This reminds me of the apt quote: “Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you a zone of silence.” A Zone of Silence is always at odds with social media.
This is such a compelling read, I think because it explains what I've been trying to to articulate myself (as just a normal person, not someone who makes any sort of a living creating content online 😅). In the last month or so I've tried a new app blocker app (and yes, the irony is a little funny) that limits my socials to Saturday. And interestingly, not only am I less frazzled, more connected to my kids, less likely to explode with inexplicable mom rage, and generally more content with my very normal life...but I also find myself much less enamored with the noise that I suddenly have access to on Saturday. It's like the quiet has become normal again...like maybe we weren't made to exist with this much background noise, anyway. 😵💫😵💫
Beth, I feel this. Once upon a time it was HARD for me to step away from social media, which feels bananas now. "but I also find myself much less enamored with the noise that I suddenly have access to" is spot on.
I love the reference of background noise. That is exactly how I feel when things are flying at me... emails, texts, calls, notifications. Trying to find a way to limit the noise and allow my own thoughts to fill my head and my heart.
I keep saving things to catch up on “later”. I envision a Substack Day, with coffee and snacks and pajamas. But at some point, so much good stuff = too much to keep up with. Such a problem to have.
I completely relate to the idea of savings things for a catch up day. I have at least 4-5 years of emails that I want to read, truly want to consume. It is finding the time to find quiet moments to actually savor them and take them in, rather than rushing through them before I am interrupted.
I needed this unsubscribe permission so badly. I felt this on substack recently and just thought maybe I was just being silly. My email inbox, all of it! Too much!
Also- my friends/family know to not even bother talking to me on the phone or in person if they are eating. I’ll lose my mind. I’ve hung up on a few 😂😂
I literally just finished un subscribing/cancelling 15 Substack accounts....I am highly distractable and I found all the Inbox overwhelm and "connect with me!" was keeping me from God's calling to create community around my own work and online goal--to help people make friends with poetry.
When I left social media for good last April I came over here after blogging for 12 years, thinking Substack would be a quieter place. It seemed that way. For awhile.
In an effort to keep up with the social media Joneses, Substack has continued to roll out new ways of connecting, adding features like other platforms. And now sadly, the Notes factor option has made it a much noisier place. I find people are now using it like IG or Twitter...and now that Sbstk has rolled out DM's--sacre bleu!--what's a person to do?
Personally I will continue to push back boundaries around my own work and be a lot more intentional about my reading. It's a tension for sure.
Posting this poem here in response (I goes out to subscribers tomorrow).
Jody, what a beautiful poem! Thank you for sharing it with me. I share all of your sentiments about what has happened in Substack recently ... I already miss the old, simpler version, when it was nothing more than a chronological inbox.
I can only do most social media on the computer. I don't ever use the apps unless I absolutely have to and when I do I feel like Brick in Anchorman yelling, "LOUD NOISES!"
Yes! I wrote a lot in my journal the last few months, and most of that time I was off IG. I got back on IG a few weeks ago, and am ready to leave again. I open the app and immediately feel overwhelmed and anxious.
I only voted “no” to drowning in content because I’ve literally unsubscribed from almost everything I’m not paying for, and the list of what I’m willing to pay for is super small. 4 Substacks. 1 online subscription to the local newspaper. 1 fitness app. Sometimes (a lot of times) I feel unnaturally disconnected because of this choice, but, for me, it absolutely beats the alternative.
Ashlee! You hit the nail on the head. I've been trying to figure out why I don't write publicly the way I used to, why I don't submit articles to my once favorite publications. I didn't just back away from writing. I don't read those publications anymore either. Nor do I read their corresponding social media posts. I've abandoned my professional wiring account on IG altogether. On one hand, I was going through my own faith struggle and wanted to focus on living what I've preached. On the other hand, I also don't want to contribute to the noise or call the social media groupies to my corner of the Internet for another version of what they are already consuming from others. Like you, I want to make art. With words. With yarn. With charcoal. With paint.
One of the reasons I'm really glad Substack's "social media" type features just aren't that compelling - they don't suck me in in nearly the same way Instagram did - before I took Instagram off my phone, that is. On my computer, even Instagram loses its addictive qualities. Maybe going back to using my computer for everything is the answer. Or a word processor...remember those?
Loved this post! I recently scaled back my Substack output and while it's felt a little weird at times to have a thought with nowhere to immediately put it, I know it's ultimately so much better for my writing.
IG is way less appealing on the computer! I've tried to figure out how to share / post to stories on the computer, but I haven't figured it out. If I could do that, I would probably never put the app back on my phone. ;)
You can't. It's not built into the desktop experience (at least not on Mac.) That was my main hesitation, too, but when I finally decided to kick the app to the curb, I realized that accepting IG's desktop limitations were just going to have to be part of the tradeoff. Who knows - if I COULD share to Stories from my computer, maybe I'd feel obligated to be in there all day sharing which was what I didn't want anyway! Ultimately I decided that just because "they say" Stories are an essential engagement tool, and even though I really do like Stories, it wasn't important enough to me for the tradeoff. It's weird to get used to not having that immediate sharing outlet, even though I really didn't use my Stories that much - but I do feel more free.
