I Haven't Opened Social Media Since August

what i've been up to and why

Friends.

As the title says, I haven’t opened my social media applications since August**. I was planning to do this for the month of September, but I might extend it through October … maybe even the holidays.

(** Side Note: I do handle social media for Bart Ehrman and Alexander Shaia and so although I post for them and keep tabs on their comments, I haven’t opened up my personal accounts other than to DM a few podcast guests. Bart or Alexander, if you’re reading this - I’m still doing my job. HA!).

It all started because I noticed that I was pulling my phone out to do something only to then find myself doing something else, mindlessly scrolling for … for who knows how long. It was almost like I was in a trance of some sort, not even in control of what I was doing.

I’d go to drop a note or a reminder about something.

Then …

I don’t know.

But.

… I’d open Instagram to see how that last post did, then I would see that I picked up some new followers, then I’d see that there were some DMs to check, and then I’d go to the activity feed and scroll for a while, then 1 reel that someone sent me would lead to another and another and another. Then I was in Facebook doing the same thing - checking on that post, looking at some DM’s that were waiting for me, scrolling for a while.

A notification HERE.

A notification THERE.

A notificaton about THIS.

A notification about THAT.

A comment.

A like.

A follow.

And I was doing this everyday - multiple times a day. Then I noticed I would reach for my phone out of habit at times when I was actually focusing (or trying to focus) on something else - doing some graphics work, reading, playing with Jordan, sitting on the couch with Dana watching TV, getting into bed for the night.

“I wonder how that post did?”

“I wonder if that person answered my DM?”

“I wonder if they saw that reel?”

I’d reach for my phone to do something (answer a text or set my alarm or check the weather or whatever).

And.

Then.

Before I knew it.

… I was scrolling - AGAIN.

What was most concerning to me, though, was that I was doing it without realizing it and that I was habitually reaching for it when I was truly trying to concentrate on something else like reading or just sitting and even playing with Jordan.

And scolling?

It would inevitibly lead me down a rabbit hole of despair as I saw post after post filled with various opinions about the latest thing Donald Trump said or the latest shooting or the latest consipiracy theory or the latest person “our side” (whether that be “the Left” or “the Right”) expects us to demonize and hate on today.

Phew.

I NEEDED THIS BOOK

At the same time I had began reading a book by a guy named Johann Hari called “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention - and How to Think Deeply Again”.

Now.

There are some books I have to read (like, for the podcast).

There are some books I want to read (for myself, for the podcast, etc).

Then there are other books that I need to read - and this felt like one of those books, you know? A book (given what I shared above) that I absolutely needed to pick up.

In the book Hari talks about the work of BF Skinner who was a famous American Psychologist and Harvard Professor. Skinner’s work is vast, but one of his biggest contributions was his discovery that if you reward an animal (or human) enough for doing a thing, they will continue to do that thing almost habitually in order to get the reward.

Hari puts it like this …

“You can take an animal that seems to be freely making up its own mind about what to pay attention to and you can get it to pay attention to whatever you choose for it.”

For instance, for one of Skinner’s experiments he took a pigeon and put it in a cage. He then introduced a bird feeder that would release seed only when he pushed the button.

BUT.

Skinner would only push the button when the pigeon made one, specific movement (like sticking out it’s left wing or lifting up it’s right leg) … and the result? After doing this a number of times, the pigeon quickly learned that if it wanted food all it needed to do was make the specific movement and so it would randomly lift it’s leg or flap it’s wing over and over again so that it could get another burst of food.

Now.

Here’s what Hari brought to my attention.

Are you ready?

The people who designed social media? The people who worked behind the scenes to create Instagram and other social media platforms? Yes. You guessed it. They were well aware of BF Skinner, well aware of his research, well aware of the work he did with pigeons, well aware of how he discovered overlap between his work with pigeons and his work with humans and so Instagram developers began asking …

“If we reinforce our users for taking selfies - if we give them hearts and likes as a result - will they start to do it more obsessively, just like the pigeon will obsessively hold out its wing or leg to get extra seed? They took Skinner’s core technique and applied it to billions of people.”

