The Algorithms are Draining Us

My thoughts after taking a social media break for 2 weeks.

I, like many of us on here, have spent many hours scrolling on various social media apps over the years. I imagine if I were ever able to count how many posts, videos, comments, and notes I’ve consumed in my lifetime, it would be the largest number known to man. And worse, I could probably count the number of those that I remember on my two hands. In an effort to minimize my social media usage, I decided to set a few app limits on my social media. Good enough… right?

The only issue with that is sometimes I need to bypass that app limit to finish the video I was just watching, which grants me another 15 minutes. And when that time runs out, I’ve already subconsciously bypassed another app limit reminder or two. And when I’ve finally realized what I’ve done, I move on to a longer form video which I can play in the background as I start a task to be “productive.” And then another video plays, followed by another, and suddenly I can’t remember any of those TikToks I had watched earlier. All those comments, and likes, and podcasts, and thought pieces. So much information just passing in and out of my brain like a subway car rattling through a station.

It’s all to numb myself from the busy day, a way to decompress…right? Of course, I need some time to turn my brain off and scroll for a little. But am I really getting a break?

And what does social media mean when it’s also your job and a passion project? It’s no longer just a form of entertainment, but a place of comparison and research. Words like engagement, trend forecasting, and algorithms become top of mind and blur the lines between work, creativity, and entertainment. Whether you’re a painter, book enthusiast, writer, outfit creator, travel lover, etc., your interest can be put online and monetized. We can all be social media creators and build personal brands, which can be a wonderful way to turn a passion into a career, but at what cost?

I’ve started to realize how draining it is to chase after the algorithm from a creator standpoint. No matter how many times I have said the numbers don’t matter, they still exist and will always have some impact, whether it be positively or negatively. There will always be trends or creative styles that perform better than others at a given time. And it’s fun to take part in the ones you enjoy. But sometimes it’s hard to know whether you are creating something because you genuinely enjoy it or if it’s to get a higher engagement.

And what happens when your personal brand isn’t doing as well as you expected? Maybe you thought more people would connect with your content. Maybe you spent a long while coming up with a concept only for it to do worse than others. Maybe what you expected to go viral didn’t hit the numbers you thought it would. Does that mean it’s a reflection of us—our creativity or our worth? It’s easy to sometimes fall into the trap of measuring your own worth based on the worth people give to your personal brand. You might start wondering if your art is good enough…takes strong enough…outfits bold enough…writing creative enough. Constantly searching for our niches that we fit into can be tiring when not found quickly enough. Or sometimes, what was once a dream, like getting 100 likes on a post, becomes not good enough after we have achieved that and have moved our benchmark of success higher.

Another thing about the algorithms: they are hard to keep up with and sometimes muffle creativity. To be successful, you must post at least once a day on TikTok, once a week on YouTube, post frequently on Instagram, and keep your engagement high on every platform you own. That’s a full-time job. And it brings into question that adage, “quality over quantity.” It’s hard to say you are at your most creative when you are trying to meet quotas. If a creative idea takes longer than a week to execute, should we just simplify it or rush it for the sake of meeting a once-a-week posting schedule? If you aren’t happy with how a video turned out, should you post it anyway to meet your self-imposed daily post requirement or take an extra day or two to mull it over? Are we painting, reading, writing, etc., just for the sake of posting it on social media? It’s hard to know where your intentions will stray after pursuing content creation for a while.

I share all of these thoughts because it is what motivated me to take a break from social media. One week off turned into two, then turned into never moving my apps out of the hidden folder, eventually to deleting Instagram off my phone, and to being more engaged in the present moment.

YouTube is what really surprised me. I had always thought of the platform as more of a streaming service, but I realized how much I was actually comparing myself to and analyzing the creators I watched for the sake of deciding what to do with my own channel. Video after video would drone off in the background as I did various tasks, my mind never really consciously attached to what I was physically doing, and never fully paying attention to the videos playing. There was a point in my life where my YouTube watch time was nearly 23 hours—there was always a video playing in the background as I did my routines, fell asleep, ate, studied, commuted, and nearly everything else.

I found that time off from social media led me to feel less perceived in general. It’s really only been in the last few years that social media has made me feel a lot more seen and analyzed. This could open up a whole other conversation on how people are a lot lonelier these days, as social media has become quite a popular “third space” in our generation. Social media can feel like a stage, one that we can make ourselves walk out onto, and share only the parts of us that we feel are likable.

I want to end by saying I don’t think social media is an inherently bad thing. It allows us to be creative, to connect with more people, to learn and experience more than we would without it. But it is also something that is challenging to let into our lives and affects the way we think. Taking breaks from it and being fully present in your physical life can be a good reset and way to recenter your thinking and priorities.

I don’t expect myself to have super strict rules around my social media usage, but I do find it very helpful to really think about why I am opening one of the apps. When making a conscious decision to go on social media, I find that there is usually something I would rather do than scroll.

I hope something in this letter resonated with you, whether you have taken social media breaks or are considering it. Speak to you soon.

With Love,

Sof