Social Media Struggles and Solutions

 “Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.” - John Updike

I love reading and I love writing. I also like Twitter and Instagram. That can be a problem. Spending too much time on social media means less time reading and writing. Spending some time on social media can be relaxing, but it can also become a time trap.

I think part of the problem was that I was following too many accounts. Add to that, the algorithms that social media companies insist on using. I found myself just scrolling past pictures and tweets that I had no real interest in.

Usually purging accounts that I had lost interest in would solve the problem. But with Instagram I was still following so many accounts that a lot of them got lost in the algorithms. With Twitter there are news cycles where I find my feed taken over by current events. I've found myself mindlessly scrolling though numerous tweets of bad news and more bad news. The kids call it doomscrolling. 

A few months ago I learned about Lists on Twitter. It was a real game changer. Lists allows you to customize your feed by organizing and prioritizing the tweets in your timeline. I made ten lists but I find myself using three in particular: one for friends, one for people who post about books, and one for authors I like. On my author list I have Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, John Scalzi, and Chuck Wendig among others. It’s like having separate Twitter feeds for different topics. It’s nice having the option to silence all the noise and focus on one topic when I want to. It’s made using Twitter a more enjoyable experience. 

More recently I did a couple of  things that have made Instagram fun again. First I did a major purge. Hitting follow really adds up over time. I was following almost 400 accounts. Scrolling through my feed was endless. It was overwhelming. There were so many random accounts that I had lost interest in my feed. Then I discovered accounts that had stopped following me. So I went through my feed. If an account didn’t spark joy it was deleted. I purged about 150 accounts. I noticed a change right away. Accounts I hardly ever saw before started showing up in my feed again. Opening up Instagram became a pleasurable experience again. 

Next I started a second account. My main account has always been a mix of things. I had toyed with the idea of starting a themed account but I could never decide on anything I wanted to focus on. I love reading and I love collecting books, especially old paperbacks. I also found boxes of my old books in my parent’s attic recently. So I decided on a book theme for my second account. For this account I’m mostly only following other book accounts. It’s nice having the option to focus on one topic. I’ve found other collectors out there with some really nice collections. It’s been a lot of fun.

Of course, even with these changes it’s still possible to spend too much time on social media and not enough time reading or writing. I knew I wasn't going to quit completely. But besides making the social media experience more fun, the changes have also allowed me to focus more. Now I can get to an endpoint. I no longer find myself scrolling endlessly like a zombie. The changes have allowed me to balance things out and have made it easier for me to put my phone down. 

While these changes have helped to give me more time for writing, I also like watching movies and television shows. But that’s a story for another time.