Our most precious asset isn’t our investment portfolio or real estate holdings.
Nor is it our closet stuffed with clothes, the jewelry we wear, or our car.
It’s not our house, job title, awards, partner, children, or vacation villa on the beach.
Our most precious asset is our attention, which is why every tech company on the planet is constantly drumming up new ways to corral it into their pen before doing whatever they can to close the gate behind us and keep us there for good.
Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify… you name it, if it’s a tech platform, it’s after what we often take for granted.
Our time.
The Price of Attention
30 minutes mindlessly scrolling Instagram in the morning is 30 minutes we can’t get back.
And for what?
I don’t know about you, but after a session like this, my mind is thick with fog that doesn’t clear right away. I stumble into my next activity fuzzy and unfocused as the swirl of images and ideas I just exposed myself to compete for meaning in my head.
#youdeservebetterthansomeonewhocan’tshowupforyou
#staytoxic (yes someone has built an entire following with this hashtag)
#lookthiscatissocute
#lookthispuppyissocute
#followme
#love
#followme…please!!!
Like most people with a phone these days, I have freely and willingly given away my attention to this activity far too often.
Frankly, I’m worn out.
Everything on the platforms these days blurs together into one kaleidoscope of noise and nonsense.
What did I just consume? And for what reason? are questions I’ve begun asking myself after moments of scrolling weakness.
This growing awareness that the platforms are out for the platforms and could care less about me and my point of view led me to deleting the Instagram app off my phone a couple of years ago.
I then wrote a poem titled “After You Delete Instagram off Your Phone” about what happened in the aftermath of making that decision.
The opening of that poem reads:
After you delete Instagram off your phone
You find a different kind of sadness inside
The folder named “social,” a sadness
That lingers long after returning the phone
To its charging cradle next to your desk.
Your finger now has nowhere to go
When you’re looking for ways to escape
The self-hatred and loathing that comes
From comparing. What is so social anyway
About staring at a screen the size of an
Angry fist hoping someone somewhere
With a huge list and an underscore in their name
Likes your latest selfie, the one where the wind
Blows your hair across your eyes, catching you
By surprise, your shirt dark in places with sweat?
I’ve heard from many readers that they resonate with this poem, having faced the agony of the app abyss in the aftermath of consciously removing one or several social apps from their phones.
(This poem is featured in my book, The Far Unlit Unknown, available here)
Some people permanently move on from the apps, finding activities IRL that are far more interesting and engaging.
But, as is the way in our modern world, sometimes apps have a way of coming back. Case in point: Instagram found its way back onto my phone (I honestly don’t remember when or how) and once again, I was sucked into the endless stream of random content the Algorithm thinks I want to see.
Note to the Algorithm: just because I watched one video of cute golden retriever puppies doesn’t mean I now want my feed to be flooded with videos of other cute golden retriever puppies. I’d actually like to see what the people I consciously choose to follow are up to if that’s too much to ask?
Where We Go from Here
Every now and then I take a step back to assess where I’m at with my creative work, my business, my life. This summer, I decided to scale down my social media activity, focusing on real world projects instead.
I happily gave my attention to playing games with my children. Swimming. Cutting down troublesome limbs from trees. Kayaking. Reading. Writing. Making art. Napping.
My daughter recently told me she noticed I was more present during her visit than apparently I’ve been in previous visits.
All because I decided to shift my attention away from the apps and toward what matters most to me: my family, my communities, my health, my creativity.
It’s been a wonderful summer.
Where we choose to put our attention is a choice we make every day, consciously or not. The socials aren’t going away anytime soon, so it’s up to us to expand our awareness about how much attention we are giving to apps and if giving that attention away is aligned with what we want most.
These apps are addictive for a reason. They want us to use them every day. And when they notice our activity has dropped or disappeared completely, they send emails with tempting headlines trying to woo us back onto the platform.
I’ve fallen for this ploy a few times when I see a message about something my daughter recently posted on Facebook.
Otherwise, the price of attention I’ve paid to the socials has ballooned beyond my budget.
It's a price I'm not willing to pay anymore.
There is so much more to life beyond the apps on our phones.
