Taking Back Control Over My Body and My Attention
It's no easy feat, but here are some of the ways I've changed my relationship with social media to help myself feel happier and healthier than ever before.
Hey everyone!
Hope you all had lovely summers <33 I’m sad summer is over, but I’m also excited for the fall - sturdy leather boots, funky colorful layers, gorgeous reds and oranges in nature, yummy cozy food, a new season and a new chapter.
Today, I’ll be sharing a bit about my personal journey with my body image. Last week, a Wall Street Journal article came out with the headline, “Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show.” The subheading: “Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public.” The article proceeded to detail dozens of statistics and findings from internal Powerpoint presentations made by and distributed around teams inside the organization such as:
“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019.
One survey of 98 students found that nearly 90% said social media negatively affected their mental health.
More than 40% of Instagram-using teens who reported feeling “unattractive” said the feeling began on the app.
Facebook’s researchers found that 40% of teen boys experience negative social comparison in their report on body image in 2020.
Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram.
It’s not that I was surprised that Facebook is conscious of its own toxicity. But rather my feelings of sadness, anger, and disgust come from imagining meetings of people at Facebook (getting paid a lot, I should add) discussing these findings and trying to figure out how to fix a problem that Facebook itself caused in the first place and only in a way that ensures they keep hitting their revenue marks aka keeping young people addicted to their apps.
This passage says it all:
In March, the researchers said Instagram should reduce exposure to celebrity content about fashion, beauty and relationships, while increasing exposure to content from close friends, according to a slide deck they uploaded to Facebook’s internal message board.
A current employee, in comments on the message board, questioned that idea, saying celebrities with perfect lives were key to the app. “Isn’t that what IG is mostly about?” he wrote. Getting a peek at “the (very photogenic) life of the top 0.1%? Isn’t that the reason why teens are on the platform?”
The feelings I have towards this whole situation are similar to ones I got last night, actually, watching the new New York Times documentary about Juul and the teen vaping addiction they caused. These companies have exploited youth naivety, insecurity, and vulnerability to make themselves and their investors extraordinarily rich. They’re actually so pathetic and sad it makes me want to cry :(
And so, I’m here to vent and make some art about it in order to cope and perhaps inspire you (whoever might be reading this) to join me in taking back control over my body, mind, and anything and everything that I feel has been taken from me by a little toxic device.
I’m One in Three
Content warning: eating disorders, mental health
I found this picture (below) in my camera roll from December 2014. I was on family vacation in Hawaii and had just received Beats headphones for Christmas. I wanted to post a picture on Instagram. I remember taking the phone back from my mom, looking at the (unedited) picture, and immediately thinking that my arms looked big and my stomach fat was sticking out too much. So, I proceeded to download an app - seen below titled “Plump&Skinny Booth” lol - that allowed me to slim out these parts of my body. I posted this edited version on Instagram. This was my senior year of high school, which was around when my eating disorder started.
Throughout college, I weighed myself constantly. Some months, my mental health was better than others. I was on and off making myself throw up or working out as punishment for eating too much. But the one pattern I noticed that stayed consistent throughout my struggle was criticizing pictures of myself in my camera roll. I would zoom in on my arms (that little flab of skin by my armpit), my legs, stomach, hips if I was in a bathing suit. Almost every picture of myself inspired an outpour of silent self-criticism.
I’m not going to say that Instagram caused these actions but it certainly encouraged and perpetuated them, as I certainly felt (and still honestly feel) a need for my body to look a certain way if I’m going to post it on Instagram.
Freeing Myself Every Day
My goal is to find replacements for all the things I love about Instagram and eventually delete it - once and for all ridding myself of the toxicity it brings to my life. However, this is not just a personal mission. This is ‘the personal is political’ at its finest.
These days, many of us are practicing consumer activism or “conscious consumerism” - protesting for causes including worker rights, animal rights, low-carbon footprint, recycled and/or renewable materials, etc. with our dollars by replacing purchases from Amazon or Fast Fashion brands with local businesses and sustainability-focused alternatives. Or if you’re not, you should! This article by Vox is a great overview of the history of this practice.
“The strategy: Vote with your dollar and don’t contribute a cent to the bottom line of companies whose values don’t align with your own.”
According to this article, the jury is still out on whether or not consumer activism is effective in making large corporations change their unethical ways, but that is certainly not the end-all-be-all goal. In the short term, supporting smaller, locally and minority-owned businesses is good for the economy, boosts equity and opportunities for marginalized people, and spurs innovation. Plus, the products are usually made from healthier materials and ingredients making them better for consumers. In the long term, conscious consumerism is “a transformation of consciousness” that might inspire you to take other actions that have even greater impact such as voting in elections.
Now, in the case of the Big Tech social media companies, the analogous practice would be to protest using our attention. To them attention = currency.
If you’ve seen the Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” you saw little men living inside of a Smartphone scheming how they’re going to get a kid named Ben to pick up his phone and scroll for as long as possible. The filmmakers probably meant for this scene to be a metaphor, but the WSJ coverage of Facebook’s internal conversations show it’s actually pretty close to the reality. Every millisecond our eyes spend on these apps generates revenue for them to continue to encourage and perpetuate harms on youth mental health, body image, and self-esteem.
