What You Can Do Instead of Wasting Your Life Away Scrolling Social Media
You spend more time on social media than you realize.
I should know. I’ve fallen in love with three women at the same time: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. The excuse I use with myself is that I’m serving an audience. Sometimes that’s true.
I spend a lot of time on social media, because at times, I’m afraid to be bored.
The thought of not having another input — blog post, documentary, podcast, book — is terrifying. The doom scroll happens right before bed. I know I have to go to sleep early so I don’t reincarnate as a tired Youtube troll again in the morning, but social media wins the war far too often.
There is a lot you can do on social media:
- Look up former bad bosses.
- See what your friends are doing.
- Look at where your high school colleagues landed in life.
- Visit former lovers to see if they ever got over you with a replacement.
- Look at puppy photos. (I’m a sucker for a puppy doing everyday stuff — anything, really.)
It has got me thinking: What can you do to stop wasting your life away on social media? Here are a few ideas in case social media is also wasting your life away.
Walk Across Japan
Craig Mod walked across Japan and wrote about it. He realized the teleportation machine that was his phone had distracted him from the subtleties of life.
The walk across the country showed millions of Wired Magazine readers the forgotten power of walking.
Walking is being in motion. When you’re in motion you’re not bored. You’re focused on walking and getting somewhere. The best walks are the ones where your feet don’t pound the pavement, but a more natural ground like dirt. My favorite are walks that involve stepping on leaves.
The meditative superpower of hearing your feet crush a leaf is audio heaven.
You can’t effectively walk and use social media. The two don’t go together. If you attempt a walk while looking at your phone screen the whole time there is a good chance you’ll get hit by a bright yellow bus you didn’t see coming.
A walk is the perfect practical excuse to be without social media for a while. Take a long walk to nowhere and notice how you feel without the envy radiating off a screen full of other people’s posts.
Coach a Young Punk for Free
I’m talking about someone like my 22 year old self here. A kid who thinks they got it all figured out. A kid who plays computer games like TikTok and crushes it. A kid who thinks they understand the world. A kid who believes technology is the answer to every problem.
A kid whose sole focus is to grow up with more money than they started with, so they can purchase their dreams from Amazon for a hefty price, and have them delivered within an hour.
Coaching a person who is younger than you is an incredibly fulfilling exercise. You see yourself in their youth without intending to. You see your current problems in their youthful existence. You think your grown-up problems are going to be much different than theirs. Then, by being a coach, you realize that all problems are mostly the same limited number of ice cream flavors you find at Wendy’s on your way home from work.
How do you find a young person to coach? You look right under your nose. They’re everywhere. They’re taking over the world, remember? You find one from work. You find one in your email inbox. You find one who is a distant family member. Once you find the nominated person, you don’t cement a coaching relationship…that’s not cool. You become an unofficial coach. How?
You make yourself available. You give away your most valuable resource: time. You give the young person your time whenever they need it. You listen, rather than jam your wisdom down their throat. You see their life unfold. You remember when you were them.
Unofficial coaches have a meaning for their lives which is far deeper than social media metrics.
Have a Phone Conversation with Someone You Haven’t Spoken to for 5+ Years
The best people are the ones who aren’t on social media.
When I was growing up I had an obsession for drumming. I took drum lessons every week for most of my pre-19 year old years. My drum teacher’s name was Mauro. To this day, he doesn’t have social media. I haven’t spoken to him since 2004. It’s on my list to call him.
I drove past his house the other day when I accidentally made a wrong turn and ended up on his street. Maybe it was fate. I like to think it was. I stopped my car outside his house. It was the same spot he farewelled me all those years ago when I quit drumming to become a drunk DJ who couldn’t get a girl to love him for his collection of remixes.
I could tell he still lived there. His band van was still in the driveway. The drums were still in the back, ready for his next Saturday night gig. No matter how old he got, you couldn’t knock the Latino rocker out of him. His band Koco had a string of hits. He was the talk of the town until he wasn’t.
When the band ended he gave it all away to teach wannabe drummers like me at his home. Each drum session was excruciating. He would force me to learn Metallica songs in an hour, when other drummers spent their entire lives learning the same tunes.
I didn’t know it at the same, but he was teaching me two things: 1) Discipline 2) Focus. It is a gift I will never forget. Now, as a retired drummer, I use those two things to write my tiny little Aussie dreams into reality. When I think about calling Mauro on his corded home phone, the thought of chatting with a follower seems silly.
A conversation with a follower doesn’t have the same significance as a conversation you haven’t had with a person for more than five years, who was a big part of your life.
Read a Story Book from Your Childhood
Mine was “How To Live Forever,” by Colin Thompson. The self-help plague was injected into to me from a young age it looks like. I was destined to write how-to articles on the internet because of this book.
Books you read as a child are like a time machine. Social media doesn’t seem as interesting as books that helped create and maintain your imagination.
If you want to feel like a kid again, who believed in the impossible and had an imagination as sparse as the galaxy, then dare yourself to pick up your favorite story book from your childhood. Sit with that kid’s book for a night instead of doom scroll Fadbook.
Send Yourself an Email That Gets Delivered in a Decade
Write an email to your future self.
FutureMe.org allows you to email the future version of you. Set it for ten years’ time and draft a letter. What do you think you’ll be doing in ten years? What do you hope to be doing? The point isn’t to worry about when you’ll get the email. I find this process helps me unconsciously set goals.
As you write your future-dated email, you accidentally think deeply about your life and what the hell you’re doing with it.
Thinking about what you want to get out of your life will take you much further than looking at other people’s lives in the making through the microscope of social media. Zoom out to see what you’re missing.
