Social Media Single-Handedly Ruins My Writing

Surprise surprise, the thing that everyone knows is bad for you is, in fact, bad for you

I promise this photo will be relevant by the end. Image courtesy of the Museum of Cannock Chase.

I talked briefly in a previous post about my experience doing a “digital detox”, but essentially, it’s a process in which you cut all non-essential tech (think social media, TV, videogames, everything that you don’t actively use for work or is a necessity in your life. Stuff like phoning friends and family, checking your work email, or I don’t know, using a toaster, are fine) for a recommended 30 days. It’s meant to help you discover what your true values are outside of what big tech companies tell you your values are, and then use technology meaningfully and intentionally to attain those values. (Read more about digital detox in Cal Newport’s Book Digital Minimalism).

I did my detox in January of 2025 and I still consider it to be one of the happiest months of my life. It was hard, and tiring at times, but I was more fulfilled. I was free from stupid distractions to do the things that I truly value and believe worth doing. Baking, hanging out with my friends and family, reading, soo much writing, working on puzzles, walking my dog, etc.

There were two major things I noticed during my detox:

#1      At first, everything that wasn’t an endless scroll on a device was mentally tiring. But my “brain stamina” improved over the month, and I became more curious, more observant, and more involved in the world. I stopped struggling to remember really easy words. I could focus for longer.

#2      I had so much more time to do everything I wanted to do in a day.

When my detox was over, I slowly reincorporated some non-essential tech with some strict rules to keep me on track. I talked a lot about how difficult this is in my post “My Rocky Relationship with Social Media”, about how I don’t really want to be on Instagram, but kind of have to, and I’m still figuring out that balance. But one vice I have not admitted to yet, and the entire reason I decided to do a detox in the first place, is my toxic relationship with Youtube (cringe).

While cutting out Instagram and Pinterest and the Teams channel that my coworkers constantly message me on (for legal reasons that one was a joke) was easy, and I didn’t miss them for a second, I found myself missing Youtube almost daily. It was like the default mode for my brain—not sure what to do? Try Youtube. Feeling a bit down? Try Youtube. Bored of Youtube? Try more Youtube.

While that instinct definitely faded over my month detox, I did not have the same results as I did with Instagram and other social medias. When I reintroduced Youtube back into my life, no matter how carefully and strictly I tried to do so, it would worm back into taking center stage over the rest of my interests.

And each and every time, my writing was the very first thing to suffer.

For me, writing is the coal mine canary of how well things are going. When I’m happy, healthy, and in a good space, I write daily—and for hours. When that writing instinct shuts up? I know something is wrong. No matter how much I feel like I enjoy Youtube and what it brings to my life, the canary tells me something is wrong every time.

I know you and I both know the extensive studies on how social media impacts our mental health, how its leading to social isolation and estrangement, how it lowers our self esteem, it burns out our dopamine receptors, it steals our time and motivation—but it’s so, so easy to say, “well it doesn’t do that for me because I do/think x.” Like somehow I’m immune to these studied effects because I decided to just “not” compare myself to people online.

What I’m trying to say is that I see myself and others justify or ignore the negative consequences of social media every day. Alongside the hot debate over whether to classify social media overuse as a diagnosable addiction, I think we tend to see it as “not that bad”, or that we have things under control—we’re the exception to the findings, a statistical outlier. But if everyone is immune, don’t you think it’s worth asking where, then, they got the statistics from?

I encourage you to take a moment to consider what your coal mine canary is. Is she still singing?