So it’s been about a month since I came out publicly and stated I was going to take a break from social media. Initially my plan was a two week break. I then upscaled the plan to an attempt to rebuild my attention span. I wrote about this experiment here, here and here.

That’s a lot so I’ll summarize. Things started out pretty well and I was optimistic about the whole endeavor. Then with each post I sound a little less optimistic. Then I stopped talking about it completely.

My mood has been getting worse and worse, not better. Some of this is just life being life. Work has been really stressful thanks to us being purchased and merged and watching people getting let go due to that. I also have some health stuff going on that has me anxious. So at least I have some reasons.

But also I think a lot of it has to do with isolation. I don’t have any ‘irl’ friends other than PartPurple so I can go days without speaking to anyone but her and my co-workers in meetings. PP hasn’t had any craft shows lately so I’m not getting out of the house to do those. I do try to walk every day which gets me outside into the sunlight and fresh(ish) air, but I don’t walk anyplace where I really run into people I talk to.

I’m an introvert but I guess even introverts need to talk to other people once in a while.

It took me a while to realize my mistake. Yes I removed social media and all the time that sucked up, and all the baggage that can come with doom scrolling and all that. But I didn’t replace that with anything. I removed a ‘bad habit’ but neglected to factor in that I was removing one of my primary ways of interacting with people. In place of doom scrolling I started playing more games (which in a lot of ways has the same effect…constant dopamine drip rewards) though even there I’ve struggled to really attach to anything and get engrossed. Point is, I didn’t really replace the hours spent on social media with something more enriching.

I watched a long video by Hazel Thayer, which I’ll embed below. Hazel is the kind of YouTuber that you’ll either love or hate, and I think a lot of folks that read this blog will be in the latter camp — she can be “a lot.” But my take-away from that video is… we need a 3rd space.

In this context, a 3rd space is a place that isn’t home and isn’t work, and where there are people. It doesn’t even have to be friends or anything. Just a space we go to often enough that we start to recognize the other people that frequent that same place and eventually we start forming these tiny bonds. You know what I mean? You see the same person at the local bar, or the local gym, or the local park, and eventually you start nodding to them, or even saying “Hey, how you doing?”. You probably never go past that but at least you have some kind of connection to another human being.

I was starting to develop that at PartPurple’s craft shows. You see the same vendors, you have the shared unpleasantness of setting up a booth in oppressive heat or whatever. The shared joy of the cool breeze that blows through and brings relief. The shared alarm when the wind picks up and the tents threaten to blow away. You see someone struggling, you lend a hand. Or vice versa. I won’t say these people become friends but there’s still some kind of connection. You feel part of the fabric of that little society.

With the shows on pause I lost that and I haven’t really found anything to replace it.

Y’know what CAN replace it, at least to some extent? Social media. You see the same folks posting day after day and you get little glimpses into their lives and when something good or bad happens you feel you ‘know’ them enough to say “Congrats!” or “I’m so sorry” depending on whether something good or bad happened to them. It’s not a lot, but it’s also not nothing.

I’d love to be the kind of person that could join a bowling league or go to cooking classes or something, but that’s just so NOT me I can’t see myself doing it.

However it struck me this weekend that maybe going back to an MMO and actually getting involved in a guild or something could be my thing. But how would I find a guild that would be a good fit? Probably by connecting with people I know on social media. A LOT of threads eventually lead back to social media!

So I think I’m gonna re-engage, though I feel a little embarrassed that I’m giving up even though I said it was going to be for 2 weeks and it’s been at least twice that. It was an experiment and I learned some things and now it is ending. Not sure why that causes me distress. Anyway the straw that broke the no-social-media camel’s back was PP relaying a message from a very nice person who I followed on Mastodon. They were asking how I was and I realized I genuinely missed talking to this person. While I’ve kept up with some of my social media friends via their blogs, others I’ve just completely lost touch with.

The attention span stuff has kind of fallen by the wayside, too, and I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m just tired of constantly thinking I need to make myself better. Maybe I’m good enough as I am. It isn’t like at this point in my life I’m going to suddenly cure cancer or change the world. Maybe just being a guy and heck, let’s get crazy and aim for ‘being happy’ and maybe that’s enough?

Bottom line: leaving social media was the right call when I did it because my nerves were frazzled and I was getting really irritable over discussions of topics I found myself on “the other side” of. I get weirdly attached to things and feel I have to defend them and social media, being so broad, offers plenty of opportunities for that part of my personality to engage. I’m working on this since it’s NOT a good thing but for now it’s an issue. So yes, no regrets about leaving for a while. But just as I predicted in my first post about this experiment: the pendulum has now swung back and I actively miss chatting with people.

I think there has to be some happy medium between “no socials!” and “spent all day doom scrolling” but I’ve never found that and doubt I will this time either but… I dunno. Maybe regular breaks are the best compromise I can come up with.

Here’s the Hazel video. Not sure why she started it with such a boobs-forward look but she puts the girls away after a few minutes. Attention grabbers, I guess (she once shared that most of her subscribers are guys). Like I said, she’s a lot. But I do think a lot of what she says makes sense.