Yes, that's all very true! I guess for me, I like stories because I rarely feel like I have anything worth of sharing a whole post, so a story is a low stakes way to share. And when I am on the app, I like to share and promote other people's work/writing. It feels weird (to me!) to hop on the app, after being radio silent for weeks and then just dump a bunch of stuff about myself. I like to get on and equally share other's work, not just my own. And stories is the only way to really do that, unfortunately.
Oh yeah, I get it. The longer I'm away from IG the weirder it feels to show up and self-promote. But then, why is that? Why do we feel obligated to be "social" on every platform, when our time is also spent creating things for people to enjoy...often for free? I'm trying to view my IG sort of like an old-time Yellow Pages ad, or a poster in a shop window - really there to remind people I still exist but they have to go somewhere else to find my actual stuff :)
You're generous with your time and sharing, Stacy, so if it doesn't happen on IG as much as you'd like, it can always happen here, or elsewhere.
And yes, that's true about sharing. It doesn't just have to happen on IG. I shared your journal on my Substack (and stories, because I was on the app! And because I did want to share it!), but it doesn't always have to be all. the. things.
I'm a visual artist, not a writer. But one of my favorite quotes by Van Gogh... "it is the language of nature, not the language of painters that we should heed"
I have recently been unsubscribing, deleting and purging as you have but to order from most places now they ask for email and cell number. AND to create account for frequent buyer points. Too much. But, I did it to myself.
UGH, all of this. I swear 30% of my text messages are coming from brands now and I hardly remember signing up but somehow I did? To get a promo, or points, or something? I've been texting STOP on all of those threads, too 🤪
This reminds me of the apt quote: “Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you a zone of silence.” A Zone of Silence is always at odds with social media.
Preserve it at all costs.
I love this.
This is such a compelling read, I think because it explains what I've been trying to to articulate myself (as just a normal person, not someone who makes any sort of a living creating content online 😅). In the last month or so I've tried a new app blocker app (and yes, the irony is a little funny) that limits my socials to Saturday. And interestingly, not only am I less frazzled, more connected to my kids, less likely to explode with inexplicable mom rage, and generally more content with my very normal life...but I also find myself much less enamored with the noise that I suddenly have access to on Saturday. It's like the quiet has become normal again...like maybe we weren't made to exist with this much background noise, anyway. 😵💫😵💫
Beth, I feel this. Once upon a time it was HARD for me to step away from social media, which feels bananas now. "but I also find myself much less enamored with the noise that I suddenly have access to" is spot on.
I love the reference of background noise. That is exactly how I feel when things are flying at me... emails, texts, calls, notifications. Trying to find a way to limit the noise and allow my own thoughts to fill my head and my heart.
I keep saving things to catch up on “later”. I envision a Substack Day, with coffee and snacks and pajamas. But at some point, so much good stuff = too much to keep up with. Such a problem to have.
I completely relate to the idea of savings things for a catch up day. I have at least 4-5 years of emails that I want to read, truly want to consume. It is finding the time to find quiet moments to actually savor them and take them in, rather than rushing through them before I am interrupted.
I needed this unsubscribe permission so badly. I felt this on substack recently and just thought maybe I was just being silly. My email inbox, all of it! Too much!
Also- my friends/family know to not even bother talking to me on the phone or in person if they are eating. I’ll lose my mind. I’ve hung up on a few 😂😂
🤣 I feel so known.
I literally just finished un subscribing/cancelling 15 Substack accounts....I am highly distractable and I found all the Inbox overwhelm and "connect with me!" was keeping me from God's calling to create community around my own work and online goal--to help people make friends with poetry.
When I left social media for good last April I came over here after blogging for 12 years, thinking Substack would be a quieter place. It seemed that way. For awhile.
In an effort to keep up with the social media Joneses, Substack has continued to roll out new ways of connecting, adding features like other platforms. And now sadly, the Notes factor option has made it a much noisier place. I find people are now using it like IG or Twitter...and now that Sbstk has rolled out DM's--sacre bleu!--what's a person to do?
Personally I will continue to push back boundaries around my own work and be a lot more intentional about my reading. It's a tension for sure.
Posting this poem here in response (I goes out to subscribers tomorrow).
Slow Burn
What is it that deals us our
greatest blows?
That is our undoing?
Is it our enemy, the devil?
Or blatant evil, so closely cloaked,
‘live’ spelled backwards?
Were he so out in the open and obvious
He’d be easily stopped or avoided.
Yet hidden behind the dailiness,
the benign and harmless,
it isn’t the devil,
but merely distraction
and dissipation.
Distracted by the simply innocuous,
Surely this couldn’t hurt
Dissipated by my attention to frivolity,
Certainly I have energy for this as well
We succumb to defeat.
dissipation—“to lessen one’s effect
or impact, to deflate”
distraction—“to look away from,
to lose one’s direction and goal, a
mindless diversion.”
