Reflections on Time Away From Social Media
Creating space in our lives for being.
Quick announcement: As some of you may know, my name has been through many iterations throughout my life. Two years ago, when I came out as nonbinary, I changed my name back to Stacy, which is an iteration of my middle name, Anastasia. This is my childhood name. It has never felt quite right, but it felt better than Anastasia.
I have been searching for a name that feels like “me” and is an iteration of a name I already have, but isn’t so feminine, because I don’t identify as a woman (or a man). I also didn’t want a purely masculine name.
So, I’m changing my name (not legally, because this is already an iteration of my name, as I said).
Please call me Stasi. Pronounced Staa-zee.
“Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are. We are often like rivers: careless and forceful, timid and dangerous, lucid and muddied, eddying, gleaming, still.” -Gretel Erlich, The Solace of Open Spaces
Many of us have the privilege of space, whether we inhabit it or not. We are not in a war, we are not fighting to secure that our basic needs of housing and food are met. Many of us are privileged enough to have choices. What does it mean that many of us choose to live outside of the present moment?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the choices I make, especially since I’ve decided to avoid social media. I haven’t seen Facebook or Instagram in over two weeks and have only popped on to Twitter a couple times. Every time I did, I realized why I had been feeling like I had no time.
I never regret taking time away from social media. This time it wasn’t a big choice, because I’ve done it before. I made the decision casually. Yet, two weeks in, its effect on my state of being is not casual; it is profound.
It’s difficult for me to define what is different, how it is different, but I’ll try. Firstly, I am fully in my life. Without constantly checking my phone, or the pull or temptation of social media, I am better able to let my phone be at rest. I feel like I am here. It’s not some utopia— I still have my escapes, like watching films or shows. But without the pull of social media, I feel more capable of observing myself; seeing what I’m doing. I’m not scheming up my next post.
I think of social media, like all my connections in life, as cords attached to me. Every connection I have is a cord, and each cord takes a certain amount of energy. I have detached the cords of social media, and the energy they took from me returns.
Whenever I spend time away from social media I am struck by how easy it is to release whatever exists there. I think about specific people, yes, but none of my relationships on social media are as important or fulfilling as I think they are when I am on social media. And so much that happens there, when I think of it while outside of it, feels superficial and empty. It doesn’t feel real. Not really real. Not real like my daily walks feel, where I can see and feel and touch and hear the world around me.
The people I pass on my walks, whether we exchange greetings or not, feel more real than anyone I know only through social media.
Because…they kind of are? They’re there. They’re in front of me. I can see them in all dimensions, smell them, perceive microexpressions on their faces, notice their body language. On social media the people I engage with are avatars, only represented by the words and images they curate themselves. It’s impossible to truly know someone that way. It’s like trying to read a poem, but with only 1/3 of the lines. Can meaning be made? Yes. Is it the intended meaning, the true meaning? Probably not.
An old therapist of mine used to day: don’t ever deal with big issues over text. I’ve found that to be very useful, yet as a culture we are dealing with all of our biggest issues over text. And we continue to miss each other and flatten ourselves and one another.
On my walks I’ve been enjoying being present. Smelling the blooming cherry blossoms and, farther off, the water of Lake Union. Listening to the birds, celebrating and guarding and flinging themselves through the air. Feeling the touch of wind or rain. So many sensual pleasures. And so many houses, so many lives being lived; lives I can perceive more fully than any of the lives I see through my phone or computer screen. The detritus of front yards and tidy window dressings; tiny little elf gardens and surprising art projects, like this little window I found in the nook of a tree:
What strikes me the most is how much sharper my mind feels. I feel more aware; more capable of thinking deeply.
It’s disturbing, honestly.
I remember the first time I went on TikTok; I was sure I
was discovering a whole new world. AMAZING! So many people sharing so many things. A therapist sharing all his insights and secrets; that guy who plugs a machine into plants so they can make music; messy drama; weird scientists and amazing trans and queer communities. Humans are just so incredible! We have so much to offer!
I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, and realized— wow, this is addicting. But even more than that— wow, I am just getting little snippets of things, and there is no space for deep absorption. And in the midst of all those amazing things, I also saw things I didn’t want to see.
I became reliant on the algorithm to choose for me; knowing that my choices were feeding into it, I chose specific things I wanted more of, which created this kind of void where I was only given stuff I was interested in, and then I’d realize there was no real way for me to discover new things; that the algorithm was just feeding me different iterations of what it thought I wanted, when I am someone who seeks out new things all the time, who wants to be challenged.
As always seems to happen during my breaks, a book about social media fell into my lap. I’d put it on hold over a month ago. Stolen Focus is about what’s happening to our focus and attention. The book delves into how not only social media, but email and work expectations have resulted in shorter attention spans. IT’s not a perfect book, but it helped me understand why I’d been feeling unfulfilled and even frustrated with social media.
