My cousin’s birthday was this month. I know that because social media told me.
In fewer than five seconds I was able to drop an automatically generated birthday remembrance on his page. And I’m sure that he’ll spend about as much time “treasuring” that as I spent sending it.
Sure, I coulda picked up the phone. And maybe I’m writing this because I should have picked up the phone (to call, not to doomscroll), and I know it. But you know how it goes: we’re busy.
Busy working or parenting or preparing meals or doing household chores or resting from any of the above. We’re all just so very, very busy… and exhausted. The last thing we want to do is pick up the phone or – gasp! – go out and see someone in person.
So instead we scroll socials.
On average, adult Americans scroll socials for about two-and-a-half hours a day.
Teens? Average 5 hours a day.
Y’all…that’s a problem. It’s a time management problem. It’s an attention and addiction problem. It’s a social isolation and polarization problem.
I’ve decided to tackle the problem(s).
Time Management
We’ve all got demands on our time – often exhausting, unfun, “adult” demands. And once we’ve completed those, it’s understandable why a vast majority of us would want to just tune out and scroll socials.
Socials ask very little of us. All they want is our eyeballs. And the algorithms have had years now to hit us with content to keep us engaged.
In a world where so many things are hard, socials are easy.
But they’re also a drain on creativity and productivity.
Studies have shown socials’ negative impacts on attention span and focus. They’ve also pointed out just how important boredom is to creative and cognitive processes.
Can you remember the last time you were bored and didn’t immediately reach for TikTok, X, Insta, BlueSky, Facebook, Threads, etc.?
I was fortunate enough to grow up in the 80s/90s, before the Internet and socials had society in a chokehold, and my memorable stretches of childhood boredom usually translated into something productive: a walk to a friend’s house, a bike ride, a book read, a dance choreographed (I was gonna be a ballerina. Or a mermaid. Apparently I had very different ideas of what role ‘feet’ would play in my future.), a short story written.
Those five-hours-a-day that teens spend online now were, for me, spent pursuing my interests. And while we can all make the knee-jerk argument that socials can be used to connect you with friends or teach you any of the above-mentioned skills (even being a mermaid. Seriously. I’ve lost hours of my life to watching grown women don fish tails. Which are really expensive by the way, in case you were wondering.), if we’re really honest with ourselves we know that watching BookTok is not the same as reading the book; that watching that 30-second reel of Misty Copeland’s farewell performance is not the same as signing up for ( and actually attending) an adult dance class, and that no amount of scrolling socials wrote this column about socials for me.
To actually get anything done – I, we – have to turn that shit off .
And it is shit, you guys.
You know that it is. Just as you know that those two-and-a-half hours a day (17.5 hours a week) that you spend scrolling could be better spent on literally anything else: going to the gym, trying a new recipe, learning to sew, picking up the phone to call your cousin on his birthday…
Attention, Addiction, and “Enshittification”
Can you remember the last time you watched an hour-long show without checking your phone once?
Folks, our attention spans are utterly shot, and the studies are all saying the same thing: socials are designed to bombard us with quick, easy, and dynamic audiovisual content designed to constantly stimulate the dopamine (feel good/stimulus hormone) in our brain. Reward-driven notifications and “Look how many likes!” loops have been shown to negatively impact cognitive control, the ability to sustain focus, and information retention.
The results of this constant stimulus are pretty terrifying really. Not only are our brains behaving in ways typically associated with addiction, but our attention spans have fallen to such a degree that 10 seconds is the maximum time we, on average, spend on a piece of content online.
Mega streamers like Netflix have caught on to this phenomenon and have actually told the artists producing content for them to “dumb down” their work so that someone who is scrolling on their phone can still follow the plot of the show that’s on.
That? Is a depressing indictment on us, as content consumers.
And it’s not like we’re not noticing.
“Content has gotten worse on and because of social media” is a discourse that is, ironically, pretty present on social media.
Cory Doctorow, who coined the term “enshittification” to describe how the internet and socials went from places to learn and connect to the absolute hellscapes we experience today, just released a book on the topic: “Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It.”
I dunno if I’ll bother to read the whole thing. It’s long, and I’m busy, so maybe I’ll just read an article about it. Or watch a BookTok. Because that’s just as good, right?
