People have social media all wrong. Like a lot of addictions, we assume we’re addicted to the THING itself. But that’s rarely true. In reality, we’re mostly addicted to escaping from the pain of ABSENCE.

After the first week, I deeply missed the digital noise of my loved ones catching me up on their day. So I leaned harder into direct communication than I had before.

Freelancing can be lonely, even for introverts. So, instead of trying to quit social media, why not focus on deepening our existing relationships or starting new ones? Case-in-point: the 1970's “Rat Park” experiments showed that isolated rats would overdose on heroin very quickly. But when they were placed in a nicer cage with toys and other rats, they mostly ignored the heroin. Don’t bother trying to escape social media—just replace it with something more meaningful!