How to Social Media

“I go to yoga so I can post that I went to yoga”.

“Really?”, I asked, a bit stunned but mostly curious.

“Yeah. It’s great. I buy a cute outfit, post in the morning that I’m about to go to a class, and then after class, I get to post again, this time a bit sweaty and my hair disheveled”, shared my 19-year old cousin. She was passing through Sydney on vacation and we were sitting in an infrared sauna. She didn’t have her phone in her hand, for once.

“So let me ask you. If you were not going to post on social media that you were going to yoga, would you have still gone to yoga?”, I asked.

“Oh, definitely not. You see, getting to talk about it motivates me to actually exercise. And then I get all of this encouragement from my friends, telling me I look cute, and liking my posts. It’s really helping me”.

I genuinely believed her that if it wasn’t for social media, she would not be exercising. Although we both practice yoga, we clearly do it for completely different reasons. And maybe that’s okay.

It was the most unexpected conversation I’ve had with a fellow yogi. I’m nearly twenty years into being in and around social media, longer than my cousin has been alive. Yet she was the one teaching me something new. It prompted me to reflect about the different modes in how social media is used in modern society.

First mode: consumption only.

With five billion people now in the world using social media apps each month. Consumption is the default mode that most people are in. 

“Do you use social media?”

“Oh yeah, I don’t post anything though” is the normal response, often with some hidden pride mixed in that they don’t feel the need to share.

I believe this is the worst possible thing one can do for their mental health. To only consume, be it in moderation or excess, whether it is for the mind or the body, can quickly lead to a place of imbalance. The research is plain and simple around the dopamine and drug-like addictive qualities that continuous consumption of anything leads to.

Second mode: consumption + creation.

My unresearched estimate is that this is probably ten percent of the social media population, so about five hundred million people. 

This mode involves active consumption of social feeds, mixed with regular and consistent creation, i.e. posting.

Posting on social media can be a form of expression, which is healthy for one’s emotional and mental state. To be able to express oneself publicly is a symptom of feeling secure in one’s identity and resilient enough to step outside of the house not knowing if you’ll be met with sunshine or thunderstorms. 

My medium of expression currently is publishing a blog every week and writing books, and I appreciate first-hand the therapeutic benefits of sharing myself with others in these forms. Although social media posting does not always allow for the depth of expression I crave personally, for others it is sufficient and I think helpful. Like my 19-year old cousin sharing her yoga journey and feeling seen and supported as a result.

It obviously does invite comments and criticism as well from one’s extended social media network and the public. I have received my fair share of ‘feedback’ on my blogs and books, and I take it in with a smile, recognizing that what someone thinks of me says more about them then it does about me. It’s all contributed to my growth by helping me become more resilient. 

Third mode: creation only.

Less than one percent of the social media population is in this mode, I suspect. That’s about fifty million people in the world. Usually public figures, celebrities, professional athletes, politicians and such.

This mode, as it sounds, is only to create, i.e. post, without consumption.

Building on the benefits of the second mode mentioned earlier, this mode enables expression without the mental health ‘tax’ of consumption.

Initially, I was drawn to this mode and the past few years, I have used social media in this mode. What I have found though were many drawbacks and unintended consequences. First of all, over time this becomes more promotional and ego driven versus expression driven. Second, and more importantly, without the consumption, it becomes imbalanced and there becomes less empathy and curiosity about others’ experiences. 

I started to naturally turn to other modes of communication to feel connected with others as a result. More private, one-to-one modalities, be it in person, through exchanging voice notes asynchronously, phone calls or sitting in a sauna together.

Fourth mode: no social media.

I haven’t posted anything on social media in the past 100 days, which has been a new unintentional experiment. Previously, I would post regularly, be it a topic related to that week’s blog post, a picture from a gathering I may have hosted or something mindfulness related.

During this period of being fully away from social media, the world has continued and so has my world. I have not noticed many changes except less mental noise and burden of thinking about what to post next. And if anything, I feel more in touch with people I am most interested in being in touch with, as I am intentionally reaching out to them, or them to me, through private channels.

I know for some, like my 19 year old cousin, it may feel unimaginable to disconnect from social media, however I encourage you to try it. Be it for a day, or even a weekend.

And to be clear, I have a number of friends who claim to be in this fourth mode, but in reality they have replaced a social media addiction with a Slack, email, stock market or sports score addiction, checking them just as frequently in those moments to fill time or kill time. It’s the same dopamine addiction at play, just experienced through an app with a different logo.

With my cousin, I started to share with her the above framework and saw her surprise when I shared that I don’t consume any content on social feeds and stopped posting recently.

“What would happen if you didn’t use social media for one day?” I asked, not so innocently.

“I’ll never know actually, cause I don’t plan to try it!”, she responded cheekily, knowing full well where I was gently trying to nudge her.

And that is how I learned to social media.