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Visual Idiot retires from the industry(visualidiot.com)
5 years ago from Mick N, Freelancer
Account deleted 5 years ago I've deleted facebook, twitter and insta and stopped reading the news. It's kind of a head in the sand approach but for my sanity it helps. It's weird for a week or two, but then you start reading more books or exercising more. I'd recommend it if you're feeling a bit drained.
Andy Stone, 5 years ago
I really do need to do this—for the long term. It's just tough knowing how much of our careers is tied up in clients/competitors/collaborators seeing your work through social channels. In the last 4 years, we've gotten 5+ decent projects through Instagram and Twitter was responsible for me starting the agency in the first place.
I just have terrible self control when it comes to opening news apps, scrolling down a little further, or just visiting dumb-shit pages on the web. So far, the best thing that has helped is the greyscale mode on iOS to make the whole experience feel a lot more dull.
Account deleted 5 years ago Yeah man take it in baby steps. Just ween yourself off one first, after a few months, stop visiting another. It'll be weird for a coiuple of weeks and you'll get fomo but after a while you'll get used to it.
Michael F, 5 years ago
I distanced myself from social and found first deleting the apps helped tons, Facebook, in particular, was really draining my time,... I would still visit social sites but was forced to type the web address in a browser, the experience is shitty, slow and eventually, I would start forgetting to check... I'm now at a stage where I don't check at all unless I actually want to or need to for work.
I use a browser extension called Social Fixer which limits the amount of facebook you can see, amongst other things... So even if I do log in to FB I'll see like 50 posts and that's it...
Side note: I still keep Messenger installed for communicating with friends, family and some clients.
Twitter and Insta I only ever use for business, no personal accounts.
Unfortunately, I recently uncovered the beauty Reddit so I am now hooked on that. It's not all bad as there is a ton of valuable content on there, I can pretty much decide what I want to see... the downside is the time I got back from social media is now consumed in Reddit so I'll likely be deleting this app soon also.
James Bickerton, 5 years ago
Can't agree with this more.
Free's up your mind to chew over the design problems.
Ranit Sanyal, 5 years ago I second that. Creating a balance is very much necessary in life.
It's sad to see Charlotte retiring, but it's a completely understandable choice.
It seems while there's more talk about how people are overcoming the negatives of the always-connected world and burnout, there are still so many people struggling to keep sane, me included.
I guess this also depends on your character so I can only talk from my own experience, but I've started cutting back on the whole social media consumption shitshow and trying to enjoy life away from my computer and mobile devices, and it's been a bit better, but the fear of missing something that could help me progress with my career, life or fall behind on something "groundbreaking" is giving me anxiety at times.
I feel that talking about these sort things is still considered a taboo (or something like that) for some people/societies, but this needs to be talked about. I think most of us are (or were) in a situation like this (some more, some less) and could learn a lot and help each other to overcome this or make it more bearable for some.
Keep your heads up and don't be shy to ask the people around you for help or advice in situations like this, if only to have someone listen to you...it helps :)