The most important thing isn’t any book I’ve read about social media— it’s the tangible improvement I experience in my own life every single time I take a break.
One of the most interesting things I read in Stolen Focus was about how reading novels develops empathy. This, I knew. And it’s not just novels. It’s any literary “realist” fiction.
“The more novels you read, the better you were at reading other people’s emotions. It was a huge effect. This wasn’t just a sign that you were better educated—because reading nonfiction books, by contrast, had no effect on your empathy.” -Stolen Focus
I knew this, but I hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Recently, there’s been a big increase in fiction on this platform, Substack, and some of the serial fiction writers are saying that serializing fiction is the way to go because people aren’t reading books anymore.
While I’m all for serializing fiction, and all forms of writing, and I encourage any writer to get their writing out there in whichever way feels good to them, I think there is something indelible about sitting down with an actual book (on an e-reader, not a phone, or on paper) and diving in.
I know that, for many people, reading has become more difficult as our lives become more distracted. That’s why I think it’s important for us to prioritize the reading of actual books, in the same way we’d prioritize meditation, or going for a run.
We prioritize physical exercise, and this is important for our physical and mental health. But why don’t we prioritize our focus, our personal space and development, in the same way we prioritize our physical exercise?
I’ve begun turning everything off at 8pm. I understand my privilege here— I don’t have children, or anyone who is asking for my energy after that time. But still, it takes a lot for me to put my phone in the other room to charge; to make the commitment to turn off my laptop and totally tune out.
I aim to be in bed by 10pm; earlier if I can swing it. But before that, I lay on the floor and move through simple stretches. I have to do this because of my rheumatoid arthritis. I’m in more pain if I don’t. But the quiet? That’s an added pleasure.
This time, sometimes accompanied by a soundtrack of ambient music, or recorded singing bowls, had become as important to me as my daily walks. I am present. I place a pillow or a little deflated ball under my upper back and spread my arms out wide, opening my chest to the ceiling. It’s the opposite of what I do most of the day, in front of my computer, my shoulders constantly tugged down by the weight of my chest.
There’s a sense of release here. I notice how it happens, and has to happen, gradually. With each exhale my body soften incrementally. There is never a point of complete softness, and therefore there is no goal or defined stopping point.
In doing this, I am exercising. I may not be lifting weights or running, but I’ve found this exercise to be more important than either of those. I am exercising stillness; softness. I am exercising my “letting go” muscles. As I lay and soften, thoughts cycle through my mind. I can feel how they affect me. I let them go, too, one after the other.
"People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle." -Thich Nhat Hanh
My friends, that’s what I have today. Here are some things I’ve been enjoying lately. If you enjoyed this newsletter please, please share it, and/or become a paying subscriber! Even commenting and “liking” this post helps a whole lot.
Tell me what’s been giving you life lately.
What I am Loving.
I am reading “Insurrecto” by Gina Apostol and, as usual, finding gravity and seriousness in the form of what many call a “comic novel.”
Rereading “Meander, Spiral, Explode” by Jane Allison. It’s an incredible book about structure and my copy is so marked-up it might all be underlined.
Obsessively listening to Ora The Molecule, which gives me massive joy.
Watching The Righteous Gemstones, which is basically Succession, but way funnier. I appreciate more with each episode and it’s been a long time since a show has made me laugh out loud so many times.
Watering my plants and wishing I could plant a garden but not doing so because I know I am leaving for Tallahassee in August.
Trying not to stress out about driving across the country with my cat.
Buying flowers from Pike Place Market and mourning the city I lost long ago, am still losing, and to which I most likely won’t return (to live, at least).
Continuing to teach yoga in person and contemplating how I can offer a very slow practice online, once weekly.
Reading all the books on Indigenous fire practices because I am starting my book revision tomorrow.
Lastly, I’ve been thinking about the war in Ukraine a lot, like many of us probably are. Having lived in the Czech Republic, a country that has only been free from Russian occupation since the early nineties, I worry about the progression of this war and, simultaneously, hold hope in my heart for what can be learned. To stop war, we have to stop warring.
I watched a little documentary on the New York Times website about the many people who have had to flee their homes hoping for safety. They left behind whole parts of themselves. In a way. I thing that the most powerful thing I can do individually is to be grateful for my own freedoms and make sure they are not taken away. To use my voice. And to give as much as I can to causes and foundations for whom working towards peace is a priority. Here is a list of reputable places and how to give to the people who need it most when it comes to Ukraine.
I will be donating 20% of my March and April memberships to organizations helping Ukraine.
