My body is there, but my soul isn't.
Part One: My true story of social media addiction.
Pssst. As always, my posts are far too long for e-mail format, so click ‘read more’ to see the whole thing.
Dear Kula Diaries,
Today I’m going to share part one of my personal story with you about something that I’ve been actively working on for the past two years: social media addiction… and, more comprehensively, cell phone addiction. I am 100% sure that I am only one of millions of humans who have struggled with this type of an addiction. I am going to speak about my experience not as a mental health professional or expert … but just as a human sharing a personal story.
I am sure that there are some of you reading this post who have very little recollection of a world without social media. For the rest of us, we’ve been present for the progression of MySpace… to FaceBook… to Instagram… and also TikTok and SnapChat, etc… For the record, I’ve never used Twitter … and I have a LinkeIn account, but I’ve also never really used it. I have no experience using ‘other’ social media platforms such as Discord or Twitch.
My first experience with Instagram is pretty embarrassing, but I’m going to share it anyway because it’s humorous and relatable. I had a MySpace account (like everybody) many years ago, and with the introduction of Facebook, I gradually shifted platforms. Personally, I used Facebook to share cringe-worthy status updates… and albums of photographs from my hiking and mountaineering adventures. In 2010, one of my friends from college had a baby, and she posted a photo of the baby on Facebook that looked almost like an old-fashioned polaroid image. “How did she do that?!”, I wondered. Please keep in mind — this was long before we were familiar with using filters and effects on our photographs. As a kid, I was the one who always went to the ‘Old Timey Photo Booth’ at the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore to pay an exorbitant fee so that I could wear a 1900s mafia costume while posing in front of a fake saloon. I loved old timey photos. I clicked on my friend’s photo of her baby, and was directed to a new app called Instagram. I knew absolutely nothing about Instagram, so I downloaded it.
This is where the story begins to devolve, unfortunately. You see, I had no idea that Instagram was a social media platform. Instead, I thought it was a fancy app that applied cool filters to images. So, I did exactly what I should not have done: I started taking photographs of myself in my underwear so that I could apply cool filters to them. I took an entire series of photos of myself wearing a flannel shirt and a pair of white Calvin Klein string bikini underwear bottoms. The photos were by no means inappropriate, however, they definitely were not photos that I would have shared publicly. I believed that Instagram was a ‘photo storage’ app that allowed me to edit my photos… so please believe me when I say that when I posted my underwear photos to my public account on Instagram… I had no idea that I was posting them for anybody to see. At some point, I gained a few followers that I didn’t know… and that’s when I realized with a face palm … “Oh nooooooo… people can see these photos!”. Luckily, I think that the number of people that saw them was very limited… and I quickly deleted them once I realized that Instagram was an actual social media platform. Oops.
When I think back to my social media usage in the early days of Instagram, and particularly during the heyday of Facebook… the most vivid memory that comes to mind is a sad one. At that time, I was married to my first husband… and my morning routine was as follows: wake up to the noise of the television (he told me that he had to wake up every morning by watching the news)… immediately go downstairs, make tea, and log into Facebook. I spent nearly my entire morning, before driving to my job as a park ranger, logged into Facebook. I had my phone at work, and I would check Facebook throughout the day. When I got home, I would sometimes sit on the computer… on Facebook… and at one point, I had a habit of drinking a tiny glass of desert wine while eating chocolate covered berries… and… you guessed it… scrolling Facebook. My obliviousness to the amount of time spent on Facebook was appalling. I spent a lot of time hiking and climbing, but the most ‘important’ part of the hike or the climb was taking photographs so that I could come back and share my adventure with others on Facebook. If I were ever asked about using social media, my excuse was always the same: “It’s how I keep in touch with people.”
During my divorce from my first husband, I ghosted Facebook. I was horribly ashamed and embarrassed about my life situation, and I felt like I could no longer continue the facade of a ‘happy, adventurous woman’. I logged off Facebook and, essentially, completely disappeared from social media. I moved into an apartment in Tacoma, Washington by myself and barely told anybody what was happening. I didn’t even tell some of my closest friends, because I was filled with so much shame and embarrassment. Truthfully, I don’t know why. I know they would have been compassionate and loving, but I didn’t believe that I deserved it. It was a very dark time for me, and I felt lost and disconnected.
