Category: LifeCategory: Life

From August Lamm, author of “You Don’t Need a Smartphone (affiliate link).”

Digital media stimulates us at a level that most routine analog activities cannot match. Once we adjust to this level it becomes difficult to appreciate the subtlety of offline moments.

This is why it’s so hard for me to pick up a book, or play a CD, because of the slowness. From the time I digitized my CDs and was able to switch between songs and albums and genres as fast as I could click, yeah, of course the idea of a five disc CD changer sound terrible, but that’s what we did back in the day!

Why watch one movie when you could scroll through 100 short form videos of just the best scenes?

Watching a movie, listening to a record, playing a video game – those used to be offline pursuits, where we “mono-tasked,” and now it just feels “hard” to sit still long enough to listen to a full CD and read a chapter in a book.

I can walk for three hours per day because I choose to not spend three hours a day scrolling through social media. Thirty minutes here, an hour there, it all adds up.

Maybe Social Media Escape Club has missed some growth opportunities because I’m not in the “public forum” of social media, engaged in conversations and discourse through the day (and evening, and night), but I dare to believe that time spent on other activities have led to my own growth.

I host three Zoom calls per week, talking with people about leaving social media, building websites, and writing newsletters. That’s 3+ hours per week. And then 21 hours a week walking. A full day every week that I’m not giving to any social media platform.

Again, maybe I’d have 10,000 more email subscribers if I spent time on X or Threads engaging, but I like the people I get to talk to every week. And I like the calm and peace I find from walking so much.

Maybe everything doesn’t need to be about follower growth, or increasing reach.

A musician practicing three hours per day would probably compound so much in a years time. A writer or a poet could fill dozens of notebooks in a month’s time. How many sketch books could an artist fill if they spent three hours per day sketching?

On today’s Break Up 💔 With Social Media call (upcoming schedule here), we got on the topic of energy. A guest mentioned that they felt inspired from the call, and they were going to spend 30 minutes afterwards working on their creative project.

Getting on a good Zoom call can give you energy.
Then working on your thing can give you energy.
Now you’ve got two jolts of energy to get you into the afternoon.

It’d be a lot easier to scroll, click, consume, of course. But choosing to spend energy, to take a chance on a Zoom call, or to make the choice to work on a thing for “just” 30 minutes, it’s all a chance. A risk.

As Seth Godin says, “this might not work.” While true, I think we know what we’re gonna get if we spend that time on social media.

If you’re going to leave social media, you need somewhere to go. Somewhere to put your attention.

Like leaving the house – where are you going? Leaving a bad relationship or workplace – you need to physically and mentally go somewhere else.

So leaving social media isn’t just about newsletters and websites and screen time, because honestly we’re taking multiple hours per day and putting them somewhere else. Where do we move that attention?

For me, that’s been walking. I’ve started a movement practice, as Cody Cook-Parrot speaks of in their book The Practice of Attention (affiliate link).

Take a moment now to consider what forms of movement feel accessible, enjoyable, and grounding for you. Maybe it’s dancing alone in your kitchen, stretching when you rise in the morning, biking along a trail or to work, tending your garden.

I can just slip out the door for 20 minutes, see a neighbor, pet a dog, see a cat, listen to the crows – things that much more enjoyable than the firehose of “content” I get from scrolling.

Just as we don’t stare at social media for three straight hours, I also don’t walk for three straight hours a day. But a mile here, an hour walk there, and by the end of the day I’ve covered 10 miles. This is something (at the time of writing this) I’ve done for 63 days in row (and covered 720 miles).

So maybe try spending 10 minutes writing lyrics, or painting, or writing, or humming a melody into your voice notes – what could add up to hours per day that would “feel accessible, enjoyable, and grounding for you?”

Where could you put your attention? What could your “720 miles” look like for your creative journey?

Do you want to cut three hours of screen time from your day? Walk / run 10+ miles per day! This evening I will have done this for 60 days, coming in at just over 675 miles (1086 km), about 11.25 miles per day.

No, I don’t do it all at one time, I chip away at it with multiple walks per day, like Tara Dower who set the Appalachian Trail southbound FKT (Fastest Known Time) in 40 days and 18 hours, or Alex McCormack, riding 3,826.47 km (2377.65 mi) over seven days.

Okay, I’m not just like them, of course! But my walking practice (something I picked up from Cody Cook-Parrott’s “The Practice of Attention” (affiliate link) is something I can do everyday, as a nice little challenge to myself.

What’s something you could do for three hours everyday?