My Relationship w/ Social Media
As it becomes more normal to have a life IRL as well as URL, the line between what our “real” life is can get blurred. Honestly, I love social media and I find that it is just as real and valuable as my physical world. That being said, social media and its platforms are literally designed to be addictive and actively use the neural pathways and biological attributes we’ve spent millions of years developing as humans to connect with our tangible, physical earth. There is a lot that the internet provides us with, and there is a lot it can rob us of as well.
I feel like with anything, creating good boundaries is foundational to any healthy connection. And how do we create good boundaries? By knowing what we value, what we need, what we desire and what we have to offer.
Our values inform us of what is important to us; it’s bigger than just what we believe in, it is also what allows us to feel safe. Often when we talk about values they come from such a mental place of what one thinks and the stories that are held within us are so different than the stories that become us through experience. Which is to say - it is often very different to think about a thing than it is to live a thing.
So, with that, here are some of the ways in which I cultivate my relationship to the online world.
VALUES
this isn’t going to be an exhaustive list of what it is I value, so much of what my values are around social media.
presence; showing up online as often as possible with presence to why I’m there, what I’m doing, what I’m consuming. it’s so easy to go on social media to tune out of life (and of course I still do that) but even becoming present to doing that is essential for me so I can let myself have it when I need it & realign myself when I’m ready
honesty; I want to be honest about my experience and who I am. If I don’t feel I can be honest I have to ask why I’m sharing it, what it is I feel like protecting or hiding, and if it’s something that needs to be on social media. the flip side is being honest about why I’m posting something, if it’s my place, etc
authenticity; allowing room for change and growth, allowing myself to be silly and cringe, allowing myself to not censor who I am and how I talk or express or what feels good for me to share. authenticity allows me to connect authentically as well. This is about expression more than anything for me.
play; it’s so easy to take social media way too seriously. it feels important - even vital sometimes! - to our wellbeing. I want to not have to be so serious. posting silly stories, saying unhinged things on threads, sending memes and reels to pals with niche sense of humour. Play also includes playing with making and sharing things especially as an entrepreneur. It’s okay if I don’t get things right or it doesn’t launch perfectly etc.
pleasure; if I’m not enjoying it then why am I doing it? I use the pleasure value to determine who I’m following, what I’m saving, how I’m connecting and the boundaries I set a lot of the time. If a belief I have about my experience online or “rules” doesn’t feel good then I leave it. For example, weird social norms around who you should follow and who you can’t unfollow.
learning; I don’t want to just be consuming I want to be learning which means applying some of what I’m seeing! This usually comes out in recipes and crafts but I really think ultimately this allows me to get curious. We have SOOOO much available to us with the internet - it’s worth it to make the most out of it.
respect; respect for myself, for others, for the ways in which we all exist so differently yet together. I must feel respected in my experience (or they will be blocked, removed etc) but it’s also essential for me to be respectful. this one is so subtle sometimes - like when stalking an ex’s page or their new partner. is what I’m doing respectful not just to them, but to me? these are essential questions.
exploration; the media of the internet is sooo vast! SO VAST! We can really do so much so I try to make a habit of exploring - trying new things, new ways to share and make, getting curious about how people I’m inspired by are doing things and allowing myself to try. exploration is sometimes the embracing of failure as well.
privacy; knowing what to share, what to get consent for, what is just for me and my life and what is actually safe or necessary for the internet. I share soooo much but I’m also a deeply private person and I don’t often talk about deeply personal things online anymore especially if it involves another person.
trust; this has many different faces but it’s knowing you can trust me to keep your secrets, trusting to share accurate info, trusting to be respectful and a safe person online.
accountability; we will all make mistakes - I think learning to apologize to online communities is important. communicating is important. being reliable and doing what I say I will when ti’s important… but most of all, accountability within myself. setting boundaries and sticking to them, acting in a way online that I can trust myself with, holding myself to my own standards.
intention; knowing why I’m doing what I’m doing online and letting that be clear and aligned for me.
integrity; acting from a healed place - acting from a place of self trust, acting from a place of alignment with my whole self.
BOUNDARIES
When we’re clear on our values, what we need our boundaries to be becomes simpler. Boundaries allow me to be conscious of what I’m consuming, how I’m interacting, the level of energy I’m giving, and also what my standards are for showing up.
