Towards the end of last year, I began writing down things I will abstain from for 2025. Less of a New Year’s resolution, more of a simple to-do list. For me, this included purging my social media. I have my vices, but I realised that social media, far more than alcohol, was taking a toll on my organs than I thought it would.
This past semester, I barely held on while I tried to pass my requirements, listless in my pursuit of surviving. I had developed an ugly habit I never thought I’d fall into: doomscrolling. Reels upon reels of content overload, fast-paced and fast-fed, a carousel of mindless entertainment and numbing mortal horrors. My routine became dull, the information swelling in my brain, the violent juxtaposition between each scroll anaesthetising my brain. I’m in a loop until I realise that minutes, hours, and days pass me by where I get to accomplish nothing and only feel as ill-rested as I did before going online.
While I do think it is imperative to be informed of the current state of affairs, it has become less of a moral duty and more an impulse borne out of guilt. This impulse to intake information, with nowhere else for it to go, only rots the mind to a point of apathy.
Regardless, I still tried to keep up appearances. I was spending a good five minutes picking out a good picture to post on my Instagram dump account. Proof of life, pretending like it’s casual and easy. Except I was gaining nothing from seeing a million permutations of the same horrible news and pretending like I’m doing fine with my own life when I’m really not. Our brains aren’t built to process the level of atrocity we see day in and day out.
And it made me think—how online do I have to be? I don’t believe I’m exempt from knowing the goings-on in the world, but I have recognised how jarring it is to constantly see this much evil, especially knowing that the platform I use to bear witness to it is run by men that only benefit from our attachment to those apps, whether it is out of a zealous desire to be informed, a superficial gratification for social needs, or simply because we are so accustomed to having them around.
It is at this point where it becomes important to acknowledge that the average person who talks of resistance would not be willing to sacrifice their personal comfort at a superficial level. For every questionable app update, there is someone out there making a tutorial for how to minimise the profits gained by apps such as Meta and Musk’s Twitter by making sure not to click on ads or disabling certain features. But even still, we are still on the app. And it is why I had been fickle about deactivating before, because, let’s face it, I’m part of the problem. I’m more than probably addicted, and it’s hard not to be when being online is almost all I’ve ever known.
And that’s the thing: I refuse to accept that this is what my life is and will be for the foreseeable future. I refuse to only feel more helpless about the state of the world thanks to these soul-sucking distractions from apps. I think, over the course of this winter break, I have come to outgrow the mindset that we are all too damned to fix our hearts, minds, and souls—and that we should concede to our incessant need to know everything.
I am privileged to not be in a position where I have no choice but to rely on immediate communication, where I must constantly receive updates on whether I am still safe or not. I do live in a country that has been steeply declining into a fascistic state, however, and it is a country that certainly threatens my rights as a queer woman.
Ultimately, this brings me back to my initial inquiry—how online do I have to be? And further, how can I stay informed without sacrificing my own sanity?
My goal is to avoid turning to ignorance while not completely overwhelming myself with information. And it is possible; there are ways to get information elsewhere. Finding alternative news sources besides social media and generally living a more analogue life will lessen my reliance on my phone. Which is why I am here on this platform now, slowly packing up and moving my things out from my old social media. It’s going to be a lengthy process to let go of my attachment to those apps, but it is possible.
There is a slower and more digestible way to get through life. Because, at the end of the day, there’s only so much I can take, and I don’t need to know every excruciating detail of our mortal collapse. I need only know enough to know what to think and feel. To know any more is to fail in both.