Social Abstinence

My Social Media Doomscrolling Needs To Stop

I don't remember much from the good old days of Twitter. I know that I would just post whatever was on my mind or if I found something interesting someone posted, I would interact with them. Hopefully it would spark a friendly conversation or at the very least, let that person know that I appreciated what they wrote to encourage more posts.

I miss those days with pretty much all of the social media sites. I miss posting cool photos of my daily life on Instagram and not worrying whether or not the algorithm is going to love it or bury it. Facebook wasn't really used for more than reposting my Twitter feed to but it was helpful in communicating with close friends that still didn't venture to other sites as frequently.

With the way things are in the world these days, social media is an onslaught of ads, people trying to influence you with ads, or endless destruction of the world as we know it right in front of our eyes while the people who voted for an orange tyrant cheer blissfully unaware that they're the construct of their own demise.

I had to get away from it all, and it was hard at first. I knew that doomscrolling would rot my brain but I was hooked on the notion that if I didn't see what was going on every sceond of the day, I was missing out. I also had a weird idea in my head that being on social media was how I hung out with my "friends" everyday. It's like I forgot how to actually be social in the real world instead of online.

A little over a month later, and I'm feeling better mentally and physically. I don't start my day being angry at things that shouldn't matter and in turn, makes me see the things I really should be angry about and try to help change that any way I can. When I want to keep up on the things I think I'm missing, I just open my curated RSS feed and look at all the stories that I deem important now.

I do feel like I'm cheating a little with using YouTube still since that can be considered social media as well with all the junk targeted at you, but I try to stick to learning things from the videos I watch or get my entertainment from gaming videos from the few folks I still think are entertaining to me.

In the end, Doomscrolling as become a thing of the past for me, and I plan on keeping it that way.