Social Media, the Trees, and Reclaiming My Life

This morning, I removed the Instagram and Facebook apps from my phone. It's not the first time. Like so many of us, my addiction to these social media platforms, and my phone in general, is cause for concern. And like any addiction, it's also easy to downplay, justify, and downright ignore.

I am not interested in making any moral pronouncements, or even political ones for that matter, about social media, though lord knows there is so much to say about the role it has played in our nation's mental health crisis, skyrocketing rates of isolation, and intractable polarization. There is plenty of academic research, anecdotal evidence, and a growing number of books on the topic. So much so that to write about it at all can seem redundant at best, if not entirely pointless.

And then there is this: For someone who spends so much time looking at the hypnotic screen of an iPhone, I also spend a lot of time looking at trees, talking to trees, appreciating trees, thinking about trees. And you could say the opposite is true, too: for someone so attuned to nature, I sure do spend a big chunk of my waking hours scrolling. Bringing curiosity to these contradictions is a wonderful opening.

Each summer, I take the whole month of August off from work and from social media, from blogging and newsletters and the whole world of virtual interaction. It is a huge spacious breath of fresh air. I tend to do a lot more book reading during that month. I connect with way far fewer people, and only over text, phone, or in person. No Facebook posts, no Messenger app, no DMs on Instagram. When I go back online in September, I notice how much more engaged I feel with everyone else and that I'm genuinely happy to be "back." The space and time away make all the difference.

And then the inevitable happens. Within a few weeks and certainly months, habit takes over. I carry my phone with me from room to room. I check it on a near constant basis. As a former smoker, it's probably alarmingly akin to chain-smoking, a fact that jars me awake and affirms the choice to make some significant behavioral changes.

Is there a "healthy" amount of social media use? We all know that even a cigarette or two a day increases a person's risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke. What does using social media for many hours a day do to my brain and body? I don't really need a medical study to answer the question; I only need look at my attention span withering, the unthinking way I pick up my phone and tap the little blue "f" icon or the red notifications number. I fear becoming the mouse in a lab with its little dopamine peaks and valleys. Yikes.

I have so many projects on my radar. Several personal creative projects I long to move forward require writing, research, time, and also that immeasurable thing: space to let the mind relax.

Then there is client work – chapters to edit, emails to send – as well as other professional work I'm excited about, like a recent invitation to be a guest speaker on a podcast by someone I admire.

My to-do list proliferates seemingly out of thin air, reminding me of fruit flies in the summer: I need to follow up with my accountant about my tax stuff for last year, keep up with parenting responsibilities, from math tutors to medical appointments to the less quantifiable but most important of all, simply listening.

I am happily married and wish to nurture my relationship on purpose, rather than just treating it like a given. My body deserves intentional care and attention. My spirit craves a balance of solitude and community.

I could go on, but the obvious point is that life is full. The fullness evidences many blessings. It also reveals a need for unfilled moments, minutes, hours. Currently, many of those unfilled moments, minutes, and hours are not unfilled at all.

My finger on a screen, my eyes on a screen, my attention fragmented and scattered, moving quickly from one image or post to another, taking in everything and nothing: Is this how I want to spend my one wild and precious life?

This morning, my son finished making his breakfast and went to sit at the dining room table. I was eating oatmeal at the island in the kitchen.

"Want company?" I asked. He said either way was fine, so I went in to join him. I told him I'd just removed my two most visited social media apps from my phone.

"Well, I'm going to look at mine," he said.

"That's fine," I told him, though I could not resist adding in a classic mom thing about how he could also experience what eating breakfast was like in the 80s. Just sitting there. Eating.

Turned out we did end up talking a bit. I asked him to tell me three good things and he did. One of them was a "worst-case scenario," which I pointed out could end up being a best-case scenario, thinking of that Buddhist "good luck bad luck" story about the farmer.

It was, on the surface, no big deal, this shared few minutes together at the table, and I think maybe that's the heart of it. The minutes here and there when we are "with" each other rather than "on" our phone is essential to our relationships, just as time to let the mind simply absorb, process, and synthesize things is crucial to our creativity.

I pause from writing to look up out the window. The big oak tree next door stands tall and strong. I wonder if its roots extend all the way to beneath this house. After all, the trees don't know whose property is whose. They are not distracted by wind or birds or precipitation.

Trees provide shelter to unseen creatures while maintaining the boundary of bark to protect themselves from the elements. They have spectacularly complex mechanisms for digesting light and absorbing moisture and communicating with their fellow trees. I have so much to learn from them.

And that learning starts with time to just sit here between tasks, or stepping outside to walk, or standing up and feeling the soles of my feet root down and feeling my arms and legs extend into space, knowing what's within my reach and where I need to stretch, appreciating the solidness of being and making time to experience what it is to be here in a body in the world.

It starts with making space by getting free from the addictions that devour my time and life force. It starts with deciding to reclaim my life – something so big – by the simple act of putting down my phone and saying hello to the trees – so simple.