Garth Moore

I’d had it with social media. My Twitter feed was a mass of political rage, my Facebook feed was littered with ads and old high school classmates complaining about their children or politics, and even my trusty LinkedIn feed seemed dull and annoying. I had just read Cal Newport’s thought-provoking Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World and afterward felt angry and trapped by my social media habits. I couldn’t just give everything up for a while and enjoy an offline world at work or even home. Plus, after a year with awful accountability from Facebook and Twitter and the like, I was questioning why I got involved with social in the first place.

Why couldn’t I just quit social? Well, I’m a digital director at a communications firm in Washington, DC. My job is to stay on top of social media trends and tactics to help our clients communicate with their audiences. Granted, I’m not in the trenches every day writing social copy and creating animated GIFs, but I do have to know what’s out there and stay in the know. Also, as a digital professional, it is somewhat required to be visible in digital circles. It’s an occupational hazard.

So with all that, even with some of Newport’s strategies to remove some of the digital clutter, I couldn’t feel like I could break away. I started to have drastic thoughts. I read articles about just giving it all up for good and throwing out all of my technology at home. I resented my iEverything that I owned and managed (and charged and re-charged every day at home, work, and the airport). I could never be as funny, charming, or successful as some of the people on my channels. Worse, I would sit and fume over the political tweets, from both sides (“He’s an idiot.” and “Why even respond that way?”).

But I recognized that I didn’t need a drastic departure, just a proper cleansing and the time to strike a balance with social media. Here were my steps to digital cleansing:

• Took a ten-day break from all social media, removed all my apps from my phone, and didn’t go online to look at any feeds.
• Only answered work email and took a Gmail break, except for any volunteer-related emails. I looked at a few emails but stayed away from clicking any social media icons.
• Stopped carrying my phone around at home on the weekends (kept the phone in a central spot in the house with the ringer up loud for any calls or text, but otherwise turned off all notifications).
• Focused on three aspects of personal health: Eight hours of sleep per night, drank more water and stretched for 20 minutes every morning.

After a week, I came back to my social media feeds, actually refreshed. It was a bit of a detox process. I would instinctively reach for my phone on the bus, or at home, or in line at the store. I would read the newspaper in the morning and mused what I missed during the previous day. I also wondered what new things might have sprung up that I was missing (in those ten days, Facebook and Twitter launched new layouts, which took me by surprise).

After my cleanse, I came back to social media few managing tactics in mind:

• Setting up times to look at social media and being mindful of what I posted and how I responded to any posts. I review my social feeds only on my way to work and in the afternoon.
• Using social media only at work for my clients. I don’t use social media during the day other than for research, tactics, or to observe client or potential client postings. I mindful of any rabbit holes and keep to the tasks at hand.
• I don’t use social media at dinner or on the weekends. In fact, I don’t even look at my phone after 9pm.

I agree with Newport and others who have posited that social media can kill your deep thoughts, interrupt your workflow, and can really mess with your balance and self-esteem, but only if you let it. It really doesn’t have control over you, you have control over you. Some of my social feeds can be fun, entertaining, and informative. It’s a communication tool and a resource for reaching people. And yes, as a digital professional, I recognize that I’m part of the problem of why so many of us are looking down instead of looking up and around. But if we can manage ourselves with social media, then we can have more meaningful engagements, and maybe both in the social world and in our offline world.

This weekend, I’m going to a movie with my family, working in the yard, having a cookout, and going bowling. Yes, bowling. You may or may not see any of it on my social media feeds. Trust me, I will have had fun. But if I read anything interesting or informative online, I’ll share it with you.