I recently completed a 30-day experiment, where I logged off of twitter and instagram for a month to gauge how much value these services actually brought to my life. I had already permanently deleted my facebook account last year as it had become very clear that it was nothing more than a FOMO-inducing, anxiety generating tool that didn't serve me, yet exploited the data I willingly gave away for profit (if you're not aware, just google "facebook privacy scandal" to see the extent of the abuse we’re all subject to without even realizing it). While facebook had zero business value to me, I was a little more hesitant to suddenly leave twitter and instagram as they had become a consequential part of my marketing activities over the years.
It's not until my recent encounter with Deep Work by Cal Newport that I was able to get clarity on what I should do with these accounts, given how frustrating and anxiety-generating they had become. In it, Newport suggests to log off any social media account without fanfare or big announcement for 30 days, to gauge the amount of value they bring into our lives. The heuristic for deciding whether to permanently quit or not is quite simple: if during the 30 days you're gone, you don't miss it and no one asks you why you're no longer active, it's a pretty good indication that these platforms don't bring anything more than shallow interactions into our lives. While the dopamine hit may feel good, and the addiction soon has us frantically refreshing for likes, it is nothing but a distraction from meaningful, deep work.
While this change in my approach to social media may seem to be a skin-deep contrarian approach to marketing (run in the other direction while everybody is rushing to be on those platforms), there is a tangible benefit to my doing so and it can be quantified as follows: I wrote 16028 words (twice as much as my historic production), edited and published 2 new podcast episodes (which had been dormant for 7 months due to -ahem- "lack of time"), hosted 2 in-person event with friends and colleagues in the industry, edited 16 new videos of personal work and started meditating 2 hours a day. Most of this comes from the time I no longer waste spending on social media.
A really smart friend of mine recently described social media as a mile wide and a millimetre deep. I have come to personally find narrow and deep endeavours much more rewarding, whether we're talking substituting a text exchange for a 1-hour coffee conversation with someone interesting where we both lose track of time, or spending a few hours editing and learning about video, instead of watching puppy videos on instagram. How many Jiff Pom videos are too many anyway?
I have and will continue to dedicate this newfound time to develop new areas of practice and experiment with new ways of helping my clients promote their businesses. Look out for it via my newsletter. This will be from now on where the good stuff is.
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