Man.

And that really made me mad. Doesn’t that make you mad?! Doesn’t it tick you off to realize that a bunch of nerds made a computer program that’s base technology isn’t a microchip or some fancy software, but human psychology that has been manipulated to control you and keep you (and your kids!) glued to your screen so that they can (in turn) make more and more money?

Hari’s book details his journey of how he went about “taking back his mind” and “taking back his attention”, it’s packed with so many things that he learned that you and I would do well to consider and try to apply to our own lives. He describes how he went on a trip (for months) and purposely left his phone and all abilities to connect to the Internet behind. He took a laptop that had no Internet capabilities and a basic flip phone that would allow emergency calls. He figured he’d just rip himself away from all the stuff I described above and “quit” cold turkey to reset his nervous system and brain.

Makes sense, right?

But.

What he realized very quickly was that it wasn’t enough to just remove his iPhone or social media from his life because after doing that he quickly became aware of a void - a deep hole that now existed once social media, the Internet, etc. was removed from every waking moment of his days … a deep hole that made him feel somewhat sad, depressed, and empty that those things were no longer within reach …

He saw other people with their phones.

He saw other people taking pictures.

He saw other people posting their pictures to Instagram.

… and something inside longed for that again.

Weird, right?

But.

Is it really all that weird?

Because you’ve had that feeling, haven’t you? For example, a storm knocks out cell service and the Internet isn’t accessible on your phone or in your home, leading to panic, frustration. “What am I missing? What if I need to call someone? How will I watch TV? How will I get the news? The weather? What if someone needs to call me?”

And.

Even worse: no power in the house? “What will I do? What will I do while I’m bored? Facebook doesn’t work? Instagram won’t load? No reels? I can’t even share a picture of my power outage!” (Which would more than likely garner some likes and comments, giving you (at least) that small hit of dopamine your nervous system is itching for).

Anyways, yeah - I’ll be the first to admit, I know that feeling, that feeling of habitually opening an app only for the app not to work, causing frustation to pump through my veins. “Stupid technology! We put a man on the moon, but we can’t figure out how to make the Internet not go out!”

And so, yeah - Hari points out that it’s not enough to simply remove social media, Internet, etc. from our lives because doing so will only shine a spotlight on the void it leaves behind; instead, we must actively fill that void with something that we give our full attention to, something that draws us into what psycholgists call a “flow state”.

Flow state?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian-American Psychologist known as “The Father of Flow” who made a case for a more “positive psychology” where the primary focus was on how the findings of psychology can make life more worth living.

In other words.

Whereas (at least part of) Skinner’s work focused on how the discoveries of the human mind could be used to manipulate, the work of Mihaly focused on how discoveries might make life better and more worth living for all of humanity.

One of the places Mihaly focused his work is what is called the “flow state” - a moment in time when you are so absorbed in what you are doing that you lose all sense of yourself, and time seems to fall away. Hari says that this is “the deepest form of focus and attention we know of.”

I could bore you with all the facts, but to summarize if for you - Mihaly’s experiments and research showed that flow states are always marked by 3 key components:

(1) There must be a clearly defined goal (ex. “I want to write this book” or “I want to paint this picture”).

(2) You have to be doing something that is meaningful to you, that gives you life (ex. writing and art are meaningful to me whereas working on cars or studying crystals might be meaningful to you).

(3) You must be doing something that is on the edge of your abilities - not so easy that you can do it without thinking, yet not so hard that no matter how hard you try you can’t do it (ex. if you’re a rock climber, you don’t want to climb a small hill because that would be too easy, but you might not want to climb Mt. Everest because that would be too hard. You need to find something that will stretch you, but not end you!).

Anyways.

So in his book Hari realized that the absence of social media left a void that he needed to fill with somehthing that brought him into a flow state. Much like the pigeons in Skinner’s experiments, he had been …

Lifting his wing too much.

