Did you notice I’m not on the social meeds anymore? Or that all my YouTube videos are now unlisted? Here’s why.
I finally did it! I deactivated my social media pages and made my YouTube videos all private.
Let me tell you why.
First, I followed my intuition to stop participating in social media. I deleted the apps from my phone. Then, in a very short time, I felt, like, a million times better.
Then, I read a book called The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds And Our World.
And listen: it’s worse than I thought.
It’s not just the divisiveness. It’s not just the misinformation. It’s not just that the social media companies harvest our attention to make more money than anybody has ever made in the history of the world.
It’s violence. It’s war. It’s genocide.
Social media stirs all of this up, measurably and provably, with its algorithms. When we’re like, “What’s with all these shootings these days? What’s with this fascism? Why aren’t people vaccinating their kids? Why are people so filled with hate?” It’s social media and YouTube algorithms magnifying lies, leading folks down rabbit holes, stoking the madness.
On a more personal and immediate level, science shows that people are happier without social media.
So, all of this to say, I’m not on the social meeds, because there is a solution to all of this, and it’s actually sort of easy, and it’s all in our hands. If we minimize our use of social media sites and YouTube, we will immediately take away the algorithm’s powers to control us. And if it’s a trend that catches on, we will do this collectively.
I am still here on my site, with plenty of inspiring content for ya. Many of my videos are still accessible here, even though they’re unlisted on YouTube. (Like this classic meditation fave and the kitchen witchery tutorial embedded here.)
And if you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to my newsletter for free inspiration every week.
So yay. See, not a problem. We can still be connected.
I didn’t notice because I’m consciously less on socials. The reasons I started in them ( to see my friends lives) is gone. I barely see photos and the lives of my friends anymore.
I had a lot of good happen, like the good vibe tribe, now the wisdom circle, and I met a lot of new friends and supportive people because if it.
I feel so much better and have way more time when I’m off social media. I don’t think I will delete everything yet but am consciously staying off more.
Shauna, I feel the same way. It feels like its time has passed for me.