How to take more from social media than it takes from you
How would you define your relationship with social media?
Has it changed over time?
How often do you consider its impact in your life?
Back in 2019, I made the decision to consciously remove myself on the most prominent platforms at the time; Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I deactivated my accounts, but didn’t delete them. I treated them as a repository for memories, an archive of photos. Not a live part of my daily routines.
I just felt like I’d reached an end point with it all. I had an intuitive sense that it was removing something from my life, not adding. These were the reasons I boiled it down to:
Unrealistic comparisons: I became aware of the increasingly negative impact social media was having on my view of my world, partly through media, by mainly exposing myself to the ‘best versions’ of others on social media. When we only see the highlights reels of others, it can have a startling impact on thinking our lives are somehow not enough. The need to compare is a strong one, a human reaction.
But I didn’t like the way it made me feel, so turning away from the source of the pain seemed a good idea. I wanted to remove the trigger, rather than fight the temptation.
Loss of gratitude: Being consistently exposed to those unrealistic comparisons, I noticed that I was losing gratitude for the genuine moments in my own life every day. The things I should be grateful for. I wanted to focus more on the things that make me feel good about my life, with less time being subjected to what I could/should be doing, or might be missing out on.
I wanted to gain autonomy over my own emotions and feelings, not be driven by the ones social media wanted to push on me, so removing social media again made sense.
Weaker connections: I felt like I had too many surface level connections with too many people. I might have known what they did last weekend, or where they went on their last holiday, but I knew nothing about how they felt about those moments. Or what their worries, fears, hopes were that lay behind the screen.
Social media broadcasts weren’t going to tell me those things in the same way that a one-to-one interaction would. I wanted that to change.
Mindless scrolling: Let’s face it, human brains and our insatiable thirst for dopamine hits weren’t made to compete with the algorithms behind social media feeds. The sad reality is that the algorithms are stronger than us, they know how to keep us endlessly scrolling through minimal value content, or content designed to enrage us.
I didn’t like the amount of time I felt was slipping away looking at pointless football or golf-related content, when I could have been reading, or talking to a friend, or enjoying a moment in the sun uninterrupted. Removing the ability to access social media seemed the best way to take back this time.
Socio-political concerns: Much has been documented on the polarising nature of social media, and how it has contributed to the rise of more authoritarian figures in the forms of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and others. I didn’t like that I was implicit in fueling some of these developments through my involvement with the platforms, and thus supporting their ad-revenue businesses.
Simply, I reached a point where I felt that what I was getting out of social media - supposed ‘social connection’ - no longer matched up to what it was getting out of me.
The balance was out of sync.
So I opted out of the game.
It wasn’t a risk-free decision. I worried about what I might lose when I switched off.
I worried that I would lose out on knowing what was going on in the lives of those I was connected to. When I next saw someone, I wouldn’t be able to say ‘How was your trip to X?’, or ‘Your kids looked like they loved Y’, or ‘Congrats on achieving Z’. Would they judge me for not taking an interest in this way? Maybe.
I worried that people wouldn’t know about what was going on in my life as easily. Did I judge them? Not really.
And those things happened.
I missed out on knowing about some of those events. People in my life missed out on knowing the goings on in mine.
But not everyone did. When I switched off from social media, I began to notice something else.
I became more selective in who I reached out to. And noticed who reached out to me. I became more considered in how, and what, and with whom, I shared aspects of my life.
I started using Whatsapp as social media.
Because it allowed me to do so in more selective ways.
Played a nice golf course? I shared it only with my golfing buddies. Went on an interesting holiday? I shared it with my family group, or friends that I know love travelling to new places. Read a thought-provoking article? I shared it directly with someone I knew might appreciate it, and asked their opinion.
I found ways to make my connections more social, and less disparate.
Too much of social media is about broadcasting. Broad. Cast. Looking at that word, it can be defined as: to be cast or scattered in all directions.
That doesn’t sound like a way to make meaningful connections. Whether we’re broadcasting our lives, or consuming the broadcasts of others. The thought of ‘sliding into someone’s DMs’ has come to mean many different things over the years, but perhaps we should be paying more attention to the concept behind it of creating more targeted connections.
In a world where we are increasingly interacting from behind screens, from a distance, I believe it’s more important than ever to find ways to introduce more humanity into how we do that. And broadcasting isn’t the answer.
Another definition of broadcasting is: to be made public by means of radio or television. And I think we can easily add social media to those two traditional mediums.
