going at a normal pace ,the same pace it was going before social media madness started because I remember back in 2014-2018 when Instagram and facebook were really about connection before all the other agenda started showing, before the 15 seconds reels that ruined our brain cell function, back when the content was only the people you follow, before all the celebrities and content creators taking over and  making us pressured to change the way we live to fit into their vision of a good life, I started hating celebrities and realized that they are there for business by playing with our emotions, painting a pretty picture using their surgically treated faces and their surgically toned bodies, they knew exactly what they are doing! If you look it up, you will find out that they have PR teams. and everything is calculated, selling us lies like “you would look like a glazed donut if you use my overpriced serum” yeah we all know who started that trend (Hailey Bieber just in case you don’t know) and most people buy into it and that is the shameful part, it is us who make them powerful.I decided that i will no longer tolerate this , because at the end  most of them do not care about what is happening in the world or they are just cowards enslaved by their hunger for money or power so they keep their mouths shut about what is happening in Palestine, that was when I logged in my account and blocked a lot of them.

I was so fed up with life style content creators doing a similar thing making me feel like my life style was beneath theirs and I would be happy if I lived the way they lived and we all know that is not the whole truth, we all know each of us has their own struggle so why paint a such a positive picture that it touches onto toxicity? So I stopped asking the empty air in my room “why not me” or saying “I wish I lived like that” but instead I started loving my life because I noticed my blessings and started thinking of real ways to improve it instead of wishing it would just change. 

“it girl” “hot girl summer” “glazed donut”  “dark femme” “light femme” “femme fatale” basically anything to do with femme (how come men are not targeted in these marketing tactics?), and the last one I’ve heard about by accident few weeks ago  “thot daughter”, all the “how to keep him hooked?” “how to be snatched like bella hadid?” (surgery) “Do you have ADHD? Take this test  to find out” when did it become that simple?, we don’t need therapists anymore we have Instagram tests to diagnose us! And all the trends that feed on people’s insecurities and create new ones . All the comparison, envy and the feeling of inadequacy that it creates or enhances…  And I consumed that daily and not even by choice, no wonder I felt anxious, if you’re going to say “you could just unfollow them!” I did. But that did not help, I still got content I did not want and that frustrated  me, when I unfollow or block a celebrity their content or their business gets pushed in my face from other pages, and when I block pages that post content I am not interested in, similar pages show up, that is just the algorithm while the same algorithm blocks all the injustice that happens to Palestinians daily, ONLY Palestinians. 

I started realizing how toxic it is to be a part of that community, for me at least, I don’t know how other people experience this toxicity or if they recognize it as such! There were a lot of times where I thought maybe I am the problem, maybe I am too sensitive, maybe I am making a big deal out of it because no one else seems to be feeling this way. Literally no one. 

After all this time away, 6 months is the time it took me to realize that I am healing, I am so much more focused, the normal amount of focus that was diminished because of Instagram and I was grateful to be able to go back to normal.

I started noticing a more positive train of thoughts about my life, my body, my face, my relationships. I knew my neurons were creating different pathways now, better pathways but I cannot pinpoint how and when that started happening, it was subtle and it felt amazing.

The question I got asked by almost everyone who knew I quit socials after they asked ”why?” was “how do you spend your time?” and to answer these questions:  that was not an issue, because you can count on your brain to come up with different things to fill the time , things that make you feel good because even though our brains adapt to changes I don’t think they are adapting well to current changes, I mean “anxiety is this generations pandemic” or “ gen Z are the loneliest generation” and headlines like that make you wonder, where did we go wrong? What happened? I think we’re biting on more than what we can chew.    

I underestimated the effect of these apps on my mental and emotional state, they were built by very intelligent engineers and programmers to keep us hooked, the more time we spent on these apps draining our energy and exhausting our emotions the more money they make. I have learnt recently that Instagram used the same algorithms as TikTok after learning about the studies that have shown that these algorithms were made to create an addiction! 

Almost a year later 

“I’m bored, should I finish the painting I started? Go out? Spending time with family? Talk to a friend? But I feel like I’m in the mood for cooking! Oh it would feel amazing to make something delicious for dinner! Alright it’s settled, I'm going to cook.” 

The feeling of boredom, yet very annoying, is just a sign that you have not done anything that made you happy that day, the feeling of boredom when I used social media is different from the feeling of boredom when I am not using it …I was bored all the time, now I feel bored way less but the feeling is more intense asking for a good reward that means doing something with my hands or with my mind, giving to the world around me not receiving from it. Right now when I get bored, I try my best to stay away from the phone because if I keep reaching for it that gives my brain the wrong answer for the boredom problem and it would just cause trouble later on because I have already been down that road and I am not interested in taking it again. You might be thinking this is trivial, it doesn't really matter how you process the feeling of boredom and what you do to eliminate it, it matters.

(after a year)  I feel more free. It feels like my brain is just starting to properly heal because I can see how eager it is to give, how it provides multiple solid suggestions to every situation and I am just starting to learn how to listen to what my mind is trying to tell me like I used to before social media weaved it’s net around such a beautiful complicated brain, mind you it’s not just the type of content that causes the harm, it is also how much of it is shoved in our faces everyday, I used to see these videos “how to silence your mind?” and now I realize that sometimes our minds misbehave because we don’t let it talk, it attacks us because without knowing we’ve been silencing it for years little by little and it's had enough, it is time for me to start listening. 

I feel more rooted, I feel like I can see my surroundings better. I wanted to be so many things all at once and I tried till I was lost,I was going vertically in life but going down not up, now I'm starting to find my anchor and hold my place, the effect of socials is deeper and darker than I thought

I am not blinded to the benefits of social media, it is a good platform for artists who are purely about the art they make (I used to be one) but the algorithm doesn’t support them anymore, it is a great marketing place for small businesses, actual communication and it makes the world feel smaller and to be completely honest sometimes I get hit by a big wave of nostalgia to the good old days of socials …but after all that, the harm outweighs the benefits. 

Now I log in every three to four months to buy something off Instagram or to check in on a friend and I would get overwhelmed really fast when I get sucked into the reels and the stories and the posts for like 15 minutes or even less. Too much information! and I have thought about talking to my followers about this a few times but I felt like it would be hypocritical of me to do so, I did not want people telling me how to live my life and I should not do that to people either. This is my journey after all and it could be different for others.

I’m done with all the pressure I was under to be the perfect person and to live a perfect life, that doesn't exist, it is toxic and it is harmful to live like that and I am already a perfectionist. 

I’m done.