Distractions
How social media and the web have screwed with my brain, my time and my writing habits.
Between 2010 and 2011 I wrote a short novel called Day One. I did that while also running a small tech company, building an addition to our garage, traveling, writing other short stories, the list goes on. Before that I wrote a couple books I have not published. One of them, a 130,000-word monster, I wrote while not only running a company but also running it through the economic crash of 2008, a lawsuit and an office move. I look back now and think how the hell did I get all that done? How did I have the time? And why is it so hard now to find the time to knock out a few hundred words per day?
When looking at my phone’s screen time reports, the source of my time and creative-killing distraction is solely pointed at one target: social media. I know it’s an old story. I watched The Social Dilemma documentary in 2020. Hell, until June of this year I was a tech guy building apps for the web. I’m fully aware of how our lives and brains are being altered by social media and the web. It was one thing for me to understand that fact. It is another for me to witness and feel the direct result - to do an actual compare and contrast over the last decade.
Granted, there were plenty of distractions back in 20-aughts, too. I was hooked on Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad. I closely followed the news (Bin Laden strike, Japan tsunami). But it was like reading the paper (remember those days?). Meaning, it was an event. You set that time aside for that purpose. Now, I apparently HAVE to know in real-time what is happening in Ukraine, or Fort Myers, or the Jan 6 Committee. Call it doom-scrolling, FOMO, the dopamine rush, whatever you like, but it’s seriously screwing with my brain, eating my time and messing with my writing habits.
A while back I deleted most of my social media, keeping only YouTube. But then a couple things happened. First, I began writing this new book in earnest beginning last winter and second, Russia invaded Ukraine. Those two things nudged me back into social media. Reddit, then Twitter, then Facebook. And just like that, my time began slipping away again. Nibbles at first. Then choke-inducing gulps.
The result is I find myself lazily saying, “damn, I just don’t have the time to finish that chapter today.” But the reality is, I have allowed myself to re-prioritize my time to benefit tech companies and advertisers.
Fuck that!
Yet friends tell me that I need to be on social media to lay the groundwork for my book. And in many ways I agree. I want to engage. But how do you strike that balance?
I used to smoke. I quit about ten years ago. I cannot be a social smoker. I’m either all-in or all-out. Is that the same with my interaction with social media?
I have no answers. I’m working to put the phone aside. To make it an event. To take back my time.
Recently I was at a furniture store looking for a bookcase for my elderly father. Within this warehouse-sized building we could find only two. The salesperson said to me, “we just don’t carry those, anymore. People have quit reading books.”
Hearing that was like a punch to the gut.