Spinning around too much.

Posting too much.

Taking too many selfies.

… so much so that even though the rewards stopped coming (in the form of likes and follows that were left behind on his phone that he left at home), he still had the urge or the gut reaction to keep posting, keep sharing, keep reaching for his phone.

And so (having met and heard Mihaly tell his story), Hari started to write a novel that he always wanted to write - that was his clearly defined goal. At first it was hard to get going, but once he did - he was “in the flow” so much so that time began to fly by and his phone with all of it’s bells and whistles and capabalities and notifictions rarely crossed his mind.

He had a clearly defined goal - to write a novel.

He was doing something that was meaningful to him - he had the idea brewing for a long time.

And he was doing something that was at the edge of his abilities - not too easy, not too hard.

And once he got into that flow state, the desire to look for his phone or reach for his phone so that he could join others in their endless scrolling and picture-posting and liking and following and hearting … it all began to vanish.

FINDING MY FLOW STATE

I’ve tried to ditch social media before. Earlier this year, for instance (back in January), I moved all of my social media apps off of my home screen and made it so I could only open them if I searched for them.

Genius, right?

In other words, rather than just turn on my homescreen and click “Instagram”, I had to swipe down to get the search bar, type “Instagram”, and then open the app. My theory was that at some point while opening my phone, swiping down, and typing the name of the app - at some point my brain would realize, “oh, wait. Do I really need to be opening this app right now or will I just end up doom scrolling?” and then I would catch myself before I got stuck in the rabbit hole of endless swiping and scrolling.

And, yes - it worked for a while, but as Hari pointed out, I soon felt the void and it was much too easy to fill the void with the very apps I was trying to distance myself from because I (really) just had to type 1 letter in the search bar in order for my phone to bring up the app I wanted to (but didn’t really want to!) open.

Sigh.

But this? This insight from Hari about Skinner and Mihaly and flow states - this has been immensely helpful for me. Towards the end of the Summer I went back to my initial plan from January and removed all the apps from my home screen so that they are only accessible by searching.

And then.

I also decided to intentionally fill my days with things that are meaningful to me, things that will stretch me beyond my comfort zones so that I can learn and grow and become a better human. I do my “work” for Bart Ehrman and Alexander Shaia, 2 humans who I adore - I adore them AND their work. And so helping them doesn’t usually feel like work.

But.

Even while “working”, it’s always easy to pause and pick up my phone and so I decided to fill those spare moments of phone distraction with other things.

For starters, I am part of “The Self Healer’s Circle” led by Dr. Nicole LePera.

Every month we study a different topic together (June was “The Father Wound”, July was “Radical Acceptance”, August was “Nonviolent Communication”, September was “Perfectionism”) and each week there are virtual gatherings with people all around the world - we hear from Dr. Nicole, we hear from other therapists, we meditate together, we hear people share their struggles and wins and highs and lows … it’s a truly beautiful thing.

I intentionally log into the portal every morning, read people’s posts in the activity feed throughout the day, share thoughtful comments, read the recommended readings, listen to the recordings of the meetings I miss due to scheduling conflicts … and I love it, it gets me into the flow so that 2 hours can feel like 5 minutes. I might spend 5 minutes in the activity feed sharing some thoughts or encouraging another participant or an hour listening to a recording, joining in on a Zoom call.

Simply put, there are lots of opportunities to get into a flow state!

I also have a stack of books that I’m reading - books for ME.

I love to read, I always have. I’m reading books on parenting, books on psychology, books about the Bible - and I’m learning so, so much. Some of the authors might make their way onto the podcast, much of the material will find its way into blog posts … but I’m picking up the books not for any reason other than, “I really want to read this book”.

And in September? Without the burden of social media? And being in a flow state? I’m 3/4 of the way through 12 different books; plus I’ve read book 3 and 1/2 of book 4 of the Harry Potter series.

