Today’s the first day of the year that I woke up and, instead of meditating, decided to dive into the social media wormhole. It suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.
I dramatically decreased my social media use after reading an interview with technologist Jaron Lanier. He didn’t go into any kind of deep analysis of human psyche or privacy or capitalism, but rather a nonchalant well obvz it’s all for behavior modification. I’ve heard/read/thought so many reasons why companies like Facebook probably don’t have my best intentions in mind, but what I appreciate about Lanier’s reason is that it places the responsibility not on someone else’s terms of agreement or monetary aspirations or prowess to protect against hackers – instead, it’s about me. And I know my behavior has definitely been affected, if not somewhat driven, by my decade of assertive online presence.
What does it mean to wake up on the wrong side of the digital divide? For starters, all the days leading up to today, I quite enjoyed exposing my eyes to the light outside my window. I don’t know the first thing about describing the difference between blue light and full spectrum light, other than the fact that the former comes from my phone and the latter comes from…the universe. What I can tell you on a molecular level is that waking up and immediately glaring into my phone is the optical version of starting off my day with a breakfast of fries and Mountain Dew. My eyes immediately began to feel grainy, and an unsleepy tiredness overcame me, one that didn’t feel that different from food coma.
When I come out of my morning meditations, I feel motivated and thankful, calm and fulfilled. But my 10 minutes of morning Instagram scrolling managed to pack in feelings of outrage, envy, self-loathing, and inertia. Oftentimes, even positive conversations about social media at some point ends up with someone saying what am I doing with my life? and if there’s one thing that I can confirm doesn’t help lead to a constructive answer to that question, it’s unwrapping each day with the rude awakening of the internet.
I’ve learned that what distinguishes good days and bad days for me is control. If I feel like I’m managing things by carefully processing and approaching with some foresight, I can take on pretty much anything. On the other hand, allowing myself to spend my first few moments scrolling through posts – each one packed with the potential to take me somewhere I’m emotionally, egotistically, politically, or physically unprepared for – even the dumbest, most minute thing that has absolutely nothing to do with me can derail me.
This morning was kind of shitty but a great reminder of the opportunities that await each day. Seize or be seized.