Break from the hamster wheel

Social apps are very helpful, in this fast world where keeping friendships and checks with family is becoming more and more strenuous on our most important capital — our own time. But the social apps are also extremely addictive. Top UX and psychology, human behaviour experts work every day for the social network giants such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Their only goal, only mission, only KPI is to keep us inside the endless loop of using the apps, sharing, liking, retweeting, connecting and getting micro-doses of dopamine rewards from the process. It is nothing more than a genuine social mind-trap, very well constructed mind virus. The hamster wheel is safe, cozy, it “connects us”, and gives us all the food we need. Junk food for mind that is. Still, who’s here to argue? Keep the wheel spinning!

Psychologists are warning that this constant lifestyle livecasting and ranking is taking its toll on our psyche, depression, increases cyberbullying, election meddling, hate crimes, suicides. Nothing to be shocked, in the new normality. Rising movement recommends the solution: disconnect. But are you able to disconnect in a world where you don’t keep your extended social network up to date phone number address book and rely on social networks to schedule meetings? In a society where young people have never used email as a communication tool and can only be reached via Messenger, WhatsApp? Can you keep in touch with relatives across the ocean who will have to update you separately for every single occasion now when this universal utility for lifesharing is ubiquitous?

My approach is to break the wheel, to stop being prey to the product managers and their “psyops” teams. But still use the benefits of modern social networks. First thing you need to understand is which social network “enchant” you in the vicious cycle of refresh and update and which do not have such powers (mind virus properties) over you? For me, Instagram and LinkedIn have always been the apps which I use when I want to, how much I want to and do not keep me entangled in endless scrolls and interactions. I am not willing to opt out from them because they bring me unique value — business and employment opportunities and great user generated photography, something I really enjoy. So I keep Instagram and uninstall LinkedIn from phone as there is no real value for me — I always use LinkedIn from my browser.

Then come the impostors, Facebook and Twitter. I chose to get rid of these apps. Instead I did the following modification to break the “hamster wheel”:

• For communication on FB Messenger I installed the vendor app “Facebook Messenger Lite”. It offers all the things I need, even audio and video calls to reach out to all the friends, exchange messages and talk to family when I am on road. It works perfectly, it is lightweight and nothing to complain.
• For timeline reading and interaction I turned to Metal. This app embeds web-views of FB and Twitter with some additional elements that are helpful. I switched off all the notifications. In essence, it is almost equal as using FB and Twitter from Chrome for mobile, but I do have share to links in contextual menu on my Android phone. The UX as expected is less than ideal and makes simple tasks like endless scrolling, liking or writing numerous posts harder and with more limitations and quirks. But THIS IS INTENDED BY DESIGN to make you switch to the hamster wheel native apps. And this is also thankfully the main differentiator that will help you break off the vicious cycle. When the time will pass, you will see that your social interaction is less rapid, and every interaction last shorter. By effect you will post less tweets and FB posts as well which is something your friends might be thankful for :). Yet when you are bored, waiting in queue or travelling, this is still functional enough as a time waster app.
• The key to breaking the loop is async posting. For this I recommend the third app: Buffer. The app also has browser plugins and integrates with major social networks. It has about 6 time slots in the day when it pushes the queued messages. This means that unless specified your tweet or post will appear later the same day or the following morning, usually when you are AFK. And this is the whole point. Away from Keyboard means that you will less likely add fuel to fire that happens with instant replies on some topic. The things you need to understand in every electronic communication channel is that you feed the replies by replying yourself. If you are AFK the exchange will be duller, less frequent and within longer time frame. And instant notifications and ongoing flamewars is something that ruins our days and can easily cause the above mentioned adverse effects.
• Add StayFocusd to your browser on your work laptop. I’ve added all social networks, local news aggregator and reddit to the blocked sites and daily allowance of 15 minutes cumulative. This will help you focus on your work and don’t procrastinate with the easiest tool — social networks. This also sets a time zone in the day when you are generally not on social networks and helps you regain your focus and extend your attention span to things that matter.
• Final spice is extensive blocklist. Block every single fascist / racist / ”whatever makes your heart go 180 bpm troll” in your block list. Block list helps you sanitize your social interaction. Yes it will put you in a bubble, but then again we actually need bubbles to keep up with the real challenges in our lives that happen AFK. IRL. Keep your smiles for real life. You can’t change the world, especially not online. It’s been proven.

So, this is kind of a middle ground between staying in the vicious cycle and going fully ascetic. It works for me, I spend my extra time with family and on learning new stuff. But it is not an universal solution. I would recommend psychotherapy to all that have chronic issues with our new brave world. For me, the final incident that led me to this intervention was that I was unable to focus and read a book or watch a 3 hour film without constant urge to check what’s new. And we all know that’s not healthy.

There is another strategy used by a person I know — kill your data on your phone, unless you intentionally want to (data opt-in). This prevents all push and replies in real time. Still I need my phone to be connected since I do have business channels such as email and Slack that need to be available for me. So this is not an option for me.

Good luck, feel free to share your thoughts!

Note: I am not owner nor affiliate to any of the mentioned apps. This article is not promotional.