The Tension

18 days into my latest Instagram break, the benefits are impossible to ignore. 

I can hear my own thoughts again. I am less distracted, more patient with my children. I have read six books. I am taking more photographs—with my actual camera, not my phone. My daily word count has tripled. An open notebook sits on my desk, overflowing with fresh ideas. I am praying more. Moving my body more. I feel less anxious, more present.

This is not new. 

This is not an epiphany. 

Every time I step away from social media, I experience the same effects.

***

I have purposefully avoided reading Digital Minimalism the last few years, because I had a feeling once I finally read it, I’d want to quit the Internet. 

(I was right.) 

In the conclusion, though, Cal Newport refutes the idea that he is anti-technology. He writes,“Digital minimalism does not reject the innovations of the Internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools.”

***

I remember watching the documentary Blackfish in 2013, and being nothing short of horrified. While I could not tell you any specifics about the film today, I can tell you it’s because of that movie my family and I will never step foot in a Seaworld. 

***

I am finding it harder and harder to turn away from what I know, from what the data and research proves, from what the psychologists and scientists are cautioning: technology is frying our minds. 

In a 60 Minutes special, Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, goes so far to say that Silicon Valley is “hacking our brains.” They are engineering our phones, apps, and social media platforms to intentionally get us addicted to the need to “check in” constantly.

He compares the act of checking our phones to playing a slot machine:

Every time I check my phone, I'm playing the slot machine to see, "What did I get?" This is one way to hijack people's minds and create a habit. What you do is you make it so when someone pulls a lever, sometimes they get a reward, an exciting reward. And it turns out that this design technique can be embedded inside of all these products.

***

Often when I go on Instagram, my notifications alert me to an onslaught of hearts and comments and DMs. The majority of the messages are kind, encouraging, validating. I like you! I like your writing! I can’t wait to buy your book!

Honestly? The feedback feels good. A little too good.

It feels like I played a slot machine, and won. 

***

Cal Newport writes, “People don’t succumb to screens because they’re lazy, but instead because billions of dollars have been invested to make this outcome inevitable.”

According to a recent study, adults in the United States check their phones, on average, 352 times a day. 

***

I tell a friend over dinner that sometimes I dream of quitting the Internet, but I don’t know how. My entire career exists on the Internet. 

“Is it the actual Internet you want to quit? Or just Instagram?” she asks. 

I don’t know. 

***

There are so many layers to the tension, I can’t even count them all. The older I get, the more drawn I feel to a quieter, more private, less digital life. The more I read about phone addiction, the less I want myself (and my children!) cultivating lives dependent on smart devices. The more Instagram turns into TikTok, the less I want to be there. 

I hold those truths in one hand, while also holding these:

I love to write.
I love people.
I love to share my writing with people. 

The Internet is where the people are.

***

Three or four years ago, I would have told you deleting my Instagram account altogether would be impossible. I would have scoffed. Laughed. Preposterous! I must be on Instagram! It’s part of my job.

But help me make sense of this:

If Instagram harms my writing, why is it part of my job? If Instagram leaves me feeling frazzled, overwhelmed, and anxious, why is it part of my job? If Instagram thrives on stealing my attention, consuming my time, and distracting me from my very real, in-the-flesh life, why is it part of my job?

Once upon a time, I would have told you I couldn’t possibly opt out of Instagram. 

Now I think about it all the time. Because the less time I spend on the app, the better I feel—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

It’s getting harder and harder to ignore cause and effect. 

***

I have a book coming out in March. 

Instagram makes up the largest part of my “platform.” 

***

A friend sends me a convicting podcast episode, in which Karen Swallow Prior declares, “The work is the platform.” 

Her advice for writers? “Start small. Do the work. Get good.” 

Later in the podcast, Karen poses a question I haven’t stopped thinking about: 

Do you love to write, or do you love to be read?

A decade ago, I would have told you that both are possible. 

Today, though, I’m not sure that’s true.

***

Cal Newport is a New York Times bestselling author. 

He does not participate in social media. 

