Blood & Ink: Reflections on Social Media…

Hi there, my name is Eric, and I’m in a toxic relationship with social media…

I joined Twitter in March 2010. Facebook a few years before that. The first 3-4 years of my life after college were spent exclusively doing social media marketing & community management for tech startups.

It was ‘my thing’.

I was fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to be in university just as ‘brands on Facebook’ were becoming a thing. The first days when the ‘Pages’ feature on Facebook was being rolled out.

It empowered me because everyone was on a level playing field. No one had any idea how to approach this, and no one could have more experience than me.

It was Day 1 for everyone.

As a young and hungry marketing student in business school, I jumped in immediately. And it worked! I got my first job out of school working at an Intel & VC-funded startup in San Francisco, doing social & community. I beat out someone 10 years my senior because I played that trump card: no one could have more experience with social media than anyone else.

I have spent almost half my life on Twitter.

Twitter is my most used—and most problematic—platform by leaps and bounds. This is all to say that social media has been a huge part of my life, as it has been for basically everyone born in the last 2.5 decades.

• I have met some of my best friends online.
• I have found & won work opportunities because of it.
• I have learned new things, found people/products that changed my life, and been exposed to a crazy amount of good and bad in the world through it.

But social media isn’t always the golden pony in my life.

Sometimes, it is a ferocious addiction. No different in my behaviour or relationship than alcohol, tobacco, porn, or gambling.

To some extent, it’s likely true that as these platforms have become the true cultural behemoths that they are, the nature of the content, the workings of the algorithms, and a host of other unintended emergent phenomena have shifted the content and quality of the platforms from the nostalgia-fueled idealization I have of the early days of Twitter.

Nowadays, far more often than not, my relationship with social media is toxic:

• I spend hours in the loop of Twitter > IG > Twitter > IG refresh-refresh-refresh downward spiral.
• I rarely, RARELY feel better about myself, other humans, and the future of humanity afterward.
• With long enough exposure, normal human conversation becomes boring because it doesn’t move as quickly as I can inhale novel and emotionally compelling information on Twitter (this is why Twitter has always been my top platform, the ‘quasi-insight-novelty-porn per second’ ratio is the highest).
• I have deactivated my accounts, deleted apps off phones, blacklisted websites on my computer, set time limits, and every possible combination of technologically-infused bumper rails you can imagine, to no real lasting success. Inevitably, whether it takes 6 minutes (seriously) or 6 months, the accounts are reopened and the apps find their way back onto my phone and into my life.

It’s insane for me to admit and realize this because I recognize that I’m not even that far extreme in my use.

I’ve seen screen time reports from others that are 2-4x my daily use. I never got into TikTok or Snapchat—thank god—and can only imagine the devastation that causes the psyche.

But none of that is an excuse.

Like any good addict, the level of justification I pull off is miraculous:

• “I need to be on it because I’ll build my audience and that’s a smart investment in my future.”
• “Being tuned into global affairs and the cultural zeitgeist is important as a citizen and for the work I do.”
• The classic: “Well I deserve a break/fun too, it’s just a few minutes.”
• “I’ve found many cool products/people/opportunities here, I can’t just close all those doors on myself!”

On the surface these are true, and I would say generally good.

But the way it shapes my personality is not good. My thinking becomes far less nuanced, my emotions get hijacked; I develop addict-level twitches and phone checks; it becomes a very compelling ‘safe zone’ from reality, a powerful outlet of distraction and dissociation; and my respect for myself decreases.

I’m honestly not sure what to do about this.

I’m torn between the ‘commit, or quit’ ethos and the spirit of courage I’m trying to cultivate this year.

What is the truly courageous act for me with social media?

• Is it to nut up and try to join the public conversation? To build an audience and ‘make content’?
• Is it to pull the plug entirely and irrevocably delete all my profiles? (This is the top contender right now for what would take the most courage from me.)
• Is it to fool myself into thinking I can achieve ‘moderation’ with social media? Something I have never once accomplished in >50% of my life on this Earth?

It’s not clear. Moderation has never been my forté.

I am exceptional at all or nothing, particularly the nothing part. If I don’t have it, I don’t use it, and I do other things. But moderation… that small window of opportunity never stays small that long.

I’m not sure what the answer will be. But I know something needs to change.

How’s your relationship with social media? Any tips for a simple man struggling to keep his attention sharp and clean in a hyper-emotional technological whirlwind of a society?

Stay strong,
EB.