When I relocated from my hometown to the city for university studies back in 2009, I started my initial Facebook journey with an account named “quan ph”. This beginning was quite basic—no caps, no accent marks, and lacking a profile photo altogether.
In those days, social media served as merely a platform for sharing casual musings about the rains in Ho Chi Minh City or exchanging jokes with pals. We primarily relied onYahoo Messenger and SMS to keep in contact with one another. Logging onto the internet meant swiftly checking updates to see what my buddies were up to or which couples had emerged.
A decade and a half later, that initial platform had morphed into a continuous stream of current events and brief video clips, drawing me in more deeply than I had anticipated.
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An individual is holding a smartphone featuring various social media applications. Stock image courtesy of Pexels. |
I developed an obsession. Despite being overseas, friends from Vietnam would message me regularly, seeking updates on the newest developments as though I were their own personalized news source. It made me uneasy whenever my phone wasn’t readily accessible. What began as occasional leisurely browsing quickly escalated into compulsive reading, consuming around 2.5 hours each day without fail over a span of 15 years.
Those are 10,000 hours wasted amidst an incessant stream of indiscriminate digital content.
Malcolm Gladwell, a Canadian journalist and author, has suggested that dedicating around 10,000 hours to practice can turn one into an expert in virtually any field. With this amount of time, I might have become proficient in playing the piano or learning a foreign tongue. However, instead, those hours were frittered away on social media platforms like Facebook through endless browsing and posting comments.
So, I couldn’t really explain what I had achieved from it. It was then that I made up my mind to stop. I disabled notifications and shut down my account. Thus, my digital cleanse commenced.
Initially, I questioned how long I would endure without social media. The initial days were challenging; my fingers reflexively reached for my phone as they had always done, sliding my thumb across the display toward an empty space where an app used to be, causing me to abruptly halt each time.
The application had vanished, yet my habitual actions persisted. I continually reached for my smartphone, only to realize there was nothing to look at—no status updates from friends, no restaurant critiques, no announcements of limited-edition sneakers, no snapshots from travels, or any newscasts about pop culture events. This quiet emptiness seemed strange and out-of-place.
However, with each passing day, an alteration occurred. I ceased habitually opening my phone. Random links leading to pointless content were ignored. The desire for likes, shares, and reactions vanished. It dawned on me then just how much of my vitality I had expended on such inconsequential figures.
All of a sudden, I started observing details I’d overlooked for ages—the dozing feline at my go-to coffee shop, the twilight sky painted in shades of gold and purple, the rustling of leaves stirred by the breeze. Rather than taking pictures to share online, I simply took it all in. Life seemed more leisurely and serene. I managed to read a whole book uninterrupted, penned an entire article without getting sidetracked, and engaged in lengthy cell-phone-less chats during meals with friends.
Social media prevented me from fully appreciating life’s little beauties. Away from it, I viewed the world through unfiltered eyes, free of screens obstructing my view.
By June 2023, approximately 80% of Internet users in Vietnam had active accounts on social media platforms, with each user averaging about three hours per day online. About half of the individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 reported checking their smartphones as soon as they woke up and just before going to sleep every single day.
Research indicates that decreasing social media consumption isn’t merely about overcoming an addiction; it also enhances overall health. A smaller investigation involving 143 U.S. university students revealed that their mental wellness notably increased following only three weeks of limited social media engagement. Free from the stress of seeking validation through likes and shares, these participants experienced greater tranquility. Additionally, research conducted by the BBC discovered that spending half an hour scrolling on your device right before bedtime can impair sleep patterns by diminishing melatonin production and fostering adverse thought processes.
I’m still trying to find harmony between my digital and real-life experiences. Balancing my time spent on social media is akin to gradually clearing dirt from a windowpane, helping me better identify what genuinely matters to me. While I haven’t removed my social media applications and acknowledge their advantages, I am striving to utilize these platforms more intentionally instead of allowing them to dictate my actions.
Social media has transformed the way individuals interact and function globally. Nevertheless, I choose not to become part of the “attention economy,” wherein businesses thrive off user interaction with various contents. These platforms employ artificial intelligence to monitor activities, tailor information, and encourage continuous browsing, prioritizing advertising income over personal time consumption.
Jaron Lanier, an influential figure in both computer science and digital theory, cautioned us about reclaiming our focus during this digital age. He encouraged individuals to assert their authority—by selecting the information they absorb, disabling news suggestions, regulating alerts, steering clear of false reports, and establishing boundaries for device usage time.
As I master this skill, I’m starting to view the actual world more distinctly—the one that lies outside the screen.
*Trinh Phuong Quan works as an architect.