Betcha we could all read that book in the 17.5 hours a week we spend scrolling…but where’s the dopamine in that?
Isolation and Polarization
Despite the dopamine hits, and the ease with which we can now wish our cousins generic Happy Birthday’s, social media is failing its stated purpose.
We’ve all wised up to the fact that it’s actually a way for folks like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to make astronomical fortunes by sharing our data with advertisers, but there were a few golden years in the beginning there when social media really was a place to reconnect with old friends and stalk old boyfriends.
Those days are so long gone that Gen Z and Gen Alpha have the same reaction to the recollection as they do to rotary phones: “Um…what?” (Our 10-second attention spans aren’t even long enough for us to dial a rotary phone now. Think about that. But, you know, only for, like, 10 seconds.)
We are fortunate enough to live in an age where human communication and connection should be the quickest and easiest it’s ever been – but like most things “quick” and “easy,” our communication has gone from family tradition Sunday Roast to fast food. It’s lost its art and nutritive value. And sure, we’re being fed, but when’s the last time social media left you feeling “full”?
Evolutionarily, humans adapted by living in tribes. We lived together and dependently upon each other. Our very survival was linked with our fellows. Simply put, we weren’t built for digital-only communication or 24/7 stimulus from content bombardment the world over.
We were meant for face-to-face kinships and working together and for our comparatively small communities. We were not evolutionarily or otherwise built for the loneliness and sheer panic that comes from having every global tragedy delivered directly to our eyeballs, and having no one present in real life to give us support or another perspective. (Or hand us a spear or a beer.)
And we certainly have not adapted to the fact that what we’re being told about those tragedies is actually what we’re being sold about those tragedies, because the algorithm (and the people who manipulate it) know what viewpoints you want to engage with. And they’re selling you engagement, not truth.
That engagement might connect you with others worldwide who think like you do – but what it doesn’t do is build community where you are. It doesn’t expose you to others who think differently, might make you question, may even have some solid perspectives.
Sure, you might have a social “friend” in Singapore who agrees with you on every issue, but when’s the last time your neighbor, who you know voted differently than you in the last election, picked you up at the gas station and gave you a ride home when you were in a tight spot?
For me that was last week… but studies on “The Loneliness Epidemic” show that such positive, in-person experiences are becoming increasingly rare.
Despite socials putting us only a click away from literally billions of people on this planet, about 20% of American adults (52 million people) reported feeling lonely “a lot of the day yesterday.” For young adults (aged 18 – 34, and arguably those most chronically online) that stat was 30%.
Loneliness is linked to a higher risk of premature death, on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and young adults, single adults, and LGBTQ+ individuals all report high levels of loneliness.
Is there any wonder we’re so lonely and so depressed?
Tackling The Problem
So, empirically, scientifically, and just intrinsically, we know social media is a problem. It’s a time management problem. It’s an attention and addiction problem. It’s a social isolation and polarization problem.
I’ve decided to tackle the problem(s).
I’ve deactivated all my socials.
No more “But how will I know what my friends are up to?” justifications. If I want to know badly enough, I’ll call them. You know, like how I need to call my cousin.
No more “But how will I know about the events going on in my community? Or learn how to sew? Or which books to look into? Or when my cousin’s birthday is? Or? Or? Or?” You’ll do all of those things the same way our ancestors did them for thousands of years. You’ll leave your hut and actually talk to another human being.
Most of you just balked at that. Because, sure, you’re lonely and sad, but socials have become such a presence in your life that you’re literally at a loss as to what to do without them. And if I tell you to read a book or go on a walk? Well, your attention span is only 10 seconds and those were fully spent by paragraph two of this essay.
I was getting to be that way.
Which is why I stepped away.
I’ve only been at this “no socials” thing for a few weeks, and I am already noticing improvements in my mood and my focus. I’m not as antsy anymore. I’m getting a lot of things done.
As a double whammy, I have also limited my news consumption to about 10 minutes a day, and I cannot even articulate what a relief that has been. Let’s just say I no longer feel like I’m smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
For those of you brave enough (or just lonely and sad enough) to join me on this journey, The Georgia Sun would love to hear about your personal experiences with reduced social media consumption. Send your thoughts to editor@thegeorgiasun.com.
In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be offline, calling my cousin to wish him a happy birthday.
