I met up with a friend on Friday. He also had “no social media except for LinkedIn”. We were talking about how this came about, and both of our experiences:

​​“The average person taps, swipes, and clicks their phone over 2,617 times per day.”

I wake up in the dark. My arm moves and it knows where the phone is within a sweep. The light hits my retina: memes, geopolitics, commentary, absurdity, trauma, a friend’s holiday, laughter, next, headline, trend. The weird half inch thumb swipe is way better than injecting. But with each serotonin release there’s an accumulation of guilt and shame. They make me more aware so I have to fight harder to suppress it for “just one more video” or “one more news headline”.

“Heavy social media use causes measurable gray-matter shrinkage in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, the same regions damaged by drug addiction.”

Then it’s the gremlin demon that rationalizes everything. I need to understand macro patterns, cultural trends and how my people are doing to be successful in my job, as a friend or if I want to be a part of the world. I tell myself I’m learning, staying connected and informed but I know that it is making my neurones bleed and rot.

“The average adult spends 4.8 to 6.3 hours per day on their phone—equal to 76 full days a year lost to the screen.”

The day flashes by, the device tells me what I know. 5 hours on the phone, sometimes 6. My thoughts are shallow. I scroll on the toilet, during meals, conversations, online, in bed. The world blurs. Every post is a must watch until it’s over and I don’t even care.

Then I was in the same point as the chorus of this Turkish song !!! It’ll stay in your head.

We both ran the Tee-total-from-social-media-experiment and have not looked back. My suggestions for starting the journey (that helped me) are figure out why you are doing it:

• How many hours do you give each day to a screen that gives nothing back?
• What is developing who you are more, your bad habits or your intentions?
• What is the diet of your eyes/mind/spirit and what is it turning you into?
• If your life ended today, would you be proud of how you spent your attention?
• BONUS: Have you read the 100 sales obstacle questions to figure out “Why”?