I Spent Every Day on Social Media for 6 Months

Nowadays, social media has become second nature to us. We spend more time on our phones using social media apps than talking to our loved ones. An average American picks up their phone 96 times a day, which is every 10 minutes.

Without realizing its addictive properties we have introduced the most addictive substance ever created by humans into our lives.

We hop on to these apps for various reasons:

• Know about happenings in the lives of our loved ones.
• To get any form of entertainment.
• To communicate with people far away from us.
• To grow our business.
• Establishing a personal brand.
• and many more…

Given that I know all this, you will be wondering why I spend six months every day on Social Media?

I wasn't aware of its addictive properties six months ago to such an extent that I will start resenting social media. I realized them only after spending half a year of my life there without focusing on anything else.

Six months ago, I had finished the first draft of my 70,000+ words manuscript. Then, I thought to have an audience, I need to spend time on social media to build one.

On introspection, I wish that someone had told me six months ago that I will end up miserable after the effect, then I would not have ventured into this endeavor. But, instead, I was spending 8–10 hours every day on social media.

I posted content every day multiple times in multiple ways on all platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn). I watched and read hours and hours of content on how to grow on social media platforms. The five tips or ten hacks and what not only to self-reflect and realize that I need to take a step back.

The self-proclaimed gurus on social media sharing these tips and hacks don't know for sure what will work because the social media algorithms are not available to them, and they also keep evolving. Growing on social media is more or less a hit-and-miss kind of thing. The best way to evolve is to be consistent and have patience.

Ever since I had my first smartphone, which was six years ago, I was never an avid social media user. Of course, I had accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But I used them sporadically. For example, I used to share sometimes some pictures from someplace I am traveling or something I wrote.

My focus lay on things I enjoyed, like writing articles, poetry, etc. but never becoming a social media influencer. This was never my goal and will never be.

What did I lose?

• The greed in me to have an audience before my book is available to the world gravitated me towards social media. Unfortunately, this greed obstructed me from editing my book because I devoted my time and energy to social media. Six months later, I realized that I am building this audience for my book, but I am not working on my book to make it available to the world.
• I lost my interest in the craft of writing. Spending so much time and energy on social media left me no time and energy to write articles, stories, and poems. As a result, I wrote four articles and 0 poems in the last six months.
• I lost a chance to be in a relationship with a wonderful person because social media became so important to me. So I didn't devote any time to her.
• I lost my mental health so much so that I had to seek professional help. There was no fulfillment in my life in what I was doing. There was always a dread weighing on me. I wasn't writing, which I cherish doing every waking minute of my life. I had a breakup. All these things were a wake-up call for me before things escalated so far down the road that there was no turning back.
• I lost the ability to socialize. I spend my days being a prisoner in my room with my phone, canceling plans, saying no to hanging out with friends, being lazy to go out of my room.
• I lost interest in my studies and university-related projects. As a result, I barely spent time studying and working on my Data Science projects.
• I lost interest in reading. Before using social media this much, I read before going to bed every night, but I didn't have any energy left to read and absorb any information before going to bed in the last six months.

What are the lessons I learned?

Spending every day on social media was a rollercoaster for me. But it sure taught me some valuable lessons.

Lesson 1:

• The most important lesson I learned is that social media is not for everybody-especially people who don't enjoy using social media.
• I can use social media in small doses. I can post content consistently, once a day or every alternative day, and interact with the platform for a few minutes a day, but posting multiple times a day and interacting on the platform for hours every day is not my cup of tea.

Lesson 2:

• This one is related to expectation management. My second most significant learning was to learn to manage my expectations better.
• I needed to understand that things take time to evolve. Yes, there are stories where people achieved success by going viral. But, in my experience, this is seldom the case for people posting educational content, especially when the platforms have so saturated that there is little to no organic growth.

Lesson 3:

• To get stuck in the rut of numbers. Analytics on any platform is vital to know what your audience likes and what it doesn't.
• But obsessing over the numbers is not healthy. The goal is to keep showing up.
• Growing slow taught me the value of patience. I realized that having ten audience members always show up and appreciate what you have to offer is any day better than having 1000 people who don't engage and interact with what you have to say.

Lesson 4:

• Realization of the importance of time and energy.
• The only limited asset we have in life is time. We need to be cautious as to where we spend our time. Also, we are not machines. We need to spend our energy on things that bring fulfillment to our lives rather than doing things that make us miserable.

Lesson 5:

Lesson 6:

• This ties in lessons 2, 3, and 5. The social media algorithms don't work for the users; they are designed to keep the users on the platforms for as long as possible to show ads and earn money.
• Nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, the numbers won't be as high as you expected, and they will keep staying low, or they will fluctuate.
• The low numbers will release cortisol in your body because they don't meet your expectations.
• When this happens, there is a high risk of developing depression. I can tell you that because I was on the verge of being depressed. I felt no energy to do anything anymore when my expectations weren't met. This was the reason that I had to seek professional help.

It feels like I rambled a lot about the downsides of social media in this post. Of course, there are pros and cons to everything, but in my experience, social media has brought me more downsides compared to the upsides. It is powerful because it allows people on different continents to communicate, but it should be used cautiously.

Social Media is more addictive than cigarettes.

Wrapping Up

I want to wrap up my ramble with brief pointers on things I lost and lessons I learned from social media.

What'd I lose?

1. My interest in the craft of writing.
2. My mental health.
3. A chance of having a fantastic relationship.
4. My focus on studies.
5. The ability to socialize.
6. Freedom by becoming a prisoner in my room with my phone.
7. My reading habit.

The lessons I learned

1. Social Media is not for everybody.
2. Things take time, especially on social media.
3. How valuable is patience?
4. Realized the importance of time and energy.
5. Don't get stuck in the whirlwind of numbers.
6. Social Media is not worth being depressed.
7. Understood the addiction social media brings.
8. How to manage your expectations better?
9. Having ten loyal members in the audience is better than 1000 non-loyal members.

I am now taking social media slowly. I am posting every alternate day, and that too using scheduling tools. I create micro-content in batches and then schedule it to have more time and energy to focus on writing.

Since opting for this strategy, I have done two edits of my book, and I am currently on the 3rd one.

Thank you for reading!