Trying to Be Less “Very Online”

Recently, I’ve seen people on Twitter use a phrase to describe themselves: “Very Online”. I think I’ve gleaned the meaning from context. Someone who is Very Online is all over social media (Twitter in particular) and closely follows the vicissitudes of various accounts, memes, and instances of internet drama.

I read the self-deprecating tweets about being Very Online and was distressed to realize that I know exactly what they all mean. I know all the stupid inside jokes. The sheep who’s an “absolute unit”? Seen it. Weird tweet about Gritty? Probably liked it. Two liberal Twitter accounts, beefing over the 2020 primary? I know the backstory and can explain it to my mom.

If this were the result of infrequent social media use, it wouldn’t be a problem. I appreciate weird humor and a picture of a massive sheep just as much as the next person. My issue, though, is that it’s not occasional. Thanks to my smartphone, I can use social media as a distraction whenever I feel the slightest hint of boredom. Riding shotgun in a car, waiting for food at a restaurant, transitioning from one activity to another…I can be on Facebook or Twitter in less than a second, and I often am. I waste so much time reading dumb tweets and status updates.

I realized this was a problem, but then I started rationalizing away the best solution, which is to delete all my accounts. “I use my political Twitter account to stay updated on current events and read relevant commentary!” “Facebook is how I keep in touch with my family and friends from my hometown!” And this is all true. Deleting my social media accounts would mean giving up access to information that I value. The problem, though, is that the information I value is crowded out by lots and lots of noise. How do I spend drastically less time consuming information I don’t care about and improve my social media experience without logging off permanently?

Starting today, I’m trying a new strategy: 10 x 10 x 10. No more than 10 minutes per day on each of my social media accounts. I have three accounts total, one on Facebook and two on Twitter. (I separate my public account from the account I use to follow political news.)

Facebook: Honestly, I’ve been using Facebook a lot less over the past couple of years. I used to spend a ton of time on it. Many of my friends and I moved out of our hometown for college, and Facebook was a convenient way to keep in touch. As people settle into their adult lives, though, they seem to update Facebook less and less. I know this has been the case for me. I’ve also been a judicious user of the “hide from newsfeed” option. If I don’t want to hear from someone, I remove them from my newsfeed, which helps reduce the clutter. Facebook’s mysterious algorithm tends to boost posts about major life events to the top of the newsfeed, so it’s not like I need to check all the time to avoid missing a big announcement. These days, my time on Facebook is mainly spent talking with fellow alums in my college’s groups. This isn’t a huge time-suck, though, so I don’t think adhering to my 10 minute rule will be a challenge.

Political Twitter: This one is tough, because American politics are a dumpster fire. My anxiety drives me to check Twitter all the time, lest I miss some big event. Let’s be real, though: Twitter isn’t the world’s best anxiolytic, and people on there are often wrong or unhelpful. I saw the perfect example of this last night. Trump gave his Oval Office speech on the border wall, which was followed by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with the Democrats’ response. As soon as Chuck and Nancy began speaking, Twitter lit up with jokes and memes about their appearance. “They look like the Addams Family!” “Who are they, my parents? ‘We’re not angry, just disappointed.'” I was irritated that this is what people chose to focus on. Not policy. Not the legislative process. No, Twitter had the most to say about how the Democratic leaders were maybe a little wooden. And this wasn’t even a reflection of the country’s actual opinion! More Americans tuned in to watch the Democratic response than the original speech. People outside of Twitter didn’t seem fazed by the Democratic leadership being stiff; it didn’t even register. I thought to myself, “I just wasted so much time being annoyed by stupid tweets and then reading the criticism of those stupid tweets…and it doesn’t matter at all.”

I still value many of the commentators on Twitter, but I need to find a way to avoid all the junk that surrounds them. I’m going to try using the “list” feature to isolate the people whose contributions I find valuable. Hopefully that makes it sufficiently easy for me to access tweets I want to see.

Regular Twitter: The Twitter account under my real name actually has one main purpose. I made it to be a writing account, since I thought following other writers and people in the publishing industry could help me hone my craft. In reality, I use it to procrastinate on my actual writing. The driving force behind this is 100% anxiety. I worry that my writing isn’t up to snuff, so I put it off…but if I’m on writing Twitter, at least I can excuse it as being semi-productive, right? (No, not right.) Connecting with other writers is important, but it’s not more important than actually writing. If you check out published authors on Twitter, you may notice (as I have) that they don’t spend much time tweeting. That’s probably because they’re busy being successful writers! I don’t want to spend the next year allowing my work to stagnate because I was anxiety-tweeting instead of writing.

So that’s the plan! We’ll see how it works out. I’ll update you all in a month and let you know if it’s been effective or if I’m still Very Online and Also the Worst.