I have been in social media for over two decades. Started MySpace back in 2003 and been excited about the development of this Internet phenomenon ever since. I liked it from the very start, because I was finally able to be actually social, as an awkward nerd that I was.
I have never took any break of it in my life. Taking a “detox” would seem strange, like taking a break from breathing. Little did I know, I didn’t breathe properly.
After “building my own Twitter” – as I put it – I was set free. Free from the shackles made by the corporate giants who run social media nowadays, in a sense. At least from X and its bad influence. However when it comes to my own server, it’s like Ben Parker says in Spider-Man, “With great power…” never mind, I’ll save you from the clichés.
The Fediverse has all sorts of freedom fighters, and I love it. It feels like we’re the rebels from Star Wars (where do these movie metaphors come from?). But I feel sometimes it goes too far. We want to limit instead of empowering each other. We want to hate instead of act with kindness. We want to lecture and shout instead of listening. We tend to react very aggressively.
The number one rule of my server is “Be kind”. You can’t win with hate. You might wonder what I’m talking about anyway here, but if you didn’t see the outlash last week, here’s the final context to this. I need to say this was not the only reason I needed to take my distance, but the most prominent one.
I speak no more of it.
For the first day it was a bit weird. But the noise was gone. The hate was gone. So was all the social life. I did not replace digital social life with the real-life one. Nuh-uh, I’m not ready for that.
I quit Mastodon, Instagram and Threads – those that I’m most active. I didn’t use Bluesky, because my account is linked to Mastodon.
I replaced my morning social media with news. feeeed feels like a social media feed. I also loved their daily picks I could read every morning, from local news and abroad. I concentrated on working, family, running and reading. I meditated a lot more.
My sleep didn’t magically change for the better, but I was able to get solid 7-8 hours per night as usual, with melatonin, that is. My mind felt a little bit more peaceful. Like I said to my psychotherapist, I have way less “unexplained” anxiety going on.
I occasionally posted to Reddit, or browsed it. For me Reddit is not really that “social” media, it’s like old school forums, information and such. YouTube is not a “social media” in a sense either, because I never post anything there, just watch. I also do not consider IRC, Discord, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Matrix or any other instant messaging app a “social media”. Some do, but I don’t. They’re chats. Different thing. For me social media is microblogging platforms, something between real time and less real time, social discussing, posting linkable things online.
It was a pretty regular week.
Detoxing was easy, because I haven’t been keeping notifications on for over 10 years now. I believe people should decide when they use social media and not let the social media decide for them. I have set my limits so now I just needed to remove the apps from the home screen and not open them, or on my browser. And I didn’t. I quickly forgot the existence of the sites – until my wife commented on something or brought to my attention someone misses me. Yet, did not back down from my decision.
I’m back and stronger than ever. I’ll make my space even safer from now on. After quitting from X and being less active on Bluesky, I’m really considering on quitting Meta platforms, just like I did quit Facebook back in 2017. I still have accounts on those services. Instagram and Threads are something I like, but I believe theyre going to shit just like X. Just like many of us anticipated.
I have to say that in place of the panic and tears of horror of the last week, I have had a few happy tears reading all the hundreds of notifications and dms messages I received during my absence. Thank you so much, I really appreciate the support.
So, what I learned? The world does not change in a week. It keeps rolling on. Everything keeps going forward no matter what. I learned I feel easier when I tone it down. I felt the break is good. I felt better. I learned to take it chill. I learned to focus on something else. I learned, I’m not a horrible person. I learned to calm down.
Glad to be back.
See you on Mastodon!
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