no bad words: a poet’s radical reassessment and re-emergence to social media
Editor’s Note: This is a personal piece by Ars Poetica founder LAMARKS.
We’re sharing it here on the AP blog because we believe these ideas could be helpful to other artists, activists, and entrepreneurs striving to navigate tumultuous times and difficult media landscapes.
And, on a more timely note, LAMARKS will be in conversation LIVE on Zoom with iconic therapist, facilitator, activist and storyteller Shari Foos, founder of The Narrative Method, on October 3rd. This will be a highly inventive and interactive experience with writing activities and group discussion woven in. If you have ever had doubts about the power of your words, you will want to join us.
why i Signed off of social media
On July 11th, I said goodbye to my social media platforms. For how long, I wasn’t sure.
After over 12 years on Instagram and Twitter, almost 18 on Facebook (?!) and a very intense two years drinking from the firehose of TikTok, I finally hit a wall. It was an existential crisis of sorts: for my entire adult life and career I have relied on social media platforms for not only peer-to-peer connection but for validation of my social capital, recognition and growth of my business, and for a worrisome amount of distraction, numbing, and lifestyle comparison that has taken a serious toll on my peace of mind.
It was the launch of Threads that was for some reason the breaking point for me. The seemingly mindless mass adoption of a “Twitter competitor” that scraped unprecedented amounts of data, was inextricable from your existing Instagram account, and continued to be opaquely run by a company that truly scares me… I couldn’t handle it. My response was emotional in a way that I couldn’t quite understand. I knew that I needed to step away in order to sort out my feelings and take care of myself.
Two months and 10 days later, today I am making my first social media post since I made that difficult yet necessary decision for myself. And I want to tell you why I am doing that, and what I’ve learned during this healing, peaceful, introspective time away.
What I learned during my digital detox
I have a physical addiction to both posting and consuming social media content
That is not an easy thing to admit, as someone who proudly touts that I do not have what some people call “an addictive personality.” I had never felt that posting or scrolling was an obsession or a problematic detractor from my life. But throughout the past 2+ months I have meticulously documented when I have had inexplicable urges to either scroll or document and share. Even to the extent of noting when I’d unwittingly pick up my phone and start to open an app. Those urges did decline significantly after the first month, but I still feel them. Resisting those urges feels powerful.
I have an unhealthy interest in checking on the activities of people that make me feel bad
I was really surprised by this. On only four occasions during my hiatus did I has distinct urges to “stalk” specific people and see what they were up to. It is not comfortable to admit that all four of those times were specific people who I actually have problems with. One one occasion, I actually succumbed to the urge and looked at an old co-worker’s LinkedIn to get my “fix;” the outcome was incredibly unpleasant.
It is incredibly difficult to just “get in and out” or “post and ghost”
I tell you this especially so you don’t beat yourself up if you decide to try to limit your social media use. The platforms are designed to make it nearly impossible to do one thing and then sign off when you want to. On a few occasions I needed to quickly check on a message to coordinate with people with whom I was only connected with via IG or FB. On every occasion I nearly slipped into an auto-play video or notification check. It felt like walking a cliff’s edge.
My screen time has gone way, way down
And that has correlated with more creativity and more meaningful non-screen-based connections. After posting my “goodbye” message, multiple friends and acquaintances reached out to check in and offer support via phone calls. I wrote emails to people I hadn’t talked to in a long time. I spent more time catching up one on one and meeting new people IRL. And I was able to be more embodied during my month-long backpacking trip through Sweden. During one week on that trip, my screen time totaled barely over an hour.
My dreams and ideas are more vibrant when not consuming screen-based feed content
I once heard someone say watching TV felt like smearing mud on their third eye. I hadn’t thought about how much a constant diet of de-contextualized and hyper-speed content could have been blocking my ability to hear my own intuition and inner guide. Throughout this process I’ve written more beautiful poems and received more fascinating missives from the imaginal realm than in any other time in my adult memory.
I am more focused, creative and productive without these platforms
This probably sounds obvious but I think it’s important to clearly and unequivocally state. I knew I would feel better, but I had no idea how much better. I feel like I was living with half my lung capacity, and suddenly regained the ability to take a deep breath (I choose this analogy as a longtime asthmatic). When ADHD strikes, I now am cognizant of it and can take a physical break from whatever I am working on to truly refresh, and then dive back into the task at hand with new energy, instead of risking feeling depleted or unmoored by an unexpected post or notification
I don’t feel “left out”
In fact I think have access to too much information about other people, places, and events actually made me feel much more FOMO than actually just focusing on the life I am living, right now in this moment. I found it charming when people mentioned memes or viral trends and I had no context and got to hear about them through multiple levels of digestion and interpretation.