This makes sense for him, of course. He proclaims the importance of deep work, solitude, becoming a digital minimalist. Nobody would trust him if he didn’t practice what he preached.

I write about motherhood and creativity. Sometimes I wonder how well I practice what I preach.

“Maybe this is your next book idea, Ash,” a friend jokes, “You could write Digital Minimalism for moms.”

***

Another friend asks if it needs to be all or nothing. Maybe you can just hop on and post when you want to, whenever it feels fun? 

She’s right of course. Sometimes Instagram is fun.

Then again, Cal Newport would say it’s easy to be seduced by the small benefits of each app or service, but then forget its cost: the actual minutes of our lives.

When it comes to technology, there’s always a trade-off. He poses the question: does the cost of digital clutter outweigh the benefits?

I consider a few of the apps on my phone. Voxer, for one. What does Voxer cost me? Money, for one, because I pay for a pro account. It also costs space on my phone, space in my brain. It costs me many, many minutes during the day. Voxer is my most-used app.

Do the benefits outweigh the cost? Absolutely. I use Voxer to have deep, meaningful conversations with my inner circle, all of whom live scattered around the country. Voxer makes it possible for me to talk to my closest friends every day, adding up to thousands of hours of back-and-forth communication each year. These relationships are essential to my emotional wellbeing. They are a lifeline. Every time I open Voxer, I receive abundant benefits. 

Can the same be said for Instagram? Do the benefits outweigh the cost?

At first, I think: absolutely not.

***

I had a miscarriage last year. As I am prone to do, I wrote through my pain and grief as it unfolded. While much of my writing from that time remains private, I felt compelled to share some of my words publicly. 

An outpouring of support showed up in an instant. Comments, DMs, prayers, DoorDash gift cards sent to my inbox. 

For weeks and months afterward, women would send me messages from hospital rooms and doctor’s offices, telling me they had just received The News. No heartbeat. Many shared their unique stories with me—how far along they were, what they were thinking and feeling in that moment. They’d tell me how comforting my words had been, how thankful they were that I had shared about my loss. Every time I received a message, I would stop and pray. I would feel a kinship, a connection, the sacredness of grief witnessing grief. I would tuck their story into my heart, as they had tucked mine into theirs. 

I consider the question, again. 

When it comes to Instagram, do the benefits outweigh the cost?

Occasionally, yes.

*** 

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” - Matthew 5:14-16

I hope and pray I have been a reflector of Light on the Internet. Sometimes I wonder if that alone is a reason to stay. After all, light provides warmth, vision, and hope. 

Then again, sometimes light shows a way out. 

***

I have a postcard taped to the wall above my desk that simply says, “Do less, make it mean more.” 

What does it look like to pursue depth in a culture that celebrates breadth?  

I’ve been thinking lately about the future. The next five years. Ten years. What I want for my work, my career, my writing. I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to pivot, to channel more energy into sharing my work with fewer people. 

It feels a little backwards, the opposite direction a lot of people would encourage me to go. 

Then again, my whole faith is built on a God who does things upside down.

***

Over dinner I tell my friend this isn’t coming out of nowhere. It’s been a slow burn. 

Maybe it’s that my firstborn is getting older. He just started fifth grade and kids in his class already have cell phones. Maybe it’s that I’ve been sharing my life on the Internet for so, so long, and I’m starting to feel tired. Maybe it’s that I’ll be 40 in a few years, and I am starting to consider what my second act might be. Then again, maybe it’s just this Cal Newport book on my nightstand. Maybe I’m just caught up in Blackfish energy. 

Maybe the feeling will pass.

*** 

What is the difference between art and content? 

Is it the method in which it’s created? Consumed? Is it the motivation lurking in the heart who made it? Whether or not it’s publicly rated thirty seconds later?

Writer Thomas J. Bevan distinguishes the two this way:

“Content is a transaction presented as utilitarian exchange, art is an emanation of the spirit presented as a gift. It’s possible to make content and make no money. Further, it’s possible to make mere content without even the aim of making money. But there is always a transaction being sought—usually in the form of fame or internet points.” 

