On Sabbatical from Social Media
A New Shift
PHOTO BY AERAN SQUIRES
Earlier this year, Loam Co-Editor Kate shared an essay on reimagining our relationship to social media. But more and more, as Kate articulates in the short essay below, we’re realizing that we want to hold a clearer boundary.
Right now, Loam is posting as needed. We will be logging in one last time this May to share this update with our community. After that, we will be on sabbatical from social media for the coming 6 months (maybe longer!) We’ll see.
Our work will live here on Substack, in our newsletter, and as always, in print. Stay tuned as well to find us at our little library this summer.
Thank you for being here with us. We’re so very grateful for this community!
Although the Loam team works together to consider what content to share on Loam’s social media, I’ve been solely managing our account for the past few years. And I no longer feel that I can do it.
This is a recurrent conversation that Kailea and I have been circulating through for years. Last year, Kailea took a 6 month break from social media. As she shared: “it was glorious. I did not miss the sucking energy that is the Instagram vortex.” Last week, Kailea decided to deactivate her account again, noting that “I realized I have nothing left to say or do on Instagram. I am not interested in online public performance or the emotional whiplash that comes with tying a sense of self to an AI algorithm that rewards narcissism.”
I’m not so sure if a longer explanation for logging off of Loam’s account is needed–but I also recognize that there is value in articulating my “why.”
So I’ll just say this: for much of my life, my mental health has often felt like a moral failing. It’s hard to extend to yourself the same grace you give to others. As I (re)learn to honor what I need to do in order to be in this work for the long haul, I’m practicing naming and holding new boundaries. A big realization has been that the boundaries I have surrounding social media—5 minutes a day, once or twice a week—aren’t working. Because it isn’t about the length of time. It’s about the space itself, and what it does to me to be punted from footage of an active genocide to an ad. Recently, I’m reckoning with how my own decision to show up for social media movements1 is corroding my capacity to show up for real life movements. Some people are skilled at doing both. But I’m not there, not yet, maybe never, so I’m choosing in-person (and in print) for now.
Truthfully, I’m not so sure what mental health even means at this moment.2 We are living through multiple livestreamed genocides, catastrophic climate collapse, and a global spiral toward fascism. None of us are okay.
And, also,3 I think there is value in practicing how to live without always feeling like you might cleave in half. We owe one another our solidarity, our showing up, and this means creating spaces, wherever and however we can, to rest or dream or learn or long or move or make. This means transforming our feelings into action. As Safia Elhillo writes in “care is a verb, empathy is not”:
“A feeling is not an action. And the overemphasis on empathy is an overemphasis on feeling over action, on eliciting feeling rather than insisting on action. We all, probably, at this point, feel bad, every day, every moment, deep into every harrowing scroll. And we’ve been allowed to believe that this means that we care. But there is no care in passivity, in centering our individual despair. If care is not accompanied by action, then I don’t think it qualifies anymore as care.”
Revisiting this essay by Elhillo reminds me of how social media can trick me into feeling as if I’ve done something meaningful by virtue of sharing resources, or bearing witness. And although sharing resources and bearing witness matters, what we do must be felt outside the insular and immaterial world of social media. Scrolling, and the suffering it exacts, is insufficient.
Too often, I mistake deadening myself for solidarity. I think that if I scroll toward the cliff, it might...what? Balance the scales? Nothing ever could. But there are things we can do to challenge sick systems and care for those in crisis. It’s so easy to squander our sorrow, our rage. And so the question is: what conditions help you alchemize your anger into action? Help you show up? Share?4
Only you know what those conditions are. And it’s too urgent a time for us to police one another for what we should be doing, and how. If social media makes you a shell—and being a shell doesn’t serve anyone5— you get to log off. If you need a day to rest, you get to rest. If you want to celebrate the beauty of an apple orchard in bloom, or laugh hard with a loved one, you can. Doing so doesn’t diminish your sadness. If anything, it might fortify your capacity to sustain solidarity. Might help you stay here, solid, and committed.
But this isn’t an essay about social media. Not really. It’s about what exists on the other side when we do what we need to do (however specific, place-based, precarious) to center active care in our lives.
Taking an intentional and long-term sabbatical from social media has me hopeful about what’s on the other side of the algorithm, the scroll, the screen. For years, Kailea and I have been dreaming into what a monthly print newsletter could look like, and maybe this shift will free up space to devote ourselves to fresh projects. I’m hungry to figure out how to mobilize our little library so that we can support more folks in our community. And I’m longing for more real conversation, more embodied collaboration, too.
It’s for that reason that one of my biggest fears with this shift is missing out on what’s growing in our community. Social media can be a total hellscape, and, also, I’ve learned a lot about so many cool and resonant projects and people over the years. So please, please, continue to share your offerings with us. We want to learn from and with you all.
Our time here is so precious, and the work in front of us is so urgent. So I’m doing what I need to do to put my feelings into action. It’s what I want for all of us.
In love and solidarity,
Kate
I want to note that social media activism is valid. It’s one of the few accessible tools we have right now to share and amplify information from the frontlines. So this essay isn’t as much of a disavowal of social media as it is an invitation to assess its impact.
Palestinian American poet and psychologist Hala Alyan has generously shared many resources these past 8 months on psychic numbing, somatic care, and collective action.
Listen to Chani Nicholas in conversation with Mira Jacob on the value of “and, also…” on Thresholds.
In a recent episode of How To Survive the End of the World, herbalist Suhaly Bautista-Carolina and emergent strategist adrienne maree brown tease that now is not the time to be a “skill hoarder.” I love this conversation so much. It’s a beautiful reminder that whatever gifts you have, do what you need to do to freely and lovingly share them. No more hoarding.
Nourishing the Nervous System by the incredible tayla shanaye is such a treasure trove of resources on how to be less shell, more whole self. Please download the digital guide if you haven’t yet—this book has truly been a balm for so many in our community.