I Want My Brain Cells Back From Social Media

Lessons from a neurologist and a bushy squirrel

(*Audio or audio with reading is highly recommended. For the complete sensory experience, grab a good cuppa and stare out a window while listening. Not a joke— legit listener/reader participation. I promise it’s worth it.)

The shrill decibels of the MRI echoed through my skull as I lay on a cold table with my head strapped in a harness. I was having cluster headaches and a general neurologist suggested a baseline brain scan. Nothing remarkable came back, except mild cortical atrophy. I did a Google — “subsequent brain shrinkage is common with old age.” Is 43 years old, old? Is it post-Covid funk? Hereditary? Lack of crossword puzzles? “Those are all possible,” he said. 

Next, we discussed trimming my screen time outside of regular writing hours. “What’s your social media usage?” he asked. 

Um… average? I post and scroll, like others? 
(The average person spends three hours per day on their phone and 2.5 hours on social media. That’s ball park of 17 hours per week, 910 hours per year and 18,200 hours over twenty years — equivalent of two years shaved off twenty doing social media things.) 

“Consider stopping for a while. See if it helps,” he suggested. I left his office a scorned teenager and dove into studies. 

Recurring social media usage may contribute to poor cognitive performance — closely resembling age-related cognitive decline, deficits in transactive memory, disrupted sleep, a dopamine loop mimicking substance addiction; shrink parts of the brain associated with maintaining attention, spark phantom push notifications, trigger grass is greener syndrome, de-energize the motivation center of the brain and lead to depression.

All I could recall was the late 80s PSA with the egg frying in a skillet — “This is Your Brain on Drugs.” Is This My Brain on Social Media?

Even if that’s a dubious assumption, why continue to (possibly) dim my brain functions with an app?

My two minds about social media fired away: 

I’m an artist —  don’t I need social media to be relevant, to do my art?
Ish. Deep down, I know what makes a writing career is —  wait for it, writing. I imagine artists of yesteryear would have found social media a banal gimmick. Even today, some of the artists I admire most have no way of being found, except through their work. 

What about marketing and running a small business?
That’s tricky. Tweezing posts often masquarades as valuable action. Personally, I have wasted countless hours putting the end before the beginning and middle —  focusing on fancy colors, captions, and curation rather than doing the meat and potatoes of the thing itself. 

What about inspiration? I dig a quote and story of overcoming. 
Stop, this is confusing motivation for inspiration. They are not synonyms. Let’s face it: social media is shallow motivation, short-term pushes of enrollment. Inspiration comes from within, bridging the external world with our innerness —  a personal experience which can only be felt.

What about the shorthand of acquaintances’ lives, birthday shoutouts, cute kid and pet videos?
You’ll live.

I really love Celeste Barber videos.
I fear fading into mystery —  not the cool kind, the forgotten kind.

And yet, since popping my social media cherry on Myspace, I’ve grappled with a culture where nothing is left to privacy anymore. Not haircuts, children, grief, sunsets, anniversaries, bugs, work, travel, the artist’s process, marriage, parenting, flowers, inner thoughts, exercise, meditation, therapy, the quietness of reading, inside our homes, pregnancy, pie, new shoes. And this abandonment of privacy has made it all less meaningful. No kernel of self is kept, untouched, for self.

Akin to diarrhea, we have documentarrhea.
 
Whatever happened to living the life cresting through us without cataloging it? 

It stands the more we exhibit and promote ourselves online, the less knowable we become to ourselves —  and friends. Friends with names have become mainly names. Communication has dwindled to a DM, comment, or like. We’ve traded community for audience and we’ve forgotten the difference. 

I opened Instagram anyways. Maybe I was over-reacting? 

My recent post about an evening at the ballet had favorable interaction. 
I began scrolling — 

Emily’s up for an early run. Sophie’s offering a Create Your Ideal Life course. Rachel’s son ate a blueberry. Tom got a new car. Eckhart Tolle is reminding me to be present. (Insta vs Real Life —  it’s humanly impossible to be present while scrolling with prying eyes at others and characterizing aspects of myself, biz, or kid to output online.) Bethany has fostered another senior dog with its tongue hanging out its mouth. Aubergine is trending as an under-utilitized shade of paint. My ex is in Cabo with his newlywed wife showing off their half-naked bodies. (I hadn’t noticed the tattoo of a white rabbit on her wrist before. He hated my three tiny tattoos.) NPR reported the latest smack down between Republicans and Democrats. Marcy informs me today is a tragic day of remembrance. Jen’s packing for an exciting trip, #nospoilers though. Claire changed her hair color from brown to auburn. Adam is promoting his new movie. Reese revealed her latest bookclub pick. Mel Robbins says count backwards from FIVE when I need to do something hard. 5, 4, 3, 2, Log off —  No, not yet! Helen painted her hallway bathroom vintage green. A New York farm collective is selling chickens. My neighbor Taylor’s sunrise from her window is mesmerizing. So mesmerizing — 

I’m hearting an image on my phone. 
Of what’s outside. MY OWN KITCHEN WINDOW.

That was a one minute scroll— p a u s e…to consider your brain after 5 minutes or an hour. These days, for me, it feels equivalent to 100 browser tabs of Show & Tell opened across my brain —  slipping a digital veil over myself, addictively reinforced, daily.

Still though, I do relate to the touching humanness in our social media culture —  the quest to forge an identity, mark the passage of time, seek approbation, watch other people’s lives, peddle our passions, take pride in our kids, reaffirm ourselves with quotes, the impulse that moves a person to stage or capture a moment in their favorite romper on a bicycle with a green vista and the effort it takes to make a reel.

And, let’s not forget the unflattering point of departure —  of what is happening inside our brains, to our soft souls and our children watching us. 

I deleted the app from my home screen and set my smudgy phone face down. A bushy squirrel darted back and forth across my window sill —  how many mornings had I missed his quirky routine? I resisted exploiting his nut gathering with a pic. Instead, I listened to my coffee breath as the sky woke up —  mountain blue… amber yellow… scarlet orange.

Five ordinary truths entered:

Truth #1: Everything feels a little sweeter when it’s private. 
Truth #2: Scrolling will only troll my mind. 
Truth #3: Physical spaces feel better, than digital ones of quicksand.
Truth #4: Rome will not fall, even if I visit and don’t post it.

My daughter ran into the kitchen, a timely messenger from the universe, proudly belting a melody she made up while getting dressed—
 
As long as you try, you’ll be okay
As long as you try, you’ll be okay

Truth #5: Real-life is where real life exists.

If you linger there long enough…

You may remember 
what it feels like 
to feel alive.

In a society obsessed with looking at itself through social media, I say be a real-life rebel and stare out the window, at least on occasion. The endorsement that matters most —  yours, may come.

And your brain cells will thank you.

The correlation of social media on the brain cited from: NeuLine Health, Neurogrow, Center for Brain Health — University of Texas, American Psychological Association, University of Pennsylvania, and TedEd

(This has been part of a We’re All Doing Better Than We Think recording).

*This audio essay first appeared on my website, witherwrites.com