Making something public isn’t the same as fostering a connection. It’s the opposite. It’s putting something out there to see what might come back. There’s little intention behind it. It’s a one-way interaction. It’s a mass message. This might be fine if you harbour ambitions to become an influencer, or opinion leader in a space or sector.
But humans aren’t designed to interact like that. Building authentic, rewarding and valued relationships cannot be built on these broad casts. In fact, our very happiness relies on it.
In the longest running study into human happiness, started 85 years ago in 1938 by Harvard University, scientists identified the number one factor behind human happiness:
Positive Relationships: The Key to a Long, Happy Life
The research emphasizes the importance of “social fitness”, which involves assessing connections and devoting time to relationships that foster well-being. The study found that close ties contribute more to happiness than money, fame, social class, IQ, and genetics.
When we live our lives in broadcast on social media, whether posting or consuming, we deny ourselves the opportunity to foster truly close ties.
And there’s an evolutionary reason why.
It's hard to maintain close relationships with a large number of people. "Dunbar's Number" is a concept that helps explain why we tend to have limits on the number of meaningful connections we can have.
Dunbar's Number is named after British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who discovered that there seems to be a cognitive limit to the number of stable relationships our brains can handle. This number is estimated to be around 150.
There is a strong benefit to establishing stable relationships; they put us in a position to work out who we can, and can’t trust, within society. And that’s important when you’re trying to navigate an unpredictable and uncertain world. Alongside the vast, fulfilling emotionally-driven benefits that such relationships provide.
Now, you might be wondering why there's a limit to the number of relationships we can maintain. It turns out that building and nurturing connections requires time, effort, and emotional investment. Our brains have a finite capacity to remember and process information about other people, their emotions, and their social dynamics.
Think about it this way: imagine you have 150 friends, family members, and acquaintances. You would need to remember their names, details about their lives, and how you're connected to each of them. You would also need to invest time and energy into maintaining those relationships, such as keeping in touch, supporting them in times of need, and being there for important events.
Beyond Dunbar's number, as the number of relationships increases, it becomes increasingly challenging to allocate the necessary mental and emotional resources to each connection. That's why, as our social circles grow larger, the quality and depth of those relationships tends to decrease.
Interestingly, Dunbar's number isn't limited to just humans. It can also be observed in other social species, like primates and even some bird species, where they have a limit on the number of individuals they can maintain stable social bonds with.
If you ever feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with a large number of relationships, remember that Dunbar's number offers an explanation for why it's difficult to maintain meaningful connections with everyone we meet, or connect with or follow on social media. Our brains have a natural limit, and it's perfectly okay to focus on nurturing a smaller, close-knit group of relationships that truly matter to us.
When Facebook first launched, I remember feeling like there was a race amongst peers to accumulate friends. How many did each person have? This spilled into follower numbers on Twitter and Instagram, or connections on LinkedIn. And I imagine remains the case on TikTok, or YouTube. These numbers blew 150 out the water in most cases. They’re broadcast numbers. They’re numbers that simply don’t stand a chance of being meaningful due to our inherent limits of what we can handle.
Social media may not be the issue. How we use it most likely is.
I recently returned from time away celebrating a wonderful wedding of close friends. It was an occasion that brought together people from across the world, as is often the case in one’s mid 30s.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt compelled to revisit social media more actively. But with a marked difference: I did so highly selectively. I became considered in whose content I sought out. I shared my own curated pieces across specific Whatsapp groups or private messages. I ventured back onto Instagram, but sought out the content of only those that I felt fell within my considered spheres.
I focused on my 150, and used these connection opportunities to deepen my interactions with those within.
And I found that scrolling through this content didn’t feel mindless. It felt fulfilling to see the lives I consciously wanted to know more about. It enhanced gratitude for those in my life, rather than diminishing it. And as a result, I didn’t compare my lot to others, I appreciated our varied approaches and experiences.
I felt more connected, by being more intentional.
I’ve traded broadcast for narrowcast.
And it’s made me want to seek out more ways to get more niche. Phonecalls, isolated time with friends or family, really considering what my 150 could look like and considering how to deepen my connections across them.
Instagram offers the option of sharing stories only with Close Friends. What if this were to become your default option, and you limited it to no more than 150 people?
In a world that constantly encourages us to choose more, achieve more, do more, narrowing our focus onto the one thing that matters more than anything, relationships, can be the antidote.
Social media isn’t going anywhere. And in itself isn’t evil. How we choose to experience it, is what we get out of it.
How might applying the concept of Dunbar’s number to your life, online and offline, help to deepen your relationships?