Eventually, as I established a new relationship with my (now) husband Aaron, I started to re-emerge from the darkness. I was hesitant to re-join social media, because most people had no clue where I had been or what had happened in my life. I started sharing photos online again… but I didn’t mention Aaron in a lot of the photos, because I was deeply worried about what people might think of me. In retrospect, I recognize the emotional immaturity of this behavior and the lack of self-awareness that I demonstrated. This was also very hurtful to Aaron, because he felt like I was ‘hiding’ him from everybody… which is, essentially true. Over time, however, I was ultimately able to completely re-emerge from my cocoon of self-imposed shame. I worked hard to repair damaged friendships, and I apologized genuinely and profusely to the people in my life who were hurt by my behavior. I took complete accountability for my silence, and recognized the way that it had caused harm for people who cared about me very much.
As I began to have a presence online again, it was during the time when I had also made the decision that I wanted to explore pursuing my dream of working in the outdoor industry. In 2017, as I have shared with all of you, I was involved in a near death experience that altered the course of my life forever. It was less than two weeks after this incident when I started a Facebook group called ‘Toward the Mountaintop Inch By Inch’ to start teaching hiking and backpacking skills. I jumped into this endeavor with both feet, and spent all of my time filming educational videos… sharing resources… and creating content. Even though I was working as a railroad police officer, my TTMIBI group became a second job. I started hosting live videos, providing tutorials and ‘backpacking makeovers’ … and, in general, spent most of my time trying to provide inspiration and connection for this group of really incredible outdoor-minded folks.
I spent almost every second of every day on Facebook… or checking Facebook… and moderating my group. When I wasn’t working, I was online. And, if I’m being honest, I was probably answering questions on my cell phone even when I was at work (usually on my lunch breaks). I have another very vivid memory of staying at a fancy hotel in Woodinville, Washington called The Willows. Aaron and I had rented a room there for our anniversary… and I was answering Facebook messages at dinner. In fact, I even recall leaving the table at one point so that I could handle something online. Thinking back on this moment now makes me cringe with disgust at my own unconscious awareness. I was so distracted by the world in the palm of my hand, that I was unable to be present for the man who loved me and who was sitting at the same table with me.
Eventually, I left my job in 2017 to pursue my ‘career in the outdoor industry’ (which didn’t include Kula Cloth at first). During this time, I also started posting on Instagram more… which is how I ended up meeting my friend Rose, who became my pianist with The Musical Mountaineers. We both started an Instagram account for The Musical Mountaineers, and started sharing our adventures and music. This was an absolutely beautiful and meaningful endeavor, and I loved — and still love — sharing our wild concerts with the world. Our Instagram account gained popularity quickly, and it became addicting and fun to capture our adventures and share them with people. I also started using my Facebook account to host live videos — particularly, I started posting videos called ‘Violingrams’ where people could nominate a friend to receive a violingram. I would start a live video and share some uplifting words and play a song from one person to another. It was a really beautiful way to use social media, and I experienced a lot of joy during the time when I was sharing my music and promoting kindness and connection with others.
My personal social media addiction has been nearly 100% comprised of both Facebook and Instagram, but I did have a very brief stint using Snapchat. A police officer that I used to work with during my time as a park ranger reached out to me on Facebook and asked me if I had a Snapchat account. He was a K9 handler, and we had been cordial colleagues at work, and he said he wanted to send me some photos of his new dog. I downloaded Snapchat, and he sent me a few photos of his canine partner. The following day, he sent me a photo of himself posing without a shirt on in a mirror and told me that he had been working out. He wrote something to the effect of, “Now it’s your turn” on the photo… indicating that it was my turn to share a similar image. I immediately deleted the app, and have never used it again.
I have very limited experience and interest in using TikTok. While I did start a TikTok account for Kula Cloth, I post to it rarely… and never engage with anything or anybody on the app, because I personally haven’t found it particularly enjoyable. However, I do feel that my social media addiction is a small piece of a broader addiction to my phone in general. What did this look like for me? If I ever questioned anything… or needed a piece of information… or was curious about the weather… or basically anything that gave me an excuse to look at my phone… I succumbed to the temptation. It was as if I seemingly forgot about the multiple decades of my life when I didn’t have access to everything almost instantly. There are obviously numerous benefits to having the proverbial world at our fingertips… but it has also made it so easy to lose touch with our own ability to navigate… think critically… and search for answers on our own, instead of asking AI for the answer. I’m certainly not anti-technology… but if I’m being brutally honest with myself… I have become unnecessarily dependent on needing instantaneous answers. What’s the worst that will happen if I don’t look at the weather app on my phone the second I wake up? Wouldn’t it be just as easy for me to walk outside and feel the air on my skin… and then make a determination about what clothes I should wear on my walk? And do I really need to see if there are any new listings for high waisted carpenter pants on Poshmark? Or do I honestly and truthfully need to figure out the name of that actress I can’t remember while I’m having dinner with friends? A few decades ago, I survived just fine without those things. Why is it so difficult for me now?
