Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

I’ve written about all the attention we’ve paid to social media platforms over the years.

I ran 1,105 miles in 2020, which took me around 200 hours. Scrolling 33 minutes daily on your phone adds up to about 200 hours a year, too.

Since May 26th, a few days after my 50th birthday, I decided to walk 10 miles a day. After a few too many months of inactiviy, I needed to get moving again. Walking this far takes me over three hours a day, so that’s three less hours of looking at my phone.

I talk about this a lot – the idea of taking the time we spend on social media and spending it on our craft. If we practiced our guitar more, wrote more poems, made more paintings, went for more walks, had more conversations, read more books – where could that lead?

Now, when I walked 10 miles that first day, nothing changed. But the hours add up, the miles add up, the movement adds up, and sometimes not in the most obvious ways. There’s no immediate prize, I just get to do it again the next day.

Walking 10 miles a day for 100 days didn’t lead to a finish line, but it reminds me of the concept of “increasing the surface area of luck.”

From James Clear (author of Atomic Habits):

“The forager who explores widely will find lots of useless terrain, but is also more likely to stumble across a bountiful berry patch than the person who stays home.

Similarly, the person who works hard, pursues opportunity, and tries more things is more likely to stumble across a lucky break than the person who waits.”

Spending three hours a day walking instead of scrolling has now led me to sign up for a “12 Hour Endurance Trail Run.” There’s a five mile trail loop, and I get to do it as many times as I can in 12 hours, with 200+ other people

It’s a new thing to go to, meet some people, have some conversations, and a whole lot of “getting out of my comfort zone” (literally and figuratively, of course). This is “surface area for luck.”

Practicing your guitar for three hours a day doesn’t guarantee you’ll play the Super Bowl Halftime show, or making pottery every day doesn’t promise a full time income, but these things can become conversation starters, or give you something interesting to talk about, maybe lead to a new friend – these things come along as a by-product of just doing a thing.

Walking 10 miles a day is not exactly aligned with the work I do in email marketing, or gathering people to talk about quitting social media, but maybe in a weird way it’s completely aligned.

Because if you want to leave social media, you need to put your time somewhere else, give your attention to something that needs your attention.

I was asked recently on a podcast “what am I running from” by seeking to escape from social media, and at the time I didn’t have a great answer, but I think I’ve come to the idea that to escape requires a destination.

We’re not seeking just how to delete an app or marketing without social media, but asking “where are we going?”

Whenever I see people being hopeful about returning to the way things were, there’s always someone saying “we can never go back,” and I think that’s hilarious.

Like, are we really going to jump to yet another social media platform? Did we all jump to Mastodon, or one of the 19 different Instagram replacements? I keep having conversations with people who are done with signing up for new services, creating new accounts.

And sure, is this cognitive bias? YES. My job is talking to people who dislike social media, who want to get away, who seek a different path – heck yes, I am biased.

On the other hand, are you thumbs up with Musk / Zuckerberg / Mosseri? Are you ready to invest your time, effort and energy into the same old same old?

Are we content to keep following 3000 people? Reading 30 new articles every hour? Watching 5 hours of video per day, 13 seconds at a time?

Or are you ready to buy DVDs and CDs and magazines again? Talk to your neighbors? Seek community?

I know which direction I’m heading.

One hot summer I ran a 5K race. Afterwards, leaning against a railing and sweating buckets, a man approached.

“Good race?”

“Hah,” I panted, “yeah, a little hot.”

“Have you heard the good new of Jesus Christ?”

Now, this conversation goes differently with someone I’ve known for 20 years on a back porch after a nice dinner and beverage. That’s because of trust, something the person who approached me after that race didn’t earn.

We’ve spent so much time building trust on social media platforms, with stories, photos of our pets, our travels, our bookshelves, our weekend adventures, and then when it comes to our website, it’s just “are you ready to convert?”

The trust can’t stop on our websites, it has to get bigger. More stories, pet, travels, whatever… if we’re doing all that on social media platforms to impress strangers, what does it say when our website is just a static business card?

Social media dangled the carrot of audience, assuring us that “everyone” was there. It was the food court at the mall, the place for many of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s.

I remember spending time at the mall, when I was still trying to find myself. I dressed like a skater, rode BMX, played basketball with friends, and loved music. So yeah, I’d do a few laps at the mall to see and be seen with some friends.

But then I met Johnny Rydell (may he Rest in Peace). I joined his band, we played shows, we went to shows, and well, I can say my whole life became music some 35 years later.

The food court was no longer interesting because it gave me none of the things I loved. I didn’t miss it because something else was now taking up my time and attention.

This is my best metaphor about leaving social media – to stop giving our minutes to the platforms, and put them somewhere else. I spend 3+ hours a day walking. And a few hours a week hosting Escape Pod Zoom calls here with Social Media Escape Club.

We’ve all got so many hours a week to spend freely. Either invest them in yourself, or hand them over to social media.

I went on a six hour hike with a friend this weekend, which is a great way to cut six hours of screen time from your week.

“When anyone asks which social media network I’m looking to join next, I tell them NONE. I have this website. A few newsletters. An email address.”

I wrote that back in 2022, and every day it’s about “progress, not perfection.” I still catch myself scrolling, mindlessly scrolling YouTube Shorts or even Substack Notes.

But then I get outside. Or record some music for 10 minutes. Make some art. Just cuz it’s not my full time job doesn’t mean it won’t compound.

I’ve been walking 10+ miles per day since May 26th. That’s 76 days of multiple adventures, sometimes 20 minutes at a time (which is how long it takes to walk about one mile).

If you don’t think it compounds, I still walked 860 miles, and burned through three pairs of shoes in that time.

Imagine three hours a day of drawing, reading, writing, rehearsing, frolicking, dreaming, practicing. Our minutes are finite, and we don’t know when they expire. A few minutes at a time is better than no minutes, and certainly better than giving those minutes to Facebook or Instagram.