It’s been a little over a week since I began my experiment with social media sobriety. There are times (several per day and mostly at night when I’m alone and bored or struggling to focus) when I miss it – when I expect to see (jones to see) some news from a friend or some actual news – when I expect to seek out stimulation and be rewarded with a small hit of dopamine in finding it.
When I wrote about quitting a few days ago, I wondered if anyone would notice, if anyone would miss me. At the time, I had not considered the platforms themselves as “anyone.” Since quitting I’ve gotten several email notices from Facebook. One telling me an ex shared a link, one telling me I have 31 new notifications – “A lot has happened on Facebook….” Twitter has been almost as persistent. It sends me more notifications now than it did when I was active… Instagram does too.
This morning, before attempting to write, I read yesterday’s daily poem from Rattle, “In to the Metaverse.” The author laments his struggle in living between the real world of a full moon, hearty food, a seductive partner and his pixelated and algorithmically curated digital world – pixels as plentiful as the stars. He knows if he scrolls long enough, he’s sure he’ll get the picture of the beautiful full moon in his feed. Facebook, facing a bit of crisis after an internal leak showed that they have put profits ahead of people, is considering rebranding to the “Metaverse.” This seems to be the playground of the billionaires – spaces beyond this planet (digital and actual space).
I have not gotten to the point of reclaiming my time (or my attention) for things like writing or exercise. This is mostly because I have larger chunks of time in the evening when I’m tired from work and commute and dog. I tell myself it’s only been a week. These past few nights, I have been exhausted and have fallen asleep on the sofa by 9 (I used to stay up to 11). And in those two hours between dinner and falling asleep, I have been filling some of my time by watching “award-winning” short films on YouTube. I use quote because when you look closely at the text between the laurel-branched parentheses some of the awards are the runner up to the runner up in the Sparky’s Automotive film festival of west Paducah. Perhaps I exaggerate, but having watched more than a dozen, I’ve noticed some take a bit of liberty with the phrase award-winning. All of that said, I’ve enjoyed quite a few of them. One night, I was on a kick of short, animated films about our voracious over-consumption and how it is destroying the planet (Steve Cutts). Another night, most of the films seemed to be these half-tense, half-sad statements about love, relationships, and loss (The Gift, You and I, The Call, The Most Beautiful Thing). Others have been about decency and acceptance of others and the human capacity for generosity (Two Strangers who Meet Five Times, Donkey). I think what’s attracted me to the format is that it’s a lot like poetry – the writer/producer/filmmaker uses limited space and time to convey a message or vision or sentiment. The best ones seem to do this without spilling into being overly sentimental.
I still feel like I should be doing something more productive with my time. I recognize I’ve filled in one gap with a different version of “scrolling” – but this at least feels like it has artistic value to it, or attempts, like any artistic expression, to show the complexities of the human experience (something that is sorely lacking from most social media).