I started an Instagram for Kula Cloth in June of 2018, but it only had a few followers. Simultaneously, my personal Instagram had just over 100 followers. I was disillusioned to the ‘importance’ of followers and often felt enamored or in awe of people who had developed a large social media following — as if it were a status symbol. I remember having the opportunity to meet an artist who had over 100,000 followers and feeling so insignificant … yet simultaneously hopeful that maybe they would ‘mention me’ on their own account.
Over the next few years, I would all but abandon Facebook, because it got too annoying. To this day, I still have a Facebook account, but I don’t use it and haven’t posted on it in a few years. I don’t log into Facebook unless I need to retrieve a photograph from one of my photo albums. My social media addiction completely shifted to Instagram, and over the past few years, it grew from an ‘every so often’ addiction… to an all out compulsion. At the peak of my social media addiction, I would estimate that every spare minute of my day was spent either scrolling Instagram or filming content for Instagram. If there was any gap of time that was not filled, my hand was immediately in my pocket to grab my cellphone. Examples of this include:
Any time that I was with somebody else, and their attention was directed elsewhere
Sitting at a table in a restaurant by myself or sometimes with others
Sitting in an airport
Waiting in line for anything
A lull during a phone conversation
The 45 seconds that it takes the heat press to print a Kula Cloth
Using the bathroom
Being the passenger in a car
Commercials on TV
During television shows (yes, I’d be doing both simultaneously)
Lying in bed
On my morning walk
Anytime I saw or experienced anything that I immediately felt like I needed to post to my Instagram ‘stories’ (i.e. my cats, what I was eating, what I was doing, anything about Kula cloth, a pretty sunset, 17,000 dance videos a day, etc…)
Over the past few years, I’ve shared nearly every aspect of my life on social media. If my cats were cute, I shared it. If it snowed, I shared it. If I did something interesting, I shared it. If I did something not interesting, I shared it. There was an automatic and unconscious synapse pathway that existed between seeing and witnessing something in person… and then immediately feeling a compulsion to share it online. In addition to sharing it online, the secondary compulsion that surfaced after the sharing was to continuously go back on the app to see if people responded to what I had shared. This means that even though I might have only shared a few minutes of my day… I probably spent hours of time checking in to see how many people interacted with me as a result of what I shared. This compulsion to check my phone or apps was beyond simply habitual… it was an actual physical compulsion that felt nearly impossible for me to resist. There was no gap in my mind between the moment that I had a thought about something online and/or a desire to ‘check in’… and the simultaneous physical response that resulted from that thought (i.e. immediately looking at my cell phone).
A few years ago, I went to an event hosted by a social media influencer that left me feeling somewhat disgusted and disillusioned. The event was touted as a friendly meet-up, but once I arrived, it became very clear that the entire purpose of the event was not to foster real connection… but to film Instagram content for that person’s account. Every single element of the ‘event’ was filmed and various ‘moments’ were staged so that we all looked like we were having the time of our lives… when, in reality, we were being directed like a bunch of extras who had been suckered into performing for free. I left the event wondering if anybody else had felt the same way as me.
Over the course of the past few years, I am truthfully ashamed about the ways in which my social media and phone addiction has manifested. It morphed, over time, into a ravenously hungry desire and need for more and more dopamine and endorphin hits. I became completely disconnected from the actual world, and I allowed the essence of my own consciousness to be sucked into the oblivion of the imaginary world in the palm of my hand. My relationship with my husband was a near-casualty of this addiction… and it was so easy for me to trick myself into believing that my happiness and sense of self came from a bunch of 1s and 0s and pixels in a fake world I had created in my brain. Meanwhile, I continued to find fault with my real life, because I had unknowingly created a pattern that could only be satisfied by finding more and more validation from empty places. I had forgotten how to really love. It was shocking and sad, and I am deeply remorseful that I allowed myself to be sucked away into the digital abyss.
Ironically, I don’t think that social media is a bad thing. I have met some of my best real life friends on social media, and I believe that it is a powerful tool for connection and it is a very powerful tool that can be used in infinite ways to provide meaningful content and ways to interact with other humans. I do understand that social media is inherently designed to be addictive. I understand that it seemingly ‘preys’ upon our need for validation… and the pleasureful rush of endorphins. However, Instagram did not force me to use the app. I chose to do it, and I cannot blame anybody but myself for letting my social media addiction get completely out of control. Ultimately, shifting the blame to an app would be failing to take responsibility for actions that were indeed mine. Are social media companies responsible for warning humans about the effects of social media addiction? Honestly, I don’t know if I’m qualified to answer that question… but I do know that social media addiction is widely accepted and socially normal. We would have to experience a massive culture shift in order for any meaningful change to take place. Several years ago, I watched the horrifying documentary called The Social Dilemma. This documentary very clearly spelled out the destructive effects of social media. Do you know what I did while watching it? I played with my cell phone.