I almost always take the week of my period off social media. Mostly this is a necessary refresh, and doing it during this time holds me accountable to time (otherwise I probably wouldn’t do it). By the end it always feels good but I definitely find myself resisting it and notice how many times I go to click instagram on my phone to realize it’s deleted or I’m logged off. This is sort of a recalibrating for my mind and I get so much done when I take this time away from everything.
social media, for me, is a place to be inspired and connect. I don’t want to hate-follow people or have finsta accounts to stalk exes or anything like that. Like anyone I’ve definitely had my fair share of pain with how I use the internet so if I’m getting down on myself, or I’m using it too much to disassociate and noticing I’m not getting pleasure from my experience on there I need to change something. Sometimes I’ll turn my phone off, I’ll log out of apps or delete them, and I’m a big fan of unfollowing/muting/blocking at my leisure because no one needs to suffer on the internet
I don’t listen to or adhere to the weird social norms and rules that have developed around social media. I don’t feel the need to follow people I know just because I know them. I will unfollow someone I like in person if I don’t connect with them online or what they post. I will put up three posts in a day if I feel like it, I will not post for a month if I feel like it. My experience shouldn’t be dictated by what other people see as normal or what they feel they have to do to have a good online social standing.
I don’t check who is following or unfollowing me. If I’m not willing to follow someone then I will not spend time scrolling their page and engaging with their content. I think this is something we do sometimes to purposefully hurt ourselves or to prove a negative story we have about ourselves and often it’s not even conscious. It doesn’t really matter who’s following me online as long as I feel safe - I unfollow people all the time and it’s not a personal thing so I apply that logic to myself and other peoples experiences.
I try to not go online right away or be on there late at night. This is one of the harder ones but that’s also what taking the week off social media is good for, it re-calibrates where I put my focus and energy and helps me rewire my brain. I notice so much how even time moves differently during the day when I don’t have my brain tapped into the algorithm first thing in the morning. I am more focused, more intentional, sleep better, and feel better about my lived life when I am able to set healthy boundaries around this.
I don’t edit my photos. Unless they are taking on a DSLR and are for something (like branding for my website) I will never edit the photos I’m posting. I went through a phase of wanting to have my “aesthetic” and put every photo under a specific filter so my feed looked a certain way and it truly sucked the fucking joy out of everything. I just post. I take photos in a way I like, and over time I realized my life has it’s own aesthetic and it doesn’t need any help to allow a pattern to emerge. I don’t need to impede what I want to post or how I want to show up to make it perfect. I want my online presence to feel like a diary of my life - it’s for ME first, and when I’m editing things in that way it isn’t about me but about how I’m perceived. On this, I also don’t use filters to alter my appearance in a “pretty” way. I use silly ones like the big mouth and eyes one, or the covered in tattoo ones but I’m not here to give myself body dysmorphia because of an application.
Numbers mean nothing. I don’t do things to get a certain amount of likes or views anymore. I used to want to do things because it would put me in front of an audience and having that audience would legitimatize who I am and what I do. This is sooooo not true at all! I don’t care how many followers I have any more, I celebrate the gains and losses everyday. I see unfollowing as a form of refinement, I see following as a point of connection.
Things won’t be perfect. If I’m making a story series explaining something, I just let it come out naturally. I let myself ramble. If I’m making a caption I let there be spelling mistakes or give myself the grace to edit it later. Perfectionism is a mechanism that stops us from actually doing what we want to do and I no longer want to live that way. If I post something and change my mind I can delete it or archive it. I don’t need to be a perfect person to have humility and to rectify my choices.
I don’t post about things I don’t know about. I don’t post about things that I’m not actually willing to talk about or I’m not doing something about. My own life and needs always come before the wants of social media. I cannot care about things happening on the other side of the world if I’m not able to care about what’s happening in front of me. It’s way more impactful to have conversations, it’s way more impactful to make a donation. It’s no one’s business what I advocate for, what I have space for, what I am aware is happening in the world. A repost on my story doesn’t make me an ally and nor does it mean I’m equipped to speak on whatever it is that might be expected of me to post about.