Similar to the content in the Self Healers Circle, I might read a page or 2 in between doing some things for Bart or Alexander or I might go to Starbucks and read 3 chapters in 3 different books over a few cups of coffee. Every day is different! Whatever the case may be, though, I try to read a little of them every day - 1 chapter in 1 book, then another chapter in another book, then another chapter in another, and so on. This allows me to be reading multiple books at a time, something that helps me get into a state of flow - much like when I used to have to read (what felt like!) 50,000 books a semester in seminary!

Oh.

And this? It also allows me the space to be more well-read on things; because scrolling through social media gives the illusion that we’re well-read and well-educated on various world/social/political topics as we scroll and see what this person said about Trump and what that person said about Harris and what they said about Charlie Kirk.

But.

Honestly?

How educated and read are we, really? I mean, have we done the reading about the topic? Or have we just read about what other people say about the topic based upon what they heard someone else say about the topic?

For instance.

A few weeks ago I heard about Charlie Kirk’s death. I had all sorts of feelings. I opened up X to do something for Bart and saw his feed exploding with posts about Kirk, his work, etc. Rather than endlessly scroll through posts about everyone’s good and not so good opinions about Kirk, I went to YouTube and listened to Kirk talk. I went to various news outlets and read a bit about his work and his life. I read positive reveiws and negative reviews. I watched clips and I watched the larger videos that those clips were taken from.

The result?

Although I disagree with 99.9% of the things I’ve heard Kirk say, I also disagree with a lot of the hate he has received. The clips I’ve seen in the past, I realize and now admit, were taken from the larger context of the conversation/debate and that doesn’t really seem very fair - no matter how much I might disagree with him.

Then there’s art.

I love art. I am trying to work on a different canvas every couple of weeks while also actively drawing in my sketchbook. I’m watching art tutorials online, learning different techniques from established artists, creating my own techniques, and having a blast. I even started an eBay page to put my art on eBay at afforable prices where people can purchase outright or make a bid for a lower price.

And, lastly - the What If Project.

The project just turned 7 years old. Can you believe it? We’ve been doing this for SEVEN years. And over those 7 years?

Yeah.

The project has evolved along with me as I’ve evolved. I’ve grown with the project and the project has grown with me.

It start with just an audio podcast about “deconstruction” and “rethinking Christianity” and now that evolved into …

A blog.

A YouTube Channel.

Media Help.

Art.

… where we have expanded the “what if” question to include lots of different topics - “what if there are ways of thinking about God and faith and the Bible and spirituality and life and mental health and art and technology and family and parenting and the price of decent graphics design (and more!) that are different than what our traditions have given us?”

And the podcast topics? We still explore deconstruction and Christianity, of course, but also various other branches of spirituality and life including Buddhism, Witchcraft, Tarot, trauma, inner child work, and more.

Phew.

And so as we head towards 2026 and season 9 of the show, I’m rethinking how the project will evolve even more. In January I’ll be releasing a whole new format where every week will be something different in an effort to give me space to exercise my own creative nature beyond just a weekly or bi-weekly conversation/interview.

Want to hear more?

Details coming soon. But brainstorming these things? Thinking about different ways to be creative and different ways to use that creativity to encourage? Inspire? Instill hope in a hurting world? That gets me into the flow, for sure.

YOU?

And so how about you? Do you need to ditch social media for a while to get away from it all? To rewire your brain? To teach yourself how to stop reaching for a device that (let’s face it) will only rob you of being present for these precious moments of your day?

I highly recommend Hari’s book along with these other ones. I’ve read them all, they are all excellent and filled with research, stories, and ideas to help us get our minds back from the nerds who built software that is fixed on stealing them.

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us by Nicholas Carr

10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World by Jean Twenge

But.

Don’t forget - if you ditch social media for a while, consider how you might get yourself into a flow state that will fill the void that the technology leaves behind. Decide ahead of time what project you will jump into, what things you’ll do to stetch yourself.

And then keep me posted on how it goes.

Much love.

• Glenn || PATREON / ART STUDIO / EBAY