About a year ago, I listened to a book on my morning walk called Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza. This book encourages a variety of meditations, and one of the meditations specifically asks you to envision the best version of who you are. During this meditation, I sat down with my eyes closed and saw myself as the CEO and Founder of an Outdoor Gear Company. I saw myself experiencing the epitome of what ‘success’ looks like to me. I saw myself happily married to my husband and enjoying our time together with our cats. I saw myself travelling and exploring and excitedly going on adventures. I saw myself looking healthy and radiant. As I was in this meditation, a sudden thought entered my mind that was so powerful that I couldn’t ignore it. It simply said: The best version of you is not addicted to her phone. I had been feeling a little bit ‘stuck’ with Kula… and creatively, I had been feeling uninspired. I took the time to think about the best version of me… and I realized with absolute knowing and certainty that the best version of me did not spend her day looking at her cell phone.
That night, I told my husband that I was going to break my addiction to social media. I am sure that he received that news with cautious optimism, because I had tried this before… very unsuccessfully. This time, however, I knew that the well being of my entire life and career and marriage depended on it. I told him that I was going to implement a new rule:
While I’m sure that there are many people out there for whom this would seem like an easy, ridiculously simple goal… I assure you, after multiple decades of filling every spare second of time checking my phone… putting it down was not necessarily going to be easy. In my heart I knew that I had to do it, and this time I felt completely committed to doing it. A few years ago, I had downloaded an app that was supposed to help me ‘monitor’ my time spent on my phone. I distinctly remember silencing the app while it was telling me to stop using my phone… so that I could continue to use my phone. My addiction was, truthfully, appalling on a lot of levels. The effects of this addiction hurt both my mental health and my relationships with the people that I care about the most. Unfortunately, it was easy to continue justifying my addiction by saying that I ‘needed social media’ for my business. As I had started to realize… using social media for business does not mean that you need to spend your entire waking life using it.
Next week, I’ll be sharing the results of my attempt to break my addiction to social media, and how that impacted my life. But for now, this is where I will leave you: the honest words and struggle of a woman who spent far too many minutes staring at an iPhone… when she could have been looking into the eyes of the people who were around her. A woman who spent far too much time typing back and forth to strangers… when she could have been talking to her husband. A woman who spent far too much time seeking affirmation and validation from others… when she could have found that within her own heart, all along. These are difficult admissions for me to make, and the sense of shame that I feel even now as I share them is only slightly eased by the hope that my own story will help somebody else recognize that their own use of social media has become a similar problem. As I will share next week… there is hope beyond the veil of illusions in your hand — and there is so much joy, love, and color in this world that is available when you learn to let go of something that you thought you once needed.
Thank you all so much for listening - I’m so grateful to be able to share this with you. It’s been something on my mind for awhile, and it’s been pretty cathartic to write it all out and reflect back on the experience. I am wishing you all a sense of peace, ease and wellness in your life. If it feels good to you, spend some time away from your phone… and just see what happens. I am sending you all a love of love today and all days.
Love,
Anastasia
P.S. Feel free to comment below - I’m curious to see if anybody else has struggled in a similar way… and, if so… what did you do about it?
P.S.S. If you have a question or comment for my next AMA (Ask me Anything) column, please feel free to drop it anonymously into the Kula Diaries Vault. I love reading all your comments!
“The Kula Diaries” is a free newsletter written entirely by me, Anastasia Allison. I’m the founder of an outdoor gear company called Kula Cloth. You can join our monthly events and support this newsletter and my writing by becoming a paid subscriber. I appreciate you so much! Love, A.
For me it’s not social media that is the problem. It’s the internet, doom scrolling the news, and wanting to instantly look up information. It causes me to stay up too late with that blue light in my eyes. I’m currently doing a 4 week Happiness program (free from Berkeley) and the first skill it has me working on is digital detox. I chose to try not getting on the internet after dinner. The first two nights I succeeded and it caused me to get sleepy early, go to bed early and the next days I was in a better mood and had more energy. The past two nights I stayed on the internet, went to bed late and had a crap mood. Tonight there will be no internet after dinner!
Yesterday I logged out of fb and insta and deleted the apps off my phone. It's felt like social media is eating my brain lately, and even when I try to break away by leaving my phone in the other room, I'll still cancel the reminder that I've run out of time on those apps for the day and stand in the dark, staring at my phone. Decided I am logging out for the month. How fortuitous to see your post today! (Or is it the synchronicity that Julia Cameron talks about in The Artist's Way?!)