I sold my soul to social media. Now I want it back.

Digital addictions, social media therapy, screen time: we don't need to detox from something that is good for us.

“Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face – there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes.

Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself.

The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”

― Fernando Pessoa, The Book Of Disquiet (1982)

My love for the internet has been shrinking, shrivelling and drying up. My generation was the first ones to have it as a child. The internet and I grew alongside each other, from dial up to smartphones to artificial intelligence. At this point, our relationship with the internet is like an infant holding a sharp knife and fork. Useful, if they know what to do with it, but also very dangerous considering the baby’s propensity for tantrums.

I’ve worked in social media marketing for three years. I got a sweet taste of success when my personal videos got over 50k views. It powered up the content machine: a neediness to create more, do more, get more views. The line between your real private life and creating content disappears completely and you begin to view everything through a lens, feasting on any moment that could get you more “success.”

Our phones are like pocket casinos: gambling with likes and follows while we remain transfixed on content, unaware of how much time is passing.

I juggle the idea that I need the internet for my art and that the internet actively works against my art, punching holes in my bucket as I try to fill myself with inspiration.

Me, April 2023, On a research trip for the novel I have been neglecting

Step one: Begin untangling from social media

I’ve been through about four digital renaissances. The first one was five years ago when I deleted my accounts I’d had since teenagehood that contained the names of everyone I’d ever encountered. People I’d drunkenly added on nights out, vowing to go for coffee and never did. That guy I met in Barcelona who apparently now works for the CIA. The girl from high school who actively ignored me in person but added me online (presumably to gather information.) 

Most recently, I deactivated my personal Instagram account, as well as removed posts from my “business” account @planetpersephone for fear of retribution for copyright infringement.

Step two: Invest more time in Substack as it seems to be a “safer” corner of the internet (for now)

My algorithm is cluttered with weekly astrological readings and hot takes on internet culture, as well as extremely eloquent and well researched articles on the psyche through a Jungian lens. However Substack is, of course, still social media and contains all the pitfalls of it.

Step three: Wonder what the hell I’m doing

I read these brilliant articles, and they pile on me, one by one blocking out the light I had once seen that I had anything new or interesting to contribute.

I’m currently listening to “A Very British Cult” about Lighthouse and its web of “online life coaches.” People are, very rightly so, sceptical of Instagram life coaches. I unenrolled from a psychotherapy degree because I believed the University was irresponsibly promoting Instagram therapists with hardly any tangible experience to be working one-on-one with people in vulnerable states.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the uprising of social media therapy. We chew on therapy/wellness phrases like “dropping in” and “holding space” until they become gluey and tasteless. If you had asked me yesterday what I think about the social media therapist sausage factory, I would have told you I’m against it. Social media is not a replacement for real therapy. We don’t always need to block one nostil and breathe out the other. Sometimes we actually need professional help.

I would have told you a practicing “therapist” (trained or not) with a marketing platform that centers themselves, to me, is a black mirror-y concept. It has the potential to be like booking alone time with a celebrity or cult leader. But I also know all of us, no matter the industry, are made to feel like we need a fruitful social media platform in order to have a sucessful business.

I say all this, but then my last newsletter was about integrating the shadow, or in Maria Nazdravan’s words: Insta-trendy “shadow work”.

I am not a psychotherapist, a psychoanalyst, or a healthcare professional. I’m simply a person who enjoys reading books about stuff. What right do I have to talk about any of this? The answer is, I probably don’t have any right, and I actually happen to be engaging in the same rhetoric I claim to speak against. 

Step four: Ask myself if I believe that people need to have a formal education on something to speak about it

The short answer would be no. But I do believe they need to have some education on the matter, whether that be self-studied or studied in a formal setting. Especially if you’re asking people for money.

Me, April 2023, On a research trip for the novel I have been neglecting

Step five: Figure out what I should do next

In all honesty, about 80% of my Substack articles to date were pre written almost a year ago now. I wrote them in advance before launching because I was concerned that they would become a chore or a burden. Somewhere in there also was the reason I wanted to start a Substack in the first place. Which was because, you know, I enjoy writing and wanted to have fun with it. This comes after spending two years writing my first novel that now may never be read by anyone other than my fiancé (who shockingly did not think it was the most ingenious thing he’d ever read.) 

I also planned on using these three interim months working part time to work on my second novel, which I have not written one word of in seven weeks. To be fair, it is because I have been working on another project, one that’s purpose is to escape the clutches of the digital realm.

The problem with exiting the garbage machine that is Tiktok and Instagram, and entering the flowering garden library that is Substack, is that I am consistently exposed to incredibly well thought out beautiful pieces of writing, solidifying my goo-goo brain so much that it swells and bulges and make-head-too-big-to-think anymore.

Step six: Realise its all a carefully laid trap

Businesses "need" social media because that's how social media companies make money. This echos the tactic used by big alcohol to keep people in the cycle: 

• Convince people they need alcohol to enjoy life

• Convince people they need social media to connect with others or be successful
  

Followers have become currency and it feels as though any artist who hopes to make something of their work must sell their soul on the internet. Not to mention dating apps, which add a whole other layer of percieved dependency. Social media platforms have become our dealers.

Step seven: Create for the fun of it

It is amongst a table of people with a few bags of cocaine between them that I wonder when we stopped having fun. Saturday nights are meant to be the funnest part of the week, the part we wait for, but then we get there and all that’s spoken about is American politics, work and childhood traumas. 

Since going sober, I’ve stopped waiting for the weekend. My present moment contains psychedelic experiences if I allow it. Space in my one bedroom apartment is taken up with analogue activities: golf clubs, an easel and canvas, an acoustic guitar. I prepare for the escape from screens like Nicole Kidman getting that secret apartment in Big Little Lies.

I’m pondering a couple ideas on how I can take my creative work offline, how I can unravel my ambition from a follower count, how I can connect with real life people I can make eye contact with, share a smile, hold hands, hug (if we both want to.)

I was feeling quite adrift, not sure what to aspire to if not basing my success on quantifiable factors like one hundred thousand followers or a book deal. So I printed out a manifestation board: a collage of pictures from pinterest: a girl reading next to a stream, a woman kneeling in front of a canvas, a manuscript next to a cup of tea. The contents of the images were quite achievable indeed.

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