(in case you need to see the receipts - a screen shot from my phone one week in August)
coming back online
With all these learnings, what compels me to dip my toe back into the murky waters of these social media platforms? Simply put: I want to meet people where they’re at. I am going to search for avenues of public discourse and community communication that better align with the world I want to live in, but until I find a better home for my work I want to be able to use our current lingua franca in the way that feels the most aligned with my integrity. Which is why I have…
New boundaries and strategies for my social media use
Feel free to borrow these and try them out for yourself if you find them helpful or inspiring.
No scrolling. Period.
I think this is my most important new rule. It’s hard to explain how insidious the urge to scroll is in times of boredom, discomfort, or low mood. It’s scary. Scrolling puts my mind into a numbed and passive state where I have less control or even awareness of my thoughts and actions. So if you want me to check out something you’ve shared, tag me or DM me! I think this will help re-humanize the experience of connecting online a bit. We’ll see.
My personal profile will stay private and rarely be used
I will not be posting any home life or personal content related to my inner world. I’m making this choice because this hiatus has shown me how truly precious my thoughts and ideas (and cats) are to me and those that I am close to, and I don’t want to dilute them by sharing them on platforms to unknown audiences (including bots and algorithms) who could use them in unintended ways.
I’m Unfollowing and blocking accounts that cause me existential distress
I do not want to live in a bubble or an echo chamber. But if there is a person in real life who aggravates me or for some reason causes me to feel worse about myself, I avoid sharing physical space with them. I’m applying that understanding to the protection of my digital space too. And it feels incredibly empowering to do so.
I’m Removing and blocking followers i don’t trust
My spirit, my whereabouts, my activities, my new tattoos… If I do not like you, you have caused me harm, or I believe you may consume my content in bad faith, I am removing and blocking you. This was a really important concept for me to grapple with as I didn’t realize how much I was “living to please” by allowing anyone and everyone to follow me. I thought that the more people who wanted to have awareness of me, the happier or more validated (popular?) I would feel. I don’t feel that way anymore.
IG, FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn can be used like a search engine
As I mentioned before, I have had to check my platforms once or twice for work and travel coordination purposes. I’ve found that a quick glance at someone’s profile can give you a relevant insight into one facet of their world. LinkedIn is the least problematic place to do this quick intel work because auto-play video and addictive feeds are less prioritized in the UX. However my plan moving forward is to only check an org or person’s profile if I am hoping to find positive, helpful information about them for a real world purpose. No stalking, doom scrolling, or “morbid curiosity” about some random celebrity who happens to be trending.
I’m posting only informative, helpful, messages that I think will benefit my community
Yes, that means no more purely “entertaining” posts from me, it least for the time being. If you even found me to be entertaining to begin with, which is beside the point.
And that brings me to my very first IG post in something like 70 days: my announcement about my unique and interactive session with Shari Foos on October 3rd.
As a new member of her organization’s board, I was touched when she invited me to be her very first guest for her new conversation series. She has devised a novel method for storytelling as a healing process called The Narrative Method, and she is a completely radical, hilarious, punk rock feminist who I really look up to and I think you will too. I’m particularly excited to share with you all a special writing exercise we came up to together, and to talk with her about how building bonds across generations and in spite of fear and self doubts is one of the most satisfying undertakings of both of our (very different) lived experiences.
I hope you’ll join us, and check out The Narrative Method’s other free writing workshops as well.
your ideas are precious and valuable
Even if Musk, Zuck, and ByteDance would like you to think otherwise
If you take one thing away from this incredibly lengthy and navel gazing retrospective, I hope it’s this: despite the popular narratives and the devaluation of human ideas and words in many forums and industries, I am more convinced and passionately devoted than ever to the power, beauty, freedom and satisfaction of thinking your own thoughts and cultivating your own ideas. That’s what we at my creative entertainment agency Ars Poetica are all about. Social media platforms cause us to devalue our attention and our ideas, but you can decide if you are going to let them cheapen your unique experiences or not. You can reassign value to your beautiful humanness.
And if you think so too and would like to talk with me or consider working with my incredible team, I’d love to set aside fifteen minutes of my time to connect with you one-on-one. I’ll even write you a custom poem while we’re at it.
