I’ve been on social media since it first came around. Having grown up without it, in my mind, was truly a blessing seeing how much a lot of people are hopelessly dependent on it now, especially younger people. I got to witness just how differently people I knew in real life began to behave online, which eventually took over their reality. I realized early on that I’m not interacting with a person online. I’m interacting with their fabricated online persona. Because of this, I rarely ever posted anything but it still became my go-to whenever I found myself alone and bored. More and more, my priorities shifted from being goal and organization related to disordered chaos by introducing other people’s patterns and issues into it.
Ever since being diagnosed with CPTSD and MDD, social media eroded my daily life to where I ignored things that I know I should be doing such as chores and projects around the house because I only sought validation by interacting with other people in “support” groups instead. I fell for the whole humans needing more socializing in general “fixing” me when it actually had the opposite effect. I forgot that I actually do know how to socialize in real life and being picky about who I surround myself with by having boundaries is what brought order in my life. Things started piling up around the house and life in general because it felt more convenient to just move things out of the way, making that hit of dopamine easier to get by being chronically online.
The more time I spend away from social media and “bonding” over traumas, the more my dopamine hits shift back to actually getting things done in real life. Seeing my bed made, rooms organized and clean, my home gym actually being used and no dust on things I enjoyed before like books and my piano clears space in my mind to actually focus on doing things rather than thinking about them. It also became easier to actually focus on the things that I myself truly want to socialize with others over, rather than just socializing in general.
Ego is a funny thing. It takes time to build and it requires actually doing things for and by yourself. Social media makes it extremely easy to cross the threshold of your own identity being for yourself and it being for others. When seeking validation from others turns into people pleasing, it becomes a problem. Soon everything you do for yourself requires input or interactions with others. That has the opposite effect of developing yourself into someone that you yourself can be proud of to present to others and finding your people.
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I do low key think that getting off my phone as much as possible has helped me a lot in getting the things I truly want to do done, and early on every time I did a “week of no social media” thing I hated to admit that those weeks always felt more fulfilling. My worst days lately are the ones where I was on social media relentlessly. I started using this app called ScreenZen where it would limit my time on social media to 15 minute bursts, and it would block me entirely after 5 “opens.” I was always surprised at how often those 15 minutes would go by in the blink of an eye– that’s how much social media blinds you to the amount of time you spend on it.