Social Media/Dopamine Detox: Day Two

01/06/25

1.

Today is Day Two of my social media detox; see Day One here.

I don't have as much to report today as I did yesterday. I had trouble falling asleep, which I wrote about last night. I woke up today pretty worn down, and I was generally groggy/lethargic for the rest of the day as well.

I remembered my lesson from yesterday, though:

We have to become responsible for ourselves, our states of mind, and be intentional in how we modify our environment to transition from one state of mind to another.

When I got home from work I made a bowl of my perfect oatmeal¹ and watched an episode of South Park² in an attempt to consciously wind down and transition from "work mode" to "unwinding before bed mode". Now I'm writing this post.

I'm more intentional about my choice of music tonight, too. I've got at Studio Ghibli-inspired Spotify playlist playing right now.

2.

Work was kind of a slog. We were still pretty dead, but not dead enough to fuck around. I found myself proper³ bored for the first time since starting this break, and I was at a loss for what to do.

I was also really low energy, to a level that I don't believe can be entirely explained by a lack of sleep. It reminded me of how it felt when I cut out caffeine way back when.⁴ I've now got a running theory that social media—which provides constant hits of dopamine—acts as a sort of energy boost.

I realized that every time I'm bored, tired, or otherwise need a pick-me-up, I go to my phone. Lighting up different parts of my brain with bullshit is like getting a shot of adrenaline. It doesn't matter if the content I consume is good or bad—the point is that it's reactionary. By eliciting a reaction (driven by dopamine), social media stimulates and energizes me.

To propel any sort of emotional response, energy is required. It doesn't matter how inconsequential or small of a response it is.

Now times that by ten, or fifty, or a hundred. Each scroll, click, view, and read is shooting me up with minute amounts of adrenaline that compound to form a boost large enough to stave off my tiredness, my boredom, my depression, whatever.

Anyway, I started doing random shit to fill my time at work, like:

3.

I noticed this in effect when I'd catch myself switching from one thing to the next.

For example: I sat down to eat breakfast. After breakfast I had to get ready to go outside and shovel the driveway.

In between finishing my oatmeal and getting up out of my chair, my brain was wrestling a cobra.

I didn't particularly want to get up, let alone get dressed, go out in the cold, and exhaust myself shoveling the driveway and laying down salt.

Paralyzed by procrastination, I reached for my phone on instinct, mindlessly seeking some sort of distraction to either facilitate further stalling—or a fix of dopamine that would pacify my mind into submission, and in turn relent to attending to the task at hand.

Of course, I didn't find either. (I've set up my phone to decentivize using it as much as possible—I'll explain more about that in a separate post.)

So, with great, begrudging reluctance, I tromped outside and dealt with the driveway.

In the end, I actually liked it. Once again I had stumbled into another opportunity to simply sit with my thoughts as I went about whatever I needed to get done.

The snow was thick on the ground. After five minutes I could feel the burn in my arms. The sun was bright in the sky. The air was crisp. I studied tracks in the snow, trying to decide what small animal left them; either a cat or a rabbit—I couldn't figure it out.

After shoveling the drive I popped out to the veterinary office to pick up my cats' food.⁵

Another wave of lethargy hit me once I got home. I had a quick nap with the cats, then got up to video call with my wife. By the time we finished talking, I hurried up getting ready and went out to work.

4.

Well, you know the rest. And now we're here.

Overall, an uneventful day.

It just occurred to me that none of our days are truly "uneventful" anymore; if there aren't any events taking place in our lives, we busy ourselves nosing into the lives of others' and seeing what's happening there.

I guess today's lesson is that, contrary to Bo Burnham's song, boredom is not a crime.

Boredom is a result of a lack of anything happening in our days. And that's not a bad thing. I'd rather have a boring, uneventful day than a day of stress and running all over the place. Boring days are good. They're natural. Maybe we need to relearn how to live with them—enjoy them, even.

5.

My last thought before I get ready for bed:

Boredom doesn't feel good. I'd rather be anything but. If I can't find a positive or constructive activity to solve that problem, I'll look elsewhere, even if it leads to something unhealthy or maladaptive. Maybe anxious dwelling, droomscrolling, etc can be thought of as some attempt to find leisure in this context. Without them, I'm pretty fucking bored. But I guess I'd rather be bored than manufacture problems to worry about for lack of anything else to do. It's not as "fun," but what good is "fun" worth if it also comes with a load of crap?

✘ Posted on — 01/06/25
✘ Last modified — 6 months, 4 weeks ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/social-mediadopamine-detox-day-two

Footnotes

#blog #detox #home #internet #mental health