What could you do less of?

I had been on social media for more than half my life.

It started back in 2009 when Facebook started to be more popular among my classmates in high school. I was 13 years old back then, and the only things we could do were posting statuses, poking people, and games connected to the site (Farmville, Nightclub City, etc.)

Later that year I learned about Twitter, where, in the next few years, I’d try to get the attention of celebrities who were already on the platform, to no avail

At 14, I discovered 9gag, where I learned about memes, and I had shared tons of posts relentlessly to my FB account.

And when I say relentlessly, I meant doing it on the daily, including school days. I had already been having problems with my attention span since I was 10, mind you, but this, I can say, was the start of my brainrot,

By the time I was 15, during my last year of high school and at the peak of my obsession with Harry Potter, I had already joined a lot of groups related to it, and I made friends from other countries through it.

It went on through college, and when I was 17, I discovered Instagram in my aunt’s.phone, where I was convinced that I needed a smart phone. I din’t ask my parents for it because I know it’s not a necessity, but at the end of that year, my aunt gave me one as a christmas present. It wasn’t an iphone, but I was over the moon.

That would be the day I had started doomscrolling til the end of time. I had so much trouble getting off it, and it would be the first thing I do when I wake up, and the last thing I see before I close my eyes to sleep.

For the past few years, I had uninstalled my social media apps for some a few days a handful of times to do a detox, and I would reinstall them. When I do, I would have difficulty keeping my hands off my phone, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything else. That is something I’m embarrassed to talk about, especially now that I’m pushing 30.

Social media is a great way to connect with people, that’s true. I love seeing my family and friends share their day with others, and also memes that my younger self would’ve reposted without hesitation.

But the amount of things that make me angry or frustrated are currently filling up my feed, and it’s not great.

Because of it, I have the great urge to uninstall everything again, but I know that people who I’m close to would be sad if I don’t see what they have been sharing, especially now that the holidays are coming.

I just wish I had more self control in this. I think I would be able to do more with less exposure to this kind of stuff without this in the way.