social media is slowly killing you

(and you're letting it)

Not long ago, I was an excessive consumer of social media content.

The worst part about it? I developed a compulsive habit of comparing myself to people on the internet. Who I’d never even met.

I allowed strangers to occupy my headspace. And I couldn’t control it.

I evaluated myself against everyone excessively.

It drove me nuts.

Countless hours. Wasted. Spent comparing myself to people much younger than myself who seemed to have everything figured out. So much achievement in such a short space of time.

I felt like a failure, irrelevant, and small.

These phases extended to days, weeks, and months.

I knew it was bad.

But I still did it.

I fell into a very deep hole I couldn’t climb out of.

You’d think the exposure to the possibilities of improvement would motivate me to change. Wrong. I was so drained I never felt like moving a muscle.

I accepted I couldn’t achieve anything.

Until, I decided I no longer wanted to feel sorry for myself.

I no longer wanted to be glued to this destructive device.

I wanted to be in control of my own life.

you can decide to be a consumer or a creator

Creators are more concerned about what they think of themselves.
Consumers are more concerned about what others think of them.

There’s two types of social media.

One side is informative. There are ample opportunities to learn. The other is for show. People sharing uninteresting photos which do nothing for you (apart from make you feel bad about yourself).

As of July 2024, the number of people using social media is over 5.2 billion. The average user accesses 7 social media platforms per month. Of these 5.2 billion, the vast majority are consumers of content.

Most people prefer to live their lives as consumers.

Whether of food, technology, or media.

Why do most people automatically reduce themselves to consumers of the type of media which shares perspectives or a message?

There’s a few different reasons for this.

1. You adopt the perspective you have nothing to offer. You’re not taught to be a leader. You are taught to follow and not think for yourself too much.

2. Being a consumer is comfortable. Your face is not on the internet. You have no accountability. You have no skin in the game.

3. You can’t be bothered to try and think for yourself. You’d rather someone with a very different life experience advise you what to do.

Consumption in any form is pleasurable.

If you consume informative media without applying it in your life, it comes at a cost. You are aware of what you could do. You know the possibilities. But you don’t take any action to apply the lessons you’ve learned.

This can be more dangerous than not being aware of what’s possible.

Why?

You lose two crucial things:

• Confidence

• Time

constant consumption of content kills confidence

Social media will make you feel like you’re not good enough.

When you experience everyone else’s excellence, you will start comparing yourself (like I did). It’s human nature. You won’t even mean to. But you’ll see somebody’s success and subconsciously judge the other person as better or worse than you.

For-show social media is a platform for people to share their highs.

You will feel like you’re failing.

People showcase snippets of their life on social media. It’s just a snapshot in time where everything is perfect. It’s a high point. After the photo, the person goes back to their normal life. But you don’t see this. You only see the best bits. People typically only share their best bits with the world. They hide the rest.

Of course you’re going to start assuming everyone’s life is better than yours.

When you’re constantly consuming content, you will slowly start to succumb to self-sabotage.

You will feel worthless.

Sitting.
Scrolling.
Sad.

I feel my happiest and most confident when I’ve barely been on my phone.

And it’s not because I’m not seeing how good everyone else’s life is. No. I am focusing on myself and trying to improve without external pressure.

The more time you spend in the external world, the less time you have to develop your internal world. Your inner peace and well-being is the most precious thing you have.

Great news. You exercise complete control over your internal tranquility.

Nobody can touch that.

You can instantly start living with more confidence if you put your phone down.

Focus on yourself.

Remember you’re on your own journey. The only person you should compare yourself to is who you were last year, last month, last week, yesterday.

If you know you’re improving, it’s the only thing which matters.

social media snatches your special time away

We’ve established social media kills confidence. But you can rebuild this.

What you can’t do is get your time back.

Time is precious.

Stop spending time on things which serve no purpose. It doesn’t matter what you say, mindless scrolling on social media is never a productive use of your time.

I remember when my screen time was upwards of 6 hours a day.

Time went by so fast.

My mind would be fried.

I wouldn’t be able to do anything else.

I felt like I had no time.

Answer this question for me.

What could you accomplish if you spent 2 hours a day on something meaningful?

• You could start working on the side business which you never got around to starting because you never made the time for it.

• You could go outside and get some fresh air.

• You could cook a nice meal.

• You could go to the gym and workout.

• You could spend this precious time with people you love.

I could type out another 100 things you could do but people will stop reading. Everyone can find 2 hours a day.

People behave as if they love their phones more than they love themselves.

It’s a serious statement.

Social media rots your brain, kills your confidence, and pulls you away from what’s really important to you.

Scrolling social media requires not a single use of your brain cells. Your life will only improve if you eliminate what’s not important. You must make changes.

Spend life making easy decisions, live an unfulfilling and mediocre life.

Make the tough decisions. Stop using social media for a while. You’ll end up in a position you would never have imagined. And, let me tell you. It’s going to be a much better position than the one you were in before.

But you need time.

Seeing what your friends were up to on the weekend is not important. If you really cared, you would’ve been there with them.

Stop wasting time.

If you find yourself agreeing as you read this, but take no action, then congratulations, you just wasted the one life you had.

why you must solve this problem today

Remove social media from your life.

You’ll realise the only thing you were missing out on was your own life.

You create time to regain control of your life.
You become more present.
You make better decisions.
You realise you have so much time (even too much of it).

You will slow down.

You will be able to focus much better.

You will dedicate more time to the real and present connections in your life. To the people who are actually in your life now. Not people who are 2,000km away somewhere in the middle of the ocean scuba diving.

You will become more grateful for the things you do have.

Social media makes you feel like you don’t have anything. Everyone is showing off what they have. You don’t even want these things. You think you do because you assume it’s the reason these people look happy.

What you want is to be happy now.

To be happy now, you need to live in the now.
To live in the now, you need to focus on yourself.
To focus on yourself, you need to stop comparing yourself to other people.
To stop comparing yourself to other people, you need to remove social media.

It’s not an easy decision.

But I haven’t met one person who removed social media and said it’s the worst decision they ever made. Weak people will go back to social media because they’re not comfortable with their new reality of feeling ‘disconnected’.

You will realise how much more simple your life is without social media.

You will realise how much better your feel.

What’s your experience with social media?

Do you use it regularly?

If you are no longer on social media, was it a terrible decision? (Probably not).

~ Stefano