P.S. I’m hoping to publish this to the Thresher article in a couple days, this is a rough draft.
(Trying) to live a happy life without social media: The struggle is real…
Quit the scroll, to live a happy life….
My love affair with computers:
Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by computers. I used to play Runescape as a kid and was totally addicted to it. Later as a teen, it took the form of watching Newegg videos on how to build a custom computer. I took my first job at a fast food chain, and saved up as much money to buy all the parts and put together my first computer. I once also bought a bunch of old computer parts at a garage sale and tried piecing together a computer (that didn’t work). At Rice, I took some computer engineering classes, and after graduation got a job working for a semiconductor company! Which is essentially building tiny computers. I’ve been going into my job every day fascinated to learn more about how these machines operate and work. But at the same time I’ve been wary of the negative effects brought onto society by computers and technology….
Living life beyond the smartphone:
As we all know, the year 2020 was full of disappointments for everyone. My plan was to graduate, and then take my family to Asia, and vagabond a bit on my own once again. It was a trip I was really looking forward to and that I really needed.
News of the pandemic hit hard in spring break. I moved from Rice campus to back home to be with family and lost hope on going anywhere. I took a step back in my plans and started to think about other projects or domestic destinations. Maybe building up a bike and doing a bike-packing trip across America. Maybe going backpacking on the Lone Star trail in Houston.
While thinking up these ideas, I would go on facebook on daily basis and scroll through my news feed. I would see people yelling at each other about staying at home for multiple reasons. I understood I was lucky to not have the covid-19 virus, and to have a loving family that could provide. But I also felt like I needed to escape but I was trapped in my room. I slowly gave up hope and didn’t end up going anywhere with my summer. I attended zoom classes, watched some Netflix, played some games on my phone, and spent a large fraction of my time mindlessly scrolling through facebook.
After some meditations on my summer, I realized that scrolling through social media, we only see positive things about other people, or negative things about the world. Seeing the positive things can be good, but it also results in comparing ourselves to others which can lead to feelings of inadequacy. Hearing the negative news demotivates us from doing anything and doesn’t lead to an improvement in our lives. It took lots of determination and discipline for me to come to this realization and finally quit the Facebook scroll. An important piece of it was also taking up new hobbies like biking, journaling, teaching, and cooking.
I can’t say doing this was easy. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, especially in a pandemic / working from home environment. But I do know for a fact that quitting the facebook scroll for me has allowed me to live more in the present moment, enjoy life more, have less anxiety and stress, and concentrate on difficult problems at work. I’ve found more pleasure in simple chores like cooking and cleaning, and being more affectionate and empathizing with others in everyday life as well.
Don’t judge a book by its’ cover:
In my opinion, social media has always seemed superficial to me. We either post good things about our life, or bad things about the world. Nice pictures of us on beaches, or on the day of beer bike. There’s only so much that can be said through these brief posts. There’s so much more to a person. When we scroll through the platform, we automatically compare ourselves to others which sometimes results in feelings of inadequacy.
Daydreaming is good
Another major concern I have over smartphone use is our attention span. Kids are getting smart-devices earlier and earlier. It’s difficult for us to focus on whatever we’re doing (whether it be difficult problems in our job, or learning a new skill or hobby), without feeling that urge to grab our phone and check it. I’m afraid this will have serious drawbacks when we need to think through difficult problems or think outside the box. One trait that Elon Musk had growing up was said to be staring out a window and getting lost in his thoughts, and I think it’s a good trait to have, especially as it becomes more rare with an increase in smartphone usage.
Advice:
I can only share my experience of what I went through, and I can’t tell you what to do. But if you’re interested in also living life beyond the smartphone, a good starting point would be Cal Newport’s Ted talk “Quit Social Media”, and going on the subreddit /r/NoSurf. The NoSurf subreddit has great stories and ideas from others whom have done something similar. Then I recommend going cold-turkey for a month. Change your passwords to something random, hide them somewhere, and log out of your accounts. After this time, you could decide to come back and re-examine your relationship with the platform, or to leave it altogether, depending on your needs. Share your story on /r/NoSurf.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advising you live under a rock and give up the internet entirely. The internet is still a useful tool to connect us and bring us closer together and access information. What I’m saying is quitting the scrolling to live a happier life. This would make a good shirt.
What I realized is that the most powerful force in humanity is empathy and love. As I said before, I can’t complain about my life, but at least I could share a picture to show how I’ve been feeling, before leaving social media behind. This way no one will have a reason to yell at me either (; .
I’ll still be around. I’ll be posting on my blog at electricfire.blog, and my old one has plenty of fun stories about my life: (jmp11.blogs.rice.edu). I might also be active on some forums on the internet, and I’ll subscribe to some blogs via e-mail. I’d love to hear from you, whomever you are. Feel free to leave a comment on the blog, shoot me an email, or if you have my number, give me a call (:
We need to reclaim the internet as a whole, and make it a place to share meaningful stories and experiences. It all starts with us, or with a single person.
Enjoy the journey and take care,
P.S. as this is a rough draft, please feel free to give me feedback on how I could improve it before its’ published.
Thanks,
-Manuel