Ever since I came back to Social Media, I haven’t been okay. I haven’t been my usual self.

I’ve been thinking about whether or not it was a right decision to quit for 40 days. At the time, it sounded like exactly what I needed. I wanted to experience a different Ramadan and I did. I wanted to fix my sleeping patterns and I did. I wanted to write