Sweet Solitude

The Psychological Benefits of Time Without Devices, and the Downside of Constant Online Social Stimulation

Beeps, rings, tweets, bells, and vibrations: the social media symphony that never stops. It’s no secret now that the tech boom has resulted in what experts (and WebMD alike) call “phantom vibration syndrome”, a tactile hallucination of hearing your phone ring when it is silent. Other catchy terms include “ringxiety”, “fauxcellarm”, and “phonetom” (phone + phantom). I’ll admit, I find comfort in these collective puns, a chance we all have to poke fun at ourselves for the sense of normalcy and pure ridiculousness of these symptoms. We’ve all been in a quiet room and heard a phone buzz. The air stands still. Its routineness is palpable, almost comedic. Conversations continue on the surface, but underneath, most of us, if not all, are itching to check if it’s ours. Often a labored politeness stops us from actively pulling out our phones mid-conversation. And often that makes the fidgety feelings bubble over even more. Often we check it mid-sentence, with an air of “forgive me, but like, you get it…”

This distraction disco, with flashing lights and all my virtual Facebook friends in attendance, twirled me around even when I would be actively trying to spend time alone. During periods of heavy social media usage, I felt like I was always on-call, particularly that ICU physician style of on-call. Heavy on the mixed metaphors here, but there’s no better way to characterize my fragmented, jittery mind. Each notification and ring was as important as the next. Social niceties, replies, comments, “likes”, “keeping up”, breaking news, and engagement insights with their fire-truck emergency red hues were all in abundance. They equalized my entire experience, as well as my subsequent reactions to the constant incoming data. A best friend’s birthday event reminder held the same weight as Facebook itself reminding me that I hadn’t posted in a while. A troll’s nasty DM jab had me as eager to engage as a commenter’s compliment.

Heart flutters and notification anxiety became the average response to opening my accounts, which often would happen within a few seconds of opening my eyes in the morning. By the end of the day, the nonstop anticipation of “connections” left me unable to settle into any form of quiet, mental stillness, or clarity. My work as a songwriter was flooded with worries of whether or not my ideas and collaborations would look “good” on social media. The “mile-a-minute” mind became my normal. A smile acting as interest would creep across my face during conversations, as the mental movie in my head had only one plot: “How many people liked my last post on Instagram?"

In my mind, solitude had become a thing of monks and meditation teachers, a holy land to strive for in which I could finally turn off the noise in my head. I thought solitude was hard, disciplinary. I was certain the positive effects I gained from social media unquestionably outweighed the negatives of my spinning, stimulated mind. Luckily, I discovered otherwise. Today I count solitude as the single best tool I used to reassess how social media was, and wasn’t, serving me.

For me, solitude wasn’t locking myself in a room all alone for 10 days, or a silent retreat in the wild coastal mountains of California. Solitude was simply being with my thoughts, and my thoughts only. Once I was able to hit mute on all the social noise at my fingertips, I could hear how loud it had been blasting. I had been deafening my own thoughts, now clearer and unreliant on nonstop mass assessment.

As Cal Newport outlines in his book “Digital Minimalism”, the issue with adopting solitude for so many people is that nothing is prepared to replace the constant stimulation and entertainment, previously dolled out so generously (i.e. infinitely), once that distraction is removed. The result is fear of the ever awful “b-word”: boredom. Newport’s words were extremely helpful in designing space for myself once I powered down. Solitude, for me, meant walks in nature with my phone on airplane mode, long drives with no music, and overly-complicated cooking sessions without podcasts. All those tasks once seemed dreary and boring without additional entertainment. But, to my delight, once I gave them a try I was pleasantly, and shockingly, surprised! I took it as an experiment just to see what thoughts came up (if any). I had spent the better part of the last 4 years in a zombified state of constant stimulation which, I’ll admit, was fun in the moment. What I never had the space to explore, though, was how I felt without those devices, as I’d nearly made them my third eye—my expedited Google Glass.

In those newfound states of solitude, with baby steps, I could start to feel the difference in my mind. I felt the exponential slowing of the wheels and a calmer sense of “everything’s ok”, the exact opposite mantra platforms like Instagram hum in order to tap into your need to always feel “engaged”. My body literally changed too. I could feel the joints in my phone-grip fingers loosening. I had developed an anxious knee-bounce synonymous with posting new content on my feeds while hoping for higher “likes” than last time. It was an algorithmically-driven vibration, hardly a good one. Mentally, I found I could better assess my day and what I actually wanted to accomplish, not pushed around by recommended content on apps like Instagram and Youtube that would spin my mood in every which way. In making music I could decide, for myself, what ideas were worth following. I no longer felt the need to simply latch onto ideas out of desperation for content, or to present myself as officially “productive for the day” on my Instagram stories.

That’s not to say that all my troubles went away, like Poof! Solitude isn’t a quick pill. You don’t have to find a meditative mountain in the Alps, but it certainly takes work to realize the benefits. Sometimes, it’s just plain boring. But what I’ve found is a balance between solitude and social stimulation is key. Never only quarantine, never only connection.

To be fair, connection is a slippery word. On one hand, input from others and a joint sense of creativity can help ideas blossom in ways unimaginable on a solo scale. On the other hand, in my experience, the “collaborative” aspects of social media translated to round-the-clock, often surface-level input with very little meaning and weight. In those moments, connection meant “so talented!”s, heart-eyes and prayer hands, quick-fire feedback consolidated into pretty little data blips. I honestly gulped them down not for connective reasons, but primarily for self-affirmation and to validate (or invalidate) the “cool factor” of my work online. These inputs were from trolls and trusted friends alike. Social media: the great equalizer.

I’m aware that I take a hard stance on some of these issues, but I will happily assume the role of a wet blanket if it means helping to push the pendulum back to a healthier, mental-friendly practice of tech. There is a troubling lack of mere acknowledgement of these issues in a true, non-ironic “ringxiety” kind of way. There is always room for irony, to laugh at ourselves and the way we have wholeheartedly accepted both the good and bad sides of social media as integral parts of everyday life. But, the problem remains—there plainly is no room in which to question these issues in the first place. And solitude is just the right space for it!

My past compliance to be 100% inundated with information from others 24/7 left me with anxiety-driven ambitions, and an utter lack of confidence in my own abilities independent of feedback from followers. My improved experience, online and off, came when I truly allowed myself space, by myself, on my own, to question what my goals, habits, and passions are. I’m still figuring it out, but it’s much more enjoyable without the chirping, tweeting, and pinging in my ears. Every robot ballad has an off switch, if only silenced for a little while. Find room, any room, for solitude.