Apologies for the lateness of this newsletter. I have been holding myself together with spit and paper, which doesn’t work well as an adhesive.
(this post contains triggering material)
For those of you participating in Sentient Scrolling, I’ll be dropping the recorded Zoom meeting and this week’s worksheet in the chat. Want to join? Become a paying subscriber!
Last night I researched how to make my phone unpalatable.
This was after I watched a bunch of old Madonna performances; after watching Fuck You Faggot Fucker, a documentary about one of my favorite artists, David Wojnarowicz, who I wrote about here:
Afterwards, I broke down sobbing. Like, really sobbing. Do I need to share why I sobbed or can you relate to sobbing or wanting to sob? I sobbed about everything. Remembering my life before social media, recalling the AIDS crisis and the Reagan era and how history seems to be repeating itself. I cried because I live in Florida. Because I feel helpless, burned out, and lacking in resources. I cried for my mom’s suicide and for all the people in the world suffering in horrific ways. The list could go on and on.
We all have our valid reasons for crying. Or I guess some reasons are more valid than others. If you’re a Trump supporter sobbing because his executive orders are being blocked in court, you can fuck right off. For the rest of us, we need to cry. To feel. To find each other.
My phone and social media have been causing friction in my life for years. Friction and actual pain. During last week’s Sentient Scrolling meeting we talked about the ebbs and flows of phone addiction; the necessity of phones and social media in our daily lives. (You can listen or watch the session here).
Before I write anything else, I want to write about addiction— a phenomenon I’ve struggled with since I was a child.
First it was food (a stand-in for parental love). Then it was drugs (methamphetamine, heroin, pills…anything I could get my hands on), sex, alcohol. I’ve always been vulnerable to addiction, as many neurodivergent folks are.
Addiction has everything to do with dopamine.
I remember the first time I used speed.
I was fourteen. When you think of me as a fourteen year-old, don’t think of me as a child. Years earlier I’d grown up out of necessity. I had already been homeless; spent time in a shelter; experienced sexual assault. Had my ass kicked. Huffed paint thinner and smoked weed. I had to kill the child inside me in order to survive. In place of the child was a fragile being who pretended to feel nothing.
It was at a friend’s house. We were all smoking cigarettes and weed. Me, an eighth grade classmate, her older brother and older boyfriend, both nineteen. They cut the speed into lines on a plate. This was decades ago but my body remembers the sensation of becoming. Speed made me into a whole person; I was lacking so much. It eliminated fear. I looked in the bathroom mirror and, for the first time ever, thought I might be beautiful.
I spent the night in her older brother’s bed, where I gave up my body in a way that would become commonplace and easy. As much as I can remember the speed’s high, I also remember the low. When I woke it was as if I were peering out from a deep well, my voice an echo, any light untouchable. I wanted to burrow in the arms of the boy next to me, yet I knew his arms were empty, that nothing could save me from this darkness. It’s not that I didn’t understand sadness. I understood it too well. But this was hopelessness. I couldn’t muster any hope at all.
I went home to my mother and stepdad and slept all day, until the feeling eased and I found my way back into my regular sadness. But I wanted the feeling that had come before. The high.
This is how dopamine works— how addiction works. Each of us has a starting baseline. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter, fuels the reward system, which moves us towards behaviors that keep us alive, like eating calorie dense food, finding shelter, connecting with each other, sex. Many of us don’t necessarily have to work for our food, shelter, or basic needs. Paradoxically, this can make us more vulnerable to addiction. Substances that raise our dopamine without actually resulting in positive rewards are especially harmful.
Certain things cause extreme dopamine spikes (like speed or heroin). These drugs are highly addictive. We know that. They destroy lives, bodies, and minds. But what about our phones?
Is social media as addictive as heroin or speed? As destructive?
Authentic human connection raises dopamine levels. Social media (and other apps) use predictive algorithms (giving us what we want), stimulating sounds, colors, and haptics, engagements metrics, and gamification to keep us plugged in to apps and services. We’re inundated with sensory information, prompted to compare ourselves with each other, compete with friends and strangers, engage with overwhelming and often disturbing events over which we’re powerless…the list goes on.
The reason it’s so hard to put down our phones is because we’re addicted to our phones. Is that as harmful as speed or heroin? I think it can be.
Our devices inundate us with stimulation, spiking our dopamine and flooding us with dopamine, which falls below the baseline when we put the phone away. Each successive phone session drops our baseline drops lower and lower.
