Digital Clutter And Your Self-Care

Picture it. Sicily, 2023.

You are on vacation.

You are eating amazing food, connecting with the charming locals, and sipping your favorite tea or limoncello. Then you do what we all would: you pull out your phone to snap a photo.

While you are there, you decide you are going to pop online and post the photo onto your page so your friends can see where you are and cheer you on for your amazing vacation that you worked hard to save for. Fun!

Then you see it.

The post by Great Aunt Edna (you know the one whose opinions we discarded in the last blog).

She has opinions about the most recent round of tragic events that have happened while you were away. And so do your friends, the businesses whom you follow on social (so you can watch for a sale). Those opinions seem to be everywhere.

Also, Cousin Carol shared an article. Your BFF from grade school commented on the same article with a different opinion. And before you know it you've gone down a rabbit hole of opinions, tragedy, and you don't know how to avoid it. Welcome to the world of digital noise and clutter.

But this is life, right?  The constant noise of people and what they think.  The constant rounds of posts clogging up your feed sucking into drama and emotions that aren’t yours, and the continuous judgement that comes up in your head as you watch people shout into the void of social media. It doesn’t have to be.

Digital Clutter, Digital Noise, and You.

Imagine a world where you phone is a…

A source of positivity and fun.

A source of support.

A place to find creative and interesting ideas.

Not a way to numb out, tune out, and pretend to get involved in the dramas and opinions of people whom you barely know and don't want to be associated with. Imagine a world where your online files were more organized, where you saw your favorite artists, creators, meme makers, and chefs FIRST, before seeing what Great Aunt Edna has to say about the latest thing happening in the world. 

Curating a feed like this is part of your self-care, friend.  I promise. 

We all know that clutter and noise of any kind can affect our mental health.  It creates situations where we make more rash decisions, dysregulate our nervous systems, and are just a touch more miserable than before.

But I want to offer a different approach.

And the good news is you can start today.

What is digital clutter?

Digital clutter usually refers to the disorganization of your files, data, and digital devices. You know, like all of the photos you've saved of your cat should be in one folder, but are they?

I want to propose a different sort of digital clutter--the chaos that is our feeds on social media. We need to spend time quarterly tending to our feed, so we see the content we want to see and let go of the content we don't.

And this is nothing short of self-care.

Many of us spend so much time online that we need to make sure what we are seeing aligns with what we are wanting to view. There is truly a passivity that often accompanies social media feeds--an attitude that there is nothing we can do about what we see. This is not correct.  We can choose what we interact with, what we intake into our brains, and who we want to see. 

I often find it ironic that the people who are the most rigid with what food they put into their bodies will go out there and let the digital world clutter up their brains and hearts without any sense of power, choice, or interest in change.  Now this is not a blog where we promote diet restriction in any way, but the contrast with the nuanced discussion about what we put into our mouths vs. what we put into our brains is pretty striking.

You Are A Museum Curator

Some of you all may find the museum analogy boring, but I am going to be honest, I love museums and find the act of curation to be something akin to magic. 

Museum curators build exhibits and galleries where beauty, creativity, discomfort, challenge, and joy can all thrive together.  And I want that for you too.  I want that on every social media feed that you are on. 

But how?

Start first by doing a little bit of a mini-yoga session.  No, not that yoga, the reflecting and thought-provoking kind of yoga.

Pause. 

Feel your skin. 

Can you feel the air in the room? 

How does it feel?

Relax your shoulders.

Have a long, easy breath in.  And a nice long breath out.

Now, consider the feeling after that mini-sesh as a baseline. 

When you open your social media feeds; see how everything you are consuming affects that baseline.  Maybe you love your friend Taylor’s travels all over the world.  Make sure you like & comment so you see more of their content.  Do that immediately with everyone whom you want to see more of.

Then move onto Great Aunt Edna.  You definitely want to see less of her.  So you can either unfollow her entirely, she probably won’t notice anyways, or make sure you scroll past her stuff very fast.  The algorithm will show you less of Aunt Edna and more of your traveling friends.  That is literally it’s job.

While you are doing this, and you will need to do this on every social media feed you are consuming, make sure you keep some basic tenants of good curation in mind.

Make it beautiful.  Whatever that means to you. Make sure what you see on your social feeds is beautiful to your eyes.

Make it eclectic.  Nobody wants to see the same art piece over and over again, just like you probably don’t want to only consume things that are in total agreement with you.  Make sure you get varied opinions, ideas, and feelings as you scroll through. 

Interact with varied subjects that you enjoy looking at, listening to, and thinking about.  Don’t only look for things that are exactly like you, but also don’t purposely consume things that get you off of baseline we talked about either.  Find that gorgeous middle where you are seeing things you love, things that make you think, and things that…

Let humans stagger you—in a good way.  There are so many things in this world that can make us feel sad.  And I am never going to suggest we turn away from them, but remember it is easy for your brain to get addicted to the sad things.  Make sure you are seeking out things that give you hope (in a realistic and non-toxic way), and let humanity move you.

Social media has given us the opportunity to enjoy so many wonderful things about the people around us.  We have found out that they are funny, artistic, creative, wise, worried, and thoughtful.  Humans are, in short, amazing.

So don’t let social media encourage you to forget that.  Curate your digital life, just like your physical one.  Because that, my friends, is a self-care must.

You are amazing too, in case you needed reminding.

So come join us in our digital self-care membership, Sunlight Streams.  Self-care support in your pocket.  Learn more here.