I've been sick the last three days.
Not super sick in the sense your body keeps you horizontal and the hours blur into one another. But sick in the sense that I don't want to risk being around anyone I love and giving them whatever it is I have. So bedridden, with nothing else to do, I found myself reaching for my phone — and spiraling down the rabbit hole.
Looking back I clocked around eight hours a day on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Eight hours of feeds designed to keep me hooked, scrolling past other people's meals, confessions and of course outrage. The strange part is that I knew exactly what was happening — the dopamine drip, the algorithm nudging me toward whatever would keep my thumb moving. But I couldn't look away.
The timing is eerie. As I write this, news is circulating about the upcoming sale of TikTok to an American entity, with a sitting government official expected to take a seat on its board. The justification seems to be "national security," but what's rarely spoken is the deeper truth: no matter who owns the platform, we remain at the mercy of algorithms engineered to maximize attention and division, not wellbeing.
What Social Media Is Doing to Our Brains
This is not new information and I promise this won't be another scare tactic. But for context, the research is no longer speculative.
A study in Nature Communications (2022) found that frequent social media use is associated with changes in the brain's reward pathways, particularly the ventral striatum, the same system implicated in addiction.
Psychologist Jean Twenge has shown in iGen that heavy use correlates with rising rates of anxiety and depression, particularly among young people.
Neuroscientist Anna Lembke, in Dopamine Nation, warns that compulsive digital consumption creates a "dopamine deficit state," leaving us restless, joyless, and craving more.
These aren't abstract shifts. They're structural, biological and cultural. Our brains are literally being rewired to seek novelty, outrage, and the endless scroll.
My Own Reckoning
I've spent years teaching mindfulness, helping people step away from the noise of their minds. And yet, three sick days on the couch showed me how fragile that boundary really is. The pull of the feed is powerful, especially when we're lonely, unwell or seeking distraction.
It reminded me of the early days of social media, when it felt like a scrapbook — thirsty yoga poses, pics of my caesar salad and fake Buddha quotes. Somewhere along the way, innocence gave way to extraction. The platforms are no longer neutral. They're designed ecosystems, shaping not just what we see, but how we feel, what we believe, and ultimately who we become.
I can assure you, as someone who is online and for many reasons needs to be for work, I wrestle with this tension every day. It not only impacts my day, but it can, if unchecked, impact my relationships, my health and how I see myself.
Comparison, body dysmorphia, jealousy, shame, anger, rage — I can't tell you the countless things students have told me they are navigating thanks to the social networks.
How to Stay Human
I don't believe the solution is to log off forever. Social media is culture and abandoning it completely risks abandoning the commons where our society now gathers. But if we don't develop practices to meet it consciously, it will consume us and change us irrevocably.
Here are five reminders I'm holding onto:
Set a daily rhythm, not just a limit. Studies show that "time-restricted use" (e.g., 30 minutes on Instagram per day) reduces anxiety and loneliness (Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2018). But it's not just about time — it's about when. Morning and evening are the most fragile moments; protect them. Set a time during the day where you give yourself access without guilt, block it off in the calendar like you would a meeting.
Return to your body. Dance, walk, move. Neuroscience tells us that embodied practices regulate dopamine and serotonin in ways that screens can't. If I start to feel the pangs of overuse or dopamine depletion, I do jumping jacks, squats or shake my body. Doing something vigorous for no longer than five minutes immediately resets me. Ironically, I learned this on TikTok.
Curate with intention. Algorithms reward reactivity. You can push back by consciously following accounts that inspire, educate, or uplift and muting what drags you down. It doesn't have to be forever, it can be temporary, but you have agency over what you consume — don't feel guilty for doing this.
Practice "deep attention." Philosopher Simone Weil called attention the purest form of generosity. Each time you sit with a book, a meal or a loved one without distraction, you reclaim your mind from the endless scroll. I've started a new rule of reading a fiction book for 30-45 minutes before bedtime. I obviously recommend anything from Hemingway or Françoise Sagan.
Build real-life commons. The antidote to parasocial relationships (and we all have them) is actual community. Join a run club, sit in meditation with others, have dinner with friends. The nervous system finds safety and joy in shared presence, not just digital contact.
One-week challenge. Try some or all of these things for one week. I know it can feel insurmountable when you begin, so I'm going to do all of these things with you. I've set up 2 x 1-hour blocks in my day where I will give myself the gift of judgment-free social media use. I'll keep reading and I'm going to try and find a good yoga studio to join in Brooklyn. You can do these things too.
Where This Leaves Us
The sale of TikTok won't change the deeper issues we face as a society. But what's true is that platforms built to monetize attention will continue to erode our capacity for presence, empathy, and connection. Ownership shifts, but the machine remains the same.
What we can change is how we meet it. Whether we scroll unconsciously or whether we use these tools with care. Whether we numb ourselves, or whether we move our bodies, look each other in the eyes, and reclaim the "old ways" of our species that kept humans sane long before the feed existed.
I'm once again warning you of the dangers of social media — but maybe the warning is less about the platforms themselves and more about remembering our responsibility to stay human inside them.
Do you struggle with social media? Or have you found a healthy way to navigate it? Tell me
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Totally agree with you on this. Another one that I have been practicing as well is not posting too personal stuff on social media- I mean there has to be some boundaries of what things to share and not to the world.