For a lot of different reasons, I love the internet. I love it because it connects me to people I wouldn't otherwise get to know, because it gives me access to all kinds of information, because it lets me share my thoughts and creations with a wider audience, and because it entertains me in countless ways. But for me personally there's a dark side to the internet as well, and I'm not the first one to talk about this but here's my take on it and why I stepped back from social media for a while.
Since the late 90s I've been online and taken part in numerous online communities ranging from IRC channels, forums, and social media platforms. Again, I love the fact that it connects me to people I wouldn't otherwise have met, but over time I've also constantly had to quit these communities because they became more of a burden on my mental health than a net benefit.
This is definitely on me and I'm very much aware of that. I have a tendency to take things maybe a bit too seriously, to overthink things and to get too emotionally involved when someone says or does something I'm not agreeing or comfortable with. This has led to me getting into arguments, or plain getting stressed out by things I see on social media. While I do think it's important to stand for what you believe in, I also think it's important to pick your battles and try to ignore things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. This however is something I struggle with because my brain does like the short feedback loop of social media and the dopamine hits that come with it.
We all know how incredibly addictive social media can be, even Mastodon which is completely void of any kind of algorithmic feed still has the same addictive qualities because of the social validation aspect of it. Getting likes, boosts, people commenting on whatever you have to share – it all triggers the dopamine system and makes me want more of it. It's difficult to log out because of the FOMO.
But then I realized there's hundreds of thousands, millions even, of online communities out there that I don't even know exist and I don't miss them at all because I don't know what I'm missing. So why would I bother with feeling emotionally invested in Mastodon or other communities I'm a part of when I could just as well log out and forget they even exist?
This light bulb moment led me to hit the Log out button on Mastodon about a month ago now. Since then I haven't logged back in once and I honestly don't miss it at all. Of course, before logging out, I did meet some incredible people on there (you know who you are) but I follow their RSS feed to keep up with their goings-on and I can always reach out via email if I want to respond to something they wrote on their personal blogs.
I feel like I can't leave you hanging with just a personal story. These types of personal development stories often come with some kind of advice or takeway and I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I think when it comes down to it, you have to ask yourself what you're really getting out of social media and the other online communties you're part of. Does opening your feed make you feel happy? Does it make you feel connected to people? Does it teach you something new? Or does it make you feel anxious, stressed out, bored?
I'm a better person without it and that's all the reason I need to stay logged out.