Pew Research study found that 73% of adults have seen online harassment and 40% have personally experienced it.10

There are no clear rules or expectations, no regulation, no certification, no code of conduct. You’re working in an unregulated environment where people can behave and manipulate you in whatever ways they want to, with limited consequences. This is the digital Wild West, and the cavalry isn’t coming.

I’ve found that the key to being less dependent on social media is not just about boundaries or willpower. It’s also important to practice self-compassion, by not holding yourself to impossible standards and recognizing that we’re all humans trying our best.

“It’s about understanding how to be sensitive to moments of collective trauma. When the world is on fire, what kind of space do we take up? And how do our identities—particularly our privileged identities—impact the people we’re trying to reach?”

Instagram has honestly turned into a lot of shopping, it doesn’t lend itself very well to long form educational content. People are on Instagram to

And if you’re thinking about decreasing your dependence on social media, this might be a good time to move those personal conversations out of your social media DMs and into a platform that you own, like email or a Slack channel … or even finding ways to meet new people without using social media.

leaving behind what you’ve already built! That’s the sunk cost fallacy: The tendency to follow through on something if you've already invested your resources into it—

There’s an implicit need to be seen and liked that’s tied up with creating content.

“The reason we're struggling with [social media] is because if you are a woman, if you are a minority, if you are part of an otherwise oppressed population, if you are someone who traditionally society has benefited from our unpaid or lower paid labor, your ‘shoulds’ are benefiting someone else.”