Does this online tool bring me joy?
Hypothesis
I can be happy in the virtual world if I clear out the social media clutter and keep only those parts that add value to my life.
Background
My experimentation with social media follows the path of most people my age. It began with AOL email and Instant Messenger. Then, I joined MySpace and Facebook along with the others. Right on track, I dropped MySpace and kept Facebook. Next was adding millions of photos to Facebook – organizing them into albums that displayed a life well-lived. I eagerly added old friends and shamelessly spied on exes. But one day it stopped being fun. However, it wasn’t until years later that I took my first break from the platform.
The onset of Facebook is when my “research” actually began – when I felt affected after being on the screen and wanted to know why. I’d often ask friends about their feelings towards social media. More often than not we found similar annoyances and confusion regarding our draw towards it.
Like many, in between feelings of guilt and missing out, I convinced myself that I needed to be online. In staying with the trends, I joined the next popular platform, Instagram. After a few trials however, I found that didn’t work either. That’s when I decided it was time for a formal(ish) experiment.
Below are the steps I took. If anything about social media ails you, I recommend doing something similar.
Steps
- Take a break from any social media platform that’s bothering you (for example, I stopped using Facebook and Instagram).
- Make a list of both “real life” activities and social media activities using some variation of The Pleasure-Predicting Method described below.
- Record observations of time spent on these activities and how much joy was actually felt.
- Commit to spending the majority of your time on those things that bring you the most joy. Adjust your social media accounts by deleting them or changing them to only include parts that add value or joy to your life.
The Pleasure-Predicting Method
Years ago I was lucky enough to come across readings by a psychologist by the name of David D. Burns. He teaches a whole slew of methods for “living your best life.” Some of his research is on cognitive distortions and the strategies for what he calls untwisting your thinking (more on that later!). The Pleasure-Predicting Method (Burns, Ten Days to Self-Esteem, 1993) is one of these strategies.
Th Pleasure-Predicting Method can be used for many things. He recommends using it to combat procrastination, or to prove to ourselves that we don’t need others to feel satisfied in our life. For the sake of this experiment, I used it to identify activities (mostly offline, but some online) that bring me joy.
First, Burns asks us to list an activity, who it will be with (can be oneself), and what percentage we predict our satisfaction will be. Then, after spending time on the activities, the percentage of satisfaction we actually felt is recorded. I decided that any activity that brought me less than 50% enjoyment, I would spend 50% or less of my time on it.
My Personal Activities
In order to assure I am spending most of my time on activities that bring me joy I made that recommended list. In order to live out social media minimalism, or even digital minimalism, it means included activities that are both online and in person. Some parts of social media bring my joy, but I had a hard time enjoying them without clearing out the social media clutter. Below is a list of activities in my life and my predicted enjoyment for each of them. It contains both “real life” and virtual activities and they are in no particular order.
Playing games with my kids – 90%
Writing – 85%
Blogging – 85%
Recording music – 70%
Using Facebook Messenger – 60%
Texting friends and family – 95%
Snapchatting select friends/family – 80%
Running – 85%
Doing CrossFit – 90%
Watching Netflix – 85%
Sketching/Painting – 60%
Reading Specific Apple News articles – 80%
Posting on Instagram or Facebook – 45%
Scrolling through the Facebook or Instagram newsfeed – 5%
Checking Facebook or Instagram notifications – 25%
Hanging out with friends in small or individual groups – 90%
Date night – 75%
Family activities with the husband and kids – 95%
Zoom get-togethers – 60%
Conducting and writing about a social media experiment – 85%
Observations and Evaluations and Revelations…Oh My!
Overall, my observations are the meat of the blog. Trying different ways of clearing the social media clutter and spending time on activities that bring me joy lead me to a lot of revelations. In observing my life with less and more individualized presence online I had many revelations. Taking time to reflect led me to success in finding a relationship with various platforms that works for me.