Sharing > Performance. I want my social media relationship to be a place where I can authentically express myself. I don’t need to perform parts of my life or being for them to be relevant. I don’t need to share everything about me or in a certain way for it to be true about me. Not everything about me is for everyone.
Privacy. This one took me a long time to really understand and grasp for myself as someone who does share a lot online. I love documenting my life, I love sharing my perspective and thoughts, and I also love having things that are sacred and unseen and just for me or the people I’m with in those moments. No one is entitled to know everything I think, do, experience, desire, am scared of, am learning. No one is entitled to know everything about me and I no longer feel that I need to bare the things that I want to keep to myself to the world.
Close friends is my friends. Sometimes I just don’t want to explain something or have 100 conversations about it so I post it to close stories. Some parts of my humour or experience I don’t feel like sharing with everyone. I love curating this list and having a corner of the internet where no one can see who I allow into the BTS. It’s like a secret after party. There aren’t any rules to what I post here or not, it’s just my safe space with safe people so if I want to post a thirst trap but not get messages from weird men that follow me I can do that without hindering myself.
I do not owe anyone a response! I don’t need to answer your DM. I can take a week if I want to. If I forget to reply I have nothing to apologize for! I will straight up ignore DM’s sometimes, especially if I don’t feel I can properly and fully engage that person with my full attention. I value having thoughtful and present conversations. If people want to share things with me but I don’t want to share back I don’t have to. No false sense of intimacy and no pursuing a connection that from my end doesn’t feel genuine.
How people react or feel to what I’m posting isn’t my responsibility. I don’t owe anyone anything and if I’m living in accordance with my value and boundaries, there may be things other people don’t agree with or aren’t comfortable with that show up and that is perfectly okay. If I know my intentions, how other people perceive it is their responsibility. I am not the keeper or arbiter of others online experience.
I do not need to explain myself or what I’m posting to anyone. If people want me to or want me to apologize for something that has made them uncomfortable I don’t have to do that if it doesn’t feel right to me. I’m usually open to viewing something from another persons perspective - that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it or take it on.
And the big one - why am I posting this? It’s okay if I want attention, it’s okay if I want to share beautiful moments, it’s also okay if I want to share that I’m angry or frustrated or sad. I think for this, it’s removing the expectation that I’m going to fulfill the needs I have about whatever that thing is through posting about it. I’m allowed to share all aspects of my experience to my level of comfort and know others are responsible for how they want to engage with it. I cannot use social media as a pass for actually talking to the people in my life about what I need. I don’t want to use social media passive aggressively.
take the apps off the home screen! I try to keep practical things I want to engage with or need easy access to on my home screen. I put timers on my apps for how much time I want to spend on them, including the hours of the day I want to spend on them. This helps me stick to the boundaries I’ve set for my well-being more and become more conscious of what I’m using, when, and why.
OTHER STUFF
Being online can be sooo fucking vulnerable and challenging when you’re still navigating what feels safe, what you need, etc. I think it’s important to have grace for ourselves and know that we’re still guinea pigs for this experiment of the internet. I really see the online world as an extension of my real world - where people can see and perceive and judge and whatever else they want but really only I know the truth about me and that gives me a sense of peace. Coming to terms with being misunderstood (which is something I greatly fear) has been aided a lot by being online and choosing/creating/cultivating the ways in which I do this.
Instead of the pursuit of my relationship with the online world being about gaining something, I try to make it about sharing something. About embodying something. About experimenting. I often feel like I’m giving adult resources and understanding to a teenage part of me that desperately needed my tumblr as a place to escape from the world. But now instead of escaping it is creating. I am able to create more of my world around me and over time my actual life has become more beautiful, magical, and wonderful. I don’t live for the online world, but I am inspired by it. I allow this inspiration to come through in the things around me in my very real, tangible life. I don’t want just what’s in frame to nourish me - I try to make all the BTS and B-Roll and in betweens beautiful as well. Beautiful as a felt thing not a looked thing. Beautiful as an energetic thing that shines through who I am, what I do, how I share.
That’s the main lesson - is that when you really can grasp who you are for a moment, and capture that some way, that is to me really the best way to exist in any space. Real or imagined, digital or tangible. It’s can be a truly spiritual experience and a truly creative experience if we let it.