He goes on to say that content is rooted in an ‘I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine’ mentality. “And in a world where all backs are red and raw and bloody from the scratching, the only salve is art. Because a gift asks for no gift in return.”

When I think of my own differentiation between art and content, motive and intention come to mind, absolutely. When I think of art, I think of process. When I think of content, I think of performance.

Art generates dialogue, emotion, connection. 

Content generates likes. 

Can content generate dialogue? Emotion? Connection? In this day and age—yes.

Can art generate likes? In this day and age—also, yes. 

Do you love to write, or do you love to be read?

The lines are becoming blurrier and blurrier.

***

People argue social media is a tool. You can use the tool however you want! they tell me. It’s free! 

Is it … free? 

Because I’m starting to get real honest about the cost of being on Instagram. The wasted minutes. The energy draining from my mind. The anxiety. The distractions. The constant noise.

Instagram doesn’t feel free to me anymore. 

It actually feels like it’s costing me a lot.

***

Trying to be a writer on Instagram is beginning to feel like trying to do ballet in the middle of a rave. 

It doesn’t feel like the right environment anymore. 

Maybe it never was.

***

One day my publisher asks, “Would you ever write another book?” 

I laugh and tell them this question feels reminiscent of coming home from your honeymoon and immediately being asked when you’re going to have kids.

They smile at the joke. No pressure!

I’m not offended by the question. I don’t have the heart to tell them I think I might be a one trick pony, and that Create Anyway was my one and only trick. 

I finally answer, “God lit a fire in my belly for this book and flung open every single door to make it happen. I am open to the idea that one day, He could do that again.”

Am I supposed to hold onto Instagram in case that happens? 

***

These days, the quickest way to grow a platform is to make short attention-seeking videos using trending audio. Swimming downstream. Hopping on the bandwagons. Doing what everyone else is doing.

Artist and YouTuber Campbell Walker describes this phenomenon as “the algorithm chase.”

He says in this video, “Once upon a time, the internet was full of interesting things and occasionally something would go viral. Today everything is viral, and occasionally something will be interesting.”

Do people buy more books from TikTok stars? 

As it turns out, not necessarily.

***

I’m worried I sound like I have a chip on my shoulder.

Not to mention all of this is dripping with privilege. Girl establishes career on the Internet, gets book deal, starts obsessively whining about Instagram. I can already see the Reddit threat.  

***

I recently spent, this is not a joke, somewhere around 30 hours creating a lead magnet in an attempt to grow my email list. 

According to the experts, this is how one grows an email list: make something free—an incredible, irresistible resource—and then beg people to sign up for it! 

The night I finish my lead magnet, with email lists on the brain, I wonder who else, of my personal writing heroes, might have a newsletter I am not yet subscribed to. I go searching for Anne Lamott’s. Surely Anne Lamott has an email list to share book news, interviews, workshops, etc, right?

Within minutes, I discover not only does Anne Lamott not have an email list, she does not have a website. And it’s there, sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my phone in my hand, browser open to the domain www.annelamott.com, which is currently for sale, that I begin howling with laughter. 

My husband looks at me as if I am drunk. The joke is getting funnier by the minute. I cannot contain myself. I laugh and laugh and laugh, until my stomach hurts, until tears are rolling down my face. 

***

There’s a popular Christian saying, that we as believers should be in the world without being of the world. This is loosely based on Jesus’ words in John 15:19, and often used as a reminder or word of caution that just because we live in this world, does not mean we bend to the world’s values. Rather, we know this world is not our home. Therefore, our lives should reflect that mindset and belief—a hope in something greater, for we have been set apart.

Here is a (far less significant) question I’ve been asking myself: how do I be on Instagram without being of Instagram? 

How do I make art, instead of content?

Is it possible to keep practicing ballet in the middle of this rave? 

Or should I quietly ghost the party, and go back to doing pirouettes in the studio?

***

The irony of all ironies: I am composing these words in a Google document, from which I will copy and paste into a blog post, which I will later (probably?) share on Instagram. 

Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird, “Good writing is about telling the truth.”

I don’t know if this writing is any good, but it’s the truest thing I’ve written in a while.