There is no actual destruction;
Either way—deflated or diverted,
eventually we fall,
becoming
over time,
useless
and at last,
invisible, gone without a trace....
Jody, what a beautiful poem! Thank you for sharing it with me. I share all of your sentiments about what has happened in Substack recently ... I already miss the old, simpler version, when it was nothing more than a chronological inbox.
I'm glad the poem resonated, Ashlee. And yes, let's hearken back to the days of the "chronological inbox."
I can only do most social media on the computer. I don't ever use the apps unless I absolutely have to and when I do I feel like Brick in Anchorman yelling, "LOUD NOISES!"
Yes! I wrote a lot in my journal the last few months, and most of that time I was off IG. I got back on IG a few weeks ago, and am ready to leave again. I open the app and immediately feel overwhelmed and anxious.
I only voted “no” to drowning in content because I’ve literally unsubscribed from almost everything I’m not paying for, and the list of what I’m willing to pay for is super small. 4 Substacks. 1 online subscription to the local newspaper. 1 fitness app. Sometimes (a lot of times) I feel unnaturally disconnected because of this choice, but, for me, it absolutely beats the alternative.
That's amazing. I am trying so hard to be a more thoughtful curator in what I consume!
YES. 1000% yes. Admire your commitment to unsubscribing and to making art.
With you 100%. When even Voxer is too much for me, I know it’s time to get quiet again. Annnnnd I’ve been in that spot for 3 months 🫣🫠
Ashlee! You hit the nail on the head. I've been trying to figure out why I don't write publicly the way I used to, why I don't submit articles to my once favorite publications. I didn't just back away from writing. I don't read those publications anymore either. Nor do I read their corresponding social media posts. I've abandoned my professional wiring account on IG altogether. On one hand, I was going through my own faith struggle and wanted to focus on living what I've preached. On the other hand, I also don't want to contribute to the noise or call the social media groupies to my corner of the Internet for another version of what they are already consuming from others. Like you, I want to make art. With words. With yarn. With charcoal. With paint.
The choice is mine. 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
One of the reasons I'm really glad Substack's "social media" type features just aren't that compelling - they don't suck me in in nearly the same way Instagram did - before I took Instagram off my phone, that is. On my computer, even Instagram loses its addictive qualities. Maybe going back to using my computer for everything is the answer. Or a word processor...remember those?
Loved this post! I recently scaled back my Substack output and while it's felt a little weird at times to have a thought with nowhere to immediately put it, I know it's ultimately so much better for my writing.
IG is way less appealing on the computer! I've tried to figure out how to share / post to stories on the computer, but I haven't figured it out. If I could do that, I would probably never put the app back on my phone. ;)
You can't. It's not built into the desktop experience (at least not on Mac.) That was my main hesitation, too, but when I finally decided to kick the app to the curb, I realized that accepting IG's desktop limitations were just going to have to be part of the tradeoff. Who knows - if I COULD share to Stories from my computer, maybe I'd feel obligated to be in there all day sharing which was what I didn't want anyway! Ultimately I decided that just because "they say" Stories are an essential engagement tool, and even though I really do like Stories, it wasn't important enough to me for the tradeoff. It's weird to get used to not having that immediate sharing outlet, even though I really didn't use my Stories that much - but I do feel more free.
Yes, that's all very true! I guess for me, I like stories because I rarely feel like I have anything worth of sharing a whole post, so a story is a low stakes way to share. And when I am on the app, I like to share and promote other people's work/writing. It feels weird (to me!) to hop on the app, after being radio silent for weeks and then just dump a bunch of stuff about myself. I like to get on and equally share other's work, not just my own. And stories is the only way to really do that, unfortunately.
Oh yeah, I get it. The longer I'm away from IG the weirder it feels to show up and self-promote. But then, why is that? Why do we feel obligated to be "social" on every platform, when our time is also spent creating things for people to enjoy...often for free? I'm trying to view my IG sort of like an old-time Yellow Pages ad, or a poster in a shop window - really there to remind people I still exist but they have to go somewhere else to find my actual stuff :)
You're generous with your time and sharing, Stacy, so if it doesn't happen on IG as much as you'd like, it can always happen here, or elsewhere.
We have been conditioned for sure! Eek.
And yes, that's true about sharing. It doesn't just have to happen on IG. I shared your journal on my Substack (and stories, because I was on the app! And because I did want to share it!), but it doesn't always have to be all. the. things.
YAS!
Yes to everything you said! I left IG and FB last December. The only media I consume is on YT or Substack, and sometimes that feels like too much!
👏🏼
I'm a visual artist, not a writer. But one of my favorite quotes by Van Gogh... "it is the language of nature, not the language of painters that we should heed"
I have recently been unsubscribing, deleting and purging as you have but to order from most places now they ask for email and cell number. AND to create account for frequent buyer points. Too much. But, I did it to myself.
UGH, all of this. I swear 30% of my text messages are coming from brands now and I hardly remember signing up but somehow I did? To get a promo, or points, or something? I've been texting STOP on all of those threads, too 🤪