3- being okay with silence
It's been about a month since I started limiting my social media presence, and the one thing I've noticed (especially recently thanks to experiencing PMS, I believe) is that I'm finding myself missing the connectivity and instant validation of social media. I miss yapping away and getting a few likes and comments from time to time - even the likes were enough for me. Just enough to feel like I'm being seen.
This desire does make me reflect on how much I've grown to depend on social media when I could have nurtured this sort of "being seen" energy offline.
I'm letting myself only have small doses of it if only to satisfy the Urge to Yap - my art account on bluesky is the only place where I'm very active, and my Instagram and Youtube are where I go on to seek some inspiration and learn new things, and even then I'm taking the time to only spend there where it benefits me. I try to ask myself a few questions whenever I open any of these:
- Do I have something beneficial to share? Something that isn't "hot takes" or treating my social media as a personal diary that should have been kept in an analog journal where no one can see except me, God and maybe a therapist?
- What can I benefit from scrolling these apps today?
- (after maybe 10 minutes) have I learned something from being on these apps?
I try to keep my limits to about 30 minutes or so before I go do something else - less than that if my answer to the third question is no. This has been pretty beneficial to my overall peace and mental clarity, but it really does do a devastating number on my Urge to Yap (I'm just going to call it that now, on account of me being a chronic yapper on social media).
I guess I really do crave being seen most of all. Social media makes it too easy to provide instant gratification that makes you think you're being seen (for good or for worse) - and let's be real, you are. It's just that when you're already pretty much grown up on social media as some isolated suburban Malaysian kid who hasn't realized he has ADHD yet... it does Things to you. I've written that before on a previous post if you want to read about that. I still remember how, in the advent of digital art and the beginnings of artist tablets being a Thing, I started complaining in a very annoying way about how my art is no longer being seen because I "don't have the tools to draw digital art" and it's so unfair (the fool, the absolute madman, he doesn't know what the future holds for him). That should have already been a danger sign of how chronically online I was at that point.
These are things I think are probably best talked to with a certified therapist considering the many factors that may have contributed to my dependence on social media. But for what it's worth, ever since I started blogging somewhat recently, I'm finding that it's okay to be silent, to be around silence. Not everything needs an audience and I don't have to be the one strutting and fretting on the stage like a poor player (giving you a digital cookie if you understood this reference).
Anyway, Merry Christmas and happy holidays! May you have a joyous rest of the year and a prosperous, peaceful year ahead!