Substack is definitely social media. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…..it’s a duck. The posts of people congratulating themselves for leaving social media on Substack really mystified me. I mean whatever they tell themselves to help them sleep at night, right? I saw an Atlantic article the other day about Reddit and how wholesome, uplifting, and positive it was for a social platform. I didn’t understand that either. It’s like drinking alcohol. It’s a poison, everyone knows that now, but it’s a socially acceptable poison and as a society we’ve convinced ourselves that there’s a level of consumption that’s healthy, but is regular consumption of any poison at any level healthy?
it's so true. when I stopped drinking, people looked at me like I had two heads. They acted like I was inconveniencing them by not drinking. The same goes sometimes for when I tell people I'm off social.
I try to remind myself that all of these platforms have entire teams or departments of people whose job it is to keep me hooked on the platform. They know what they’re doing and their model is addiction. I can’t beat the science. But I can manage how I spend my time. 💕
thank you for this post. as someone who went viral during her third week on substack (still don't know how that happened) i can acknowledge the dangers of it. for a while, i got obsessed with checking the interactions my posts were getting and nothing seemed to be enough. i agree – substack is social media, whether we like it or not. and we all seek validation in one way or another. thank you for talking about this 💌
Substack is definitely social media. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…..it’s a duck. The posts of people congratulating themselves for leaving social media on Substack really mystified me. I mean whatever they tell themselves to help them sleep at night, right? I saw an Atlantic article the other day about Reddit and how wholesome, uplifting, and positive it was for a social platform. I didn’t understand that either. It’s like drinking alcohol. It’s a poison, everyone knows that now, but it’s a socially acceptable poison and as a society we’ve convinced ourselves that there’s a level of consumption that’s healthy, but is regular consumption of any poison at any level healthy?
it's so true. when I stopped drinking, people looked at me like I had two heads. They acted like I was inconveniencing them by not drinking. The same goes sometimes for when I tell people I'm off social.
I try to remind myself that all of these platforms have entire teams or departments of people whose job it is to keep me hooked on the platform. They know what they’re doing and their model is addiction. I can’t beat the science. But I can manage how I spend my time. 💕
Yes! It's a constant cycle of "oof this feeling sucks" > "oh wait this is not me. it's the system"
thank you for this post. as someone who went viral during her third week on substack (still don't know how that happened) i can acknowledge the dangers of it. for a while, i got obsessed with checking the interactions my posts were getting and nothing seemed to be enough. i agree – substack is social media, whether we like it or not. and we all seek validation in one way or another. thank you for talking about this 💌