There is a brief period when exiting sleep, especially from dreams, where I feel my mind is truly mine.
No desire to chase email, no compulsion to see what my friends are up to on Instagram, no framing by others' opinions...
Just a quiet moment of reflection in between sleep and waking, wondering if this is all really real.
If purgatory could have a positive counterpart, I suppose this could be it.
The moment I'm aware I'm in this state is the moment it breaks.
I'm awake. I'm Leo. I have needs, wants and fears.
Open up my Inbox.
Did that person email me back yet? No. Any replies to my job applications? No. Move on. Archive 10 marketing emails while saving a few I want to copy.
Open up Instagram.
Wow, an acquaintance is half-way around the world again on vacation. Must be nice. How are they affording all of that?
Swipe up. Horrific scene of an overdose in the Tenderloin, an area I lived in during my early 20s. I've seen so many that my mind is desensitized.
Swipe up. A kind Samaritan is giving money to the homeless and connecting them with housing shelters. See? Humanity. There is still good in the world (and a reason to continue consuming social media).
Swipe up. Some post about F1.
Swipe up. Another post about marathon training. Yeah, maybe I should run today.
Swipe up. Brain-rot comedy skit. Send to my wife. That was actually funny.
Swipe up. Someone marketing their e-comm course.
Swipe up.
Swipe up.
Swipe up.
The 5 minutes I "allowed" myself to browse Instagram has sneakily overflowed to 15 minutes.
Not so bad. At least it's not 30 minutes.
Now we can get the day started...start up ChatGPT...
What started out as a few moments of calm have been framed by dozens of pieces of information at rapid pace, affecting my emotions for the rest of the day.
Meticulously constructed by data scientists, product managers and UX designers all optimizing to squeeze every last millisecond of attention out of me.
With email, I feel like a human router - forwarding, consuming or archiving information. Reacting.
With social media, I'm starting to feel like the experiment myself. Like they always say - "if they product is free, you are the product" - and I'm feeling less organic with each swipe.
With AI, I feel like we've outsourced and crowdsourced work. I make less mistakes but I also have to actively think for myself less.
With social media, I wonder how these micro-scenes, especially ones of violence, despair and consumption, are compounding throughout the years...probably not good. Probably not an outcome that I want to live in. Anxiety, fear, social stress...
Just like the first generation with cigarettes didn't know it was bad for them (and even had doctors recommending them to pregnant women)...we are that first generation with social media at scale.
I remember when the internet was a place you had to log into, with a specific sound and a wait time. A place you eventually left back for the real world.
And now..."brain rot"..."my algorithm"..."doom-scrolling"
We're giving cute names to very real issues.
But to not participate is to be left behind. To have people wonder if you're "ok". I've wondered the same about friends that have dropped off of social media unannounced. "I haven't seen his story in a while...I hope he's doing fine."
The social media is now the predominant social fabric, and it's feeling less like a blanket and more like a straight-jacket.
I feel like this is an unspoken but widely known battle of our generation.
To reclaim our minds and attention.
To reclaim those moments after waking and extend them minute by minute until we're able to reclaim the day. Reclaim the week. Reclaim the years to really live under our own charter.
Make the internet a place again, and not a forced, A/B tested, micro-optimized control mechanism.