The Art of Consciously Consuming the Internet: To Learn, To Indulge and To Create

3/03/26

Teenagers, they’re obsessed with their phones, right? Right? Well luckily I’m not a teenager anymore, but I have been accused of being obsessed with my phone. If I’m being honest (don’t tell the others) I probably am, or I probably was. But I’d had enough. So, this Christmas time I had decided to go cold turkey and get rid of all social media. When you’re on social media there is so much to look at, or so much you feel like you have to look at, it can become all you do. This becomes an overwhelming world; we must keep up with jokes and style and opinion. It is as if the internet is our friend, and if we don’t talk to them they’ll leave us out- seeking vengeance. They say that when you have a toxic friend the only thing you can do is cut them off, there is no reasoning or bargaining, all you can do is get rid of them from your life completely. So if I were to follow that advice, deleting it all is what I should do.

I’ve done things like this before, to try and limit my time on social media. I’ve deleted Instagram for a few months or set time limits on social media to try and stop me, but I’ve always redownloaded, or added ‘just five more minutes’ to my screen time. I had always hoped, in an ideal world there would be a perfect balance, a way to only look when we really want. Perhaps a way to rewire our brains. Of course, websites have suggested setting goals, creating a space where you consume your social media, but we all know that it one thing to say something, and another thing to do it.

Rather paradoxically, it has become popular on social media to quit social media. ‘How to quit social media.’ Or ‘I quit social media, it was the best decision of my life’ are popular videos featured on YouTube. A rise in this may be beneficial, inspiring people off of their phones. However, in reality it is more likely that viewers may live vicariously through these people quitting, not willing to go to the effort to do it themselves. Does it inspire them or is it just another video to watch? I suppose it is all down to the person, but why watch one video on the topic when there are five so readily available?  

I did not watch any videos to put off my ‘social media sobriety’, so I had no plan to keep me busy. This meant that on the first day of my own social media ban I definitely felt the effects. Not anything big, as I decided to busy myself with a book, but a slight meandering heaviness. In my journal I wrote, “I will admit, sometimes I open my phone and have nothing to do and I feel a strange tightness in my stomach.” Although, confidently I added, “But I am sure that will pass, I have no worry that I can do this.” Maybe I was too confident. But I threw myself into this new life I’d given myself. I started a blog, read more books, and journalled for much longer than normal.

Perhaps the most surprising thing I found when I pried myself away from social media, was noise. I suppose I believed social media supplied the noise. The constant thirty second sound bites, people talking incessantly about style and gossip, and the world without would be quiet. That isn’t true. The world is loud, marvellously so. You can listen to two friends have a conversation, to the tap of your fingers against your keyboard, to the birds when you wake up. All your actions do not need to be accompanied by ‘internet sound’. For me, this internet sound was a sound that I barely cared for, barely registered was playing. There is so much sound already supplied to us, like the rustle of wind coming carefully through the branches, or a knife upon a slice of toast as butter washes over it.

There were times where I was bored, I will admit it. Time spent scrolling needed to be times spent in new ways. I had become very eager to learn, I wanted to learn anything from WWII to how to stimulate your brain- increase your attention span, but I found it difficult to find somewhere to begin. So, I was faced with the question: do I turn back to social media to begin, or not? I was worried this would be a sort of failure, as if I was filling my time with ‘internet sound’ again. Yet, hesitantly I did. But I didn’t watch the gossip channels, or the people complaining about their lives (I know real people who do that). Instead, I turned to YouTube videos that informed me or inspired me. ‘Write notes like Joan Didion’ or ‘The Art of the Tea Tray’. You may be doubtful, what does anyone on YouTube know? But don’t we all want to share? Don’t we all want to create?

Instead, I have begun to believe that it all comes down to one essential question: What is the value of our consumption of social media? Or, to break it down: When is the point where watching something interesting just becomes background noise? When should we listen to what surrounds us? When should we have more noise? I’m not sure I have an answer, I’m not sure that there is a perfect way to answer this. We are all human, susceptible to being distracted and to indulging ourselves when that is not best.

But I’ve come up with some rules, mainly for myself to avoid my old habits, some essential ideas to keep me from going back to continuous scrolling:

RULE ONE: DO EVERYTHING INDIVIDUALLY

I think, if you have to self restraint, and time to do it, we should do everything individually. Write in your journal and then watch the documentary, both do not need to be done at the same time. Something I’ve done myself is to listen to the sound of my pen against the paper, looking at the way the light casts a shadow against it. Take in everything as it happens, there is so much happening already that you do not need to add on extra sounds and visuals.

RULE TWO: TURN AWAY FROM TIKTOK AND TURN TO SUBSTACK

 I find that if you truly want to learn, truly want to use social media to stimulate your mind then it is best not to use Instagram or TikTok. It can be difficult to take in anything from a thirty second video. Instead you have to turn to apps that will feed your mind. Substack is the app of choice for me. You can have newsletters delivered to your email inbox or view articles on the app. I find that it is important not to see this as a source of news, it should be a way to discover other peoples opinions, delve into new ideas or view peoples’ creative processes. I find these articles open up a world of thought, inspiring me too to write about something I am interested in as well.

RULE THREE: DO NOT USE SOCIAL MEDIA AS YOUR SOURCE OF NEWS

Research from the University of Derby says that “45% of adults in the UK believe they encounter fake news every day.” And with social media playing such a big part in our lives it becomes the easiest place to get our news. News from social media is seldom reliable with sources rarely given. It becomes difficult for people to understand where fact ends and opinion begins. Look at official news sources instead, do your own research on what you believe. You don’t have to believe everything you see, and there should be reason to believe and reason not to. Take up a newspaper why don’t you? Journalism a dying art. Do you not want to feel the thin, off-white pages between you fingers?

RULE FOUR: CREATE BEFORE YOU CONSUME

Everyone can consume social media, but can everyone create? Naveed Siddiqui suggests that “Only 1% of internet uses are content creators while the other 99% consume.” Clearly, for us it is much easier to consume than it is to create. Yet it is this easiness that makes us so complacent, mindlessly spending hours on videos that we aren’t interested in. Create what you want to see. It doesn’t have to be videos, but if you like seeing them so much, why wouldn't you try?

Spend your time writing and drawing and filming. Take notice of the beauty of the world, immortalise it in your writing or your drawing or your filming. Show how your perceive the world through your own creations, don’t just consume others.

Social media will always be a temptation, whether it’s the short cuts, catchy music or aesthetic videos. The idea that life can be caught and shared on camera. Yet, just because we are seeing life through the screen, does not mean we are living it. There is so much more to life than that screen; a muddy walk along the hill top is much better than seeing someone’s review of it in 30 seconds. You cannot feel the wind on your face, the ache in your legs, and your heart hammering from the climb. Your real feelings and your real senses can only be created by you, not a person who lives in LA.