Many of my friends (aka many of you) have told me about some of the social media detoxing you do - deleting the apps, Screen Time limits, no-phone Sundays, etc. I think the saying goes: one’s an example, two’s a coincidence, and three’s a trend. There are plenty of us out there, but I think it’s time we take it a step further or think about it more holistically.
Four Is a Movement
Our attention is sacred. Time is a limited resource. The more milliseconds Big Tech social media companies take from us, the fewer we have to do things according to our values - things that heal and empower us and our communities, things that fill us with joy, love, and purpose. These companies are actively working against us having this level of control over our own bodies and minds.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, consider yourself part of something. I don’t know what to call it - some are calling it a “soft boycott”, I’ve heard the term “digital detox,” there’s even a teen-led initiative called the “Logoff Movement” that is super awesome and impressive. We can all call it whatever we want but none of us are doing this alone. For me, the practice of reclaiming my attention and intentionally distributing it more in-line with my values has not been easy, but on the days when I get it right, I feel amazing.
Here’s what this practice looks like for me:
Not picking up my phone first thing in the morning. This is a time of day when we are vulnerable! Beware.
You’re tired and your phone is probably next to you charging. You probably just tapped it to turn off your alarm. I challenge you to choose another action that will help you wake up your body and mind. After tapping off my alarm, I usually stretch a little in bed to wake up my body and take few deep breaths. In 5-ish minutes, I get up, splash some water on my face, and make my bed (a perfect amount of activity) before heading to the kitchen to brew some coffee. The first content I consume all day (while making breakfast and waiting for coffee) is a news podcast, usually the Daily and/or Robinhood Snacks.
Setting notifications for when specific creators I love make new posts.
As the morning progresses, my phone will eventually light up with an Instagram notification that a creator I love has made a post. Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that there is so much valuable information I learn and creative inspiration I gain on Instagram every day. Therefore, I actively seek out certain kinds of content when I want it versus getting caught up in a deep Instagram or Tik Tok content hole. I also unfollowed a bunch of toxic accounts (lol) and followed a ton of accounts that inspire me: spirituality and meme accounts, collage artists, photographers, brands that celebrate diverse bodies, educators, activists, etc.
Here are the 10 IG accounts resonating most with me right now: @sighswoon (spirituality & memes), @ayeshaophelia (spirituality & nature), @iamlexchandra (activism & writing), @hara_thelabel (beautiful, diverse bodies), @emmawondra (photographer), @cosmiccolllage (collage), @afffirmations (memes & affirmations), @hotmessbian (more memes), @shelbysellslove (sex-ed), @whatsmybodydoing (sex-ed) … I love exchanging favorite accounts with friends so if you’re reading this pleasssee let me know yours!!!
Notice when I’m scrolling for no reason and ask myself, “What am I looking for?”
A great intervention when I do find myself caught up in a deep Instagram or Tik Tok content hole.
Thinking of myself as a creator! Even if all I do is post pictures with friends and family. Even if all my followers are friends and family.
The truth is, everything we post sends a message or - dare I say - influences somebody who views it in some way. I have started being honest with myself about what messages I do and do not want to send into the world. This has definitely not been easy! But figuring out what these messages are has been, and will forever be, a thrilling journey of high times and low filled with lots of art-making and spontaneous life living. I feel good about where I’m at right now and excited for what lies ahead.
Also, for me, most of this type of posting goes on Lips which is why I’m grateful to be working on that platform. I personally feel like IG inhibits my ability to step into my creativity - too much pressure, too many distractions, too many haters, biased censorship and all the rest of the stuff I’ve talked about on this newsletter a million times. The Head of Instagram even said it’s no longer a photo sharing app.
One of my recent posts Lips from a photoshoot with my friend @saramakesathing below :)
Calling or hanging with friends to get real updates on their lives.
This one’s self explanatory.
I’m not going to tell you not to use Instagram - I use it every day. But I figured I’d show you how I consciously use it to maximize what good comes out of it and limit the bad. It feels liberating. But also as more of us do this, it becomes a collective act of protest. Right now in my life, I don’t have much money to spend (or not spend) in conscious consumerism. I also therefore don’t have much money to donate to causes I care about. For me right now, my attention feels like my most powerful weapon.
We urgently need to take back control over our minds from the Big Tech social media companies, and we need to teach young people how to do this as well if we ever want to see these bleak mental health statistics improve. Maybe Instagram will change drastically over the next 5 years, but we definitely shouldn’t count on it. Their business model would fail and rich people would lose a lot of money which we know they won’t ever let happen. The better solution is to change our daily habits - shop local and be conscious of where we allocate our attention. Think of yourself like one mini revolution. Then, help the person next to you become their own mini revolution.
Much of the thinking from this post came from the incredible artist, writer, sex worker, Lips community member @that.killister who has been posting about these topics for over a month. Check out her stuff on IG and of course on Lips.
Thanks for reading everyone! Would love to hear your thoughts on these topics, any practices that work for you, your favorite (inspiring) social media accounts, or just a hi is always appreciated.
xx
Val