It’s been about a year since I deleted my Twitter and Facebook accounts. They had become a far more significant part of my life than I ever intended, and I needed to be free of them. Expressing my thoughts and opinions in the public marketplace had come at a high cost, and not simply because I missed out on career opportunities as a direct result of tweeting. I found that my brain was being shaped by social media, and that I was becoming increasingly incapable of performing basic intellectual functions. In short, I couldn’t think, really think, like I used to, and that scared me. If social media was stealing my brain, why was I on it?
The latest brain science is clear: social media is changing us. But I didn’t need in-depth studies to know that; I was living it. My attention span deteriorated to the point where I couldn’t even finish reading a tweet – and this was back when they were just 140 characters! When I scrolled through Facebook, I literally scrolled through my news feed. I wouldn’t stop to read anybody’s updates or look at any pictures. Not only was I not thinking about what I was looking at, but I wasn’t even looking at what I was looking at. I wouldn’t slow down enough to let my eyes focus on those words or images. My social media experience was rewiring my brain to spend less than one second processing any given input. I was literally training myself to live an unfocused, unthoughtful life. In other words, social media was making me dumber.
I was training myself to live an unfocused, unthoughtful life.
In early January, 2018, I asked myself, “Is it worth it? Is social media worth losing your mind over?” That made me evaluate just what, exactly, I was getting from social media. From 2012-2014, my wife and I got a lot out of social media. Those were the years that we were going through the hell of losing Zekey, and we connected with many wonderful people through Twitter, Instagram, and especially Facebook. The encouragement, support, and prayer that we got from folks all over the world was incredible, and that experience brought a ton of redemption into a horrible period of our lives.