I don’t think the current business model is ready to go the distance. Social platforms are constantly having to introduce new ways of keeping our attention, because in reality, we’re actually so desperately wanting to free ourselves from their grip and keep slipping away.

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As soon as a paid subscription model is introduced, I believe many of these tactics and issues will fade away.

Like a toxic relationship (of any kind), SM platforms have a twisted way of pretending to be friendly and harmless. Yet, for some reason, after every interaction, you feel like a vampire has depleted most of your soul.

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The Stockholm syndrome is also very real with SM, where on days where you feel shitty (likely provoked by stuff you saw on socials) you resort back to SM to distract yourself from the shitty feelings that it itself had caused in the first place. Haibo!

The adage of “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” is most applicable here.

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When you pay a mere R64.99pm for a service like Spotify, you get an algorithm that works FOR you, not against you. Spotify’s algorithm analyses your app usage in order to better suggest music and shows that you’d actually enjoy. Providing you with a fantastic user experience, keeping your patronage for longer.

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Contrast that to SM’s way of constantly having to find new ways to keep your attention by trying to illicit negative emotions and negative reinforcement so you’ll continue providing their actual customers with ad impressions.

We’re social creatures longing for deep social connection (even us introverts), so the concept of social media makes total sense on paper. However, it just simply isn’t enough to fill the void.

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We trick ourselves into thinking that in order for us to get our daily social bread, we can just go and like a few pictures, comment on a few posts and call it a day. Yet, after doing this, unsurprisingly, the void remains.

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Good old fashioned one-on-one is required for you to build any sort of meaningful relationship. Not a scrolling through a feed filled with media devoid of context.

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Imagine the level of excitement that can be shared when sitting next to a friend and them physically showing you pictures and telling you stories from their last trip instead of seeing 10 curated photos, videos and a caption that leave you stewing in isolated jealousy, driving a wedge between you and that friend.

Void of context, we see curated pieces of information that immediately illicit a core response from our prefrontal cortex to start comparing.

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Usually, we’re able to offset this with a bunch of other key communicators such as body language, tone of voice, life context etc.

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With SM, these vital signals are missing. All that ends up happening is that we peek over the fence into our neighbours’ life, forming opinions, silently judging and brewing in bitterness.

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This leaves us constantly feeling ‘without’ or ‘not good enough’, so we easily ignore all that is actually happening FOR us.

SM is a convenient gap filler. If you add up the time needlessly spent scrolling through the feed, plus the time spent feeling shitty afterwards, it’s easy to realise how you can quickly skip through years of your precious time on Earth.

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If you’re considering taking a break from SM, it might be helpful to replace the freed up time with something more meaningful. Literally anything that doesn’t leave you feeling like crap afterwards. Some examples include: gaming, exercise, knitting, reading, baking, listening to music. Any sort of hobby would do. After a week or so, you’ll likely start feeling a lot better in general.

Tricky, because on the one hand we need to advertise our services, but on the other hand SM is toxic as hell.

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Frankly speaking, I’ve resorted to posting and ghosting, whereby I post my work maybe once or twice a month and then immediately leave the platform for at least 24hrs.

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Important to note that people have been conducting business long before SM ever existed, and most of my business actually come from word of mouth. So I think I’ll just work on building real relationships in person and steadily wane off socials entirely.

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I’ll have a website that shows my work and any other content that I deem significant enough to share.

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My newsletter also helps me a lot, because it is purely my thoughts and content that resonate with those who choose to receive it.

Remember, SM is INSANELY addictive (and still relatively new). Like any habit you’d like to remove from your life, adding friction to engaging with that activity helps a lot.

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Deleting the apps from your phone works wonders too. There are so many better things to do with your life than mindlessly rubbing a device.

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Literally just sitting in a park and listening to birds will have you feeling so much better.

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Here are some resources that have helped me that might be helpful to you too:

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1. ColdTurkey — a website blocker that helps you block distracting websites.
2. Thrive — a browser extension that hides Instagram’s feed.
3. DFL — a browser extension that hides LinkedIn’s feed.
4. DFY — a browser extension that hides YouTube’s feed.
5. (Book) — Deep Work: Rules for focussed success in a distracted world.
6. (Book) — Ten Arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now.
7. (Video) — How to Successfully Delete Social Media | Dr. Cal Newport & Dr. Andrew Huberman
8. (Article) — Instagram is dead to us… so what’s next for creatives?