Social media addiction and power outage

A funny thing happened. There’s been a power outage in my area as of half an hour ago. It’s a bright, sunny afternoon, so I didn’t realize there was a power outage until I was about to heat up a leftover lunch in the microwave.

Lately, I rediscovered Instagram, and I’ve been obsessed with it. It started when I had a sudden urge to communicate but didn’t know how to. As usual, I started looking for an outlet and decided to use my old Twitter account. I needed a new profile picture to celebrate the rebirth of this persona. I browsed for hours for a perfect profile picture, but I couldn’t find one I liked. So I drew one.

The satisfaction of creating something from a blank canvas was so intoxicating that I started drawing more. I revisited my old illustration-focused Instagram account and started uploading one drawing after another. At the time of writing this post, I have an endless stream of ideas. All the suppressed stories that were crowding in my head now competing to pour out onto the canvas, and there isn’t enough time in the day to capture everything amidst the demands of work, relationships, and daily chores.

The desire to communicate, combined with the addictive nature of social media, completely consumed me the past week. And I loved it. I let it reign over me. I loved the intensity, the instant gratification of the engagements, the sense of camaraderie with the fellow artists, and I kept scrolling for the next delightful thing.

I find this obsession with drawing amusing because I know it’s a distraction. The younger version of me probably knew it too - one of the last posts, before I stopped updating my Instagram, was about how one may search for meaning through these drawings but how drawing isn’t the answer. Drawing is one of the mini, groundless obsessions I have from time to time - like the dainty jewelry, fountain pens - they were merely distractions from facing the most daunting question: what is the meaning of my life?

It was time to take control of my life. Okay, “obsession,” you had your run. Now, I’m going to train you so that you’re only allowed at predetermined hours of the day for a predetermined duration.

As I went to bed last night, I told myself I would not check social media today. I will get back to my disciplined self, do my weekly review, and review my long-term goals given the changing circumstances.

But today, before I could sit down in solitude and crank these through, life got better of me, and I went about jumping from one task to another to get the urgent chores out of the way. In this fragmented mind, I checked Instagram and Twitter multiple times. Social media-free day? Nah.

Then the funny thing happened. As I was squirreling from one task to another, I suddenly felt a pang of hunger and went to heat up my food. I realized my power was out. And for some reason, my internet was out too.

I thought I could finally sit down with myself and have a quiet heart-to-heart conversation*. But to my horror, I wasn’t sure about how to or what to think about. Without the internet, I couldn’t access my most updated Notion dashboard. Without my dashboard, I felt so lost. It was almost as if I forgot how to think independently from all these tools.

It took some time to quiet my mind and open up Obsidian to type some words. In a way, the power (and the internet) outage gave me the space to be free and explore my thoughts. I hope writing this post helps to reset some of my recent obsessions.