Last week, I finally yanked the ripcord and bailed out on my remaining social media outlets: Twitter and Facebook.

My primary motivation: making healthier choices regarding my attention. Along with that comes a desire to improve my information diet, to streamline my creative focus, and to take more responsibility over how I relate to the world.

Yes, I’ve watched The Social Dilemma. I’ve listened to Jaron Lanier on various podcasts. And I get all that; the significance of those viewpoints influenced my thinking.

The more proximate causes came out of how I navigated the turmoil of 2020.

First, I came to appreciate the view of my life I got when all the normal razzamatazz was stripped away. I missed the normal routine, true. The options. A change of scenery. But as the year wound down, part of me was grateful for the clear division between ‘nice to have’ and ‘what really matters’ forced on us all. My outlook shifted, and I’m listening to my intuitions about what it means.

Another effect of 2020 came in how I put more emphasis on reducing stress. I’ve practiced vipassana meditation since the early 1990s. Nothing crazy: no months-long silent retreats, no hour-long sits. But steady, daily doses of 15 - 20 minutes. This past year, I took it a little further, adding in a morning walk of what became a sort of moving meditation. I also made a shift in the autumn to practicing qigong meditation in the mornings, with a shorter vipassana sit mid-afternoon. (I won’t get into the details and distinctions here, but they’re interesting. Several years of kung fu and tai chi study introduced me to the qigong meditation styles, but I never hit them hard until this fall.) This renewed commitment to meditation added a clarity to my awareness I’ve found noteworthy.

Put all of that together—along with the carnival madhouse that’s been the daily news cycles here in America for longer than anyone thought possible—and it became hard to miss the negative effect on my attention of even a ‘short dip’ onto Twitter.

The difference between my awareness when I’ve been meditating, writing, or working out versus when I’ve spent even a brief spell on social media became impossible to miss—and harder and harder to justify.

Why get instantly annoyed—because of someone’s business model?

Why allow myself to get caught in the addictive pull of scrolling for more and more—because of someone’s business model?

Why chase likes? Get caught up in the performative, shallow marketplace of hot-takes? Bear the unrelenting pressure of coming up with some clever nugget of—whatever? Because in the hyper-competitive information industry, these are the incentives: hijack my awareness, time, and emotions so that I increase someone else’s profit margin.

All for the price of reducing the quality of my awareness and mood.

Can a person use social media mindfully? Maybe, sure. Can a person eat a bag of chips mindfully? Probably—but it’s still not healthy.

That last hurdle I had to get over: as an author, I need to be on social media. To connect to readers, to connect with other writers, to promote my books—or, more vital, my brand.

But—do I, really?

I’m not sure being on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook did much (anything?) for book sales. Sure, now and then I’d have a wonderful interaction with someone—but was that even 1% of the time?

And the most interesting relationships with readers I’ve formed have come through email. People responding to my newsletter. People reaching out through my site after reading my books. It’s more direct, more nuanced, and more authentic communication. By a country mile.

When all is said and done, I’m confident that whatever I lose by leaving social media behind will be more than made up for in the benefits to my awareness, creativity, and mood.

Will I lose out on some visibility, discoverability, and potential readers?

Probably.

But my books will always be out there. This website will always be here. Email always works. My newsletter comes out every month.

Ultimately, I get more out of the conversations and relationships stemming from those channels than I ever have on social media.

Simplicity. Streamlining attention. Authentic connection.

Hello, 2021.