When I was addicted to heroin, I needed more heroin to get high. While the reasons for this were physical as well as dopamine-centered, the dopamine reactions were the same as social media. Heroin is a physical substance that affects the body physically, but it also affects the brain. The body is the brain.
Our phones are physical and affect us physically. Our brains are both over saturated and starving.
But What if You Need Social Media…and Your Phone?
Hey, that’s okay.
I need mine, too.
The problem, I think, is approaching our phones and online lives as a problem that can be solved once and for all. I write this as someone who’s quit social media several times and always come back. I have a forthcoming book I’ll need to promote. I also want to remain connected to people, even if those connections are, for the most part, superficial (but sometimes so genuine!).
In this week’s Sentient Scrolling meeting we talked about how to mediate our phone relationships, bringing more softness and flexibility rather than an either/or approach.
Yesterday, after my sob fest, I changed the settings on my phone. The screen is tinted a deep red with a low white point. I can barely see anything. I blocked Safari (where I scroll Reddit and news sites), removed all social media, and sacrificed Duolingo (essentially my gateway drug for phone addiction). This isn’t a permanent change but a last-ditch attempt to reset my dopamine baseline. I was using my phone so much that I hated it and felt out of control, similar to how I felt when smoking tobacco (which I quit over six weeks ago)— I hated my phone while I was using it.
I’m not sure how long I’ll keep my settings like this. Maybe for a couple weeks. Maybe a month. In the past I’ve gone as long as several months. My marker for success is this: I’m reading more. I forget my phone exists for hours or days at a time. I can pick up my phone for a podcast or music and put it back down without getting sucked in. Inevitably I slide back into addiction. Then I take the extreme measures again. I’ve accepted that this is a cycle. Acceptance feels nice.
One reader brought up an important point:
Social media is, for many disabled folks, the only way to connect with others.
While I acknowledge this, I also want to point out that I don’t consider live interaction as social media— meaning Zoom, live back-and-forth chat, messaging, phone talks, or live meetings. And I know that many social media spaces can be supportive and healing. Like I’ve said before (and will say again) this is not about eliminating screens. It’s about bringing awareness and curiosity to our phones, screens, and social media use. In a gentle way. Without judgement.
Some Thoughts From This Week’s Sentient Scrolling Meeting
Our meeting this week was so lovely— just two of us, chatting about how we engage with our phones and social media. I encourage you to join us next week (link will be shared in the subscriber’s chat).
We talked about how the phone can be a bridge, taking us from one transition to another. This is especially relevant for neurodivergent folks, who struggle with transitions.
Both of us discovered an evening vulnerability to scrolling.
I mentioned my reliance on Duolingo to get me out of bed in the morning, and how this was a poor way to set up my brain. Getting on our phones first thing in the morning can be quite destructive to our dopamine set point and make us more vulnerable to addictive behavior throughout the day.
We examined what it means to give ourselves “brain breaks” using our phones.
The conversation was truly wonderful. Note that with the Zoom link you can also download a sound file and listen (on your phone?? haha).
I also really enjoyed this piece by
, which includes lots of great resources and thoughts regarding social media.Free Resources:
I made a couple recordings for our Sentient Scrolling group, and wanted to share them with everyone. If you use them and enjoy them, please consider either becoming a paid subscriber or giving me a tip via Ko-Fi.
Here is a very short morning meditation/affirmation. You should be able to download it, but let me know if you can’t.
Here is a longer Yoga Nidra (deep relaxation) practice.
Neither of these were recorded on a fancy microphone. Maybe someday I will have a fancy microphone!
Please share your answers to last week’s worksheet or any other thoughts/experiences with social media.
If you want to access the worksheet, subscribe! And if you’re subscribed you’ll receive this week’s worksheet in a few hours. <3
Thank you for sharing all of this, River.
I haven't changed much in terms of my phone habits since we spoke but I have been more mindful and noticing when it's actually good for me. I feel like I'm going in the "wrong" direction, but at the same time it helps to not see it as this evil thing. For example, this week my daughter had a hard time getting ready for school in the morning. I wanted to add pressure (it was time to go!!) but I knew that would have the opposite effect. So, I scrolled on my phone a bit - a combination of texting with a parent friend and social media scrolling. Was I fully present with her in the most wholesome way? no. Did I yell at her to get ready? also no.
I try to keep my phone on “do not disturb” until at least 10 a.m. when I need to start communicating with people. So instead of waking up and chugging a digital beer, now I lay there and feel warm or make coffee. I find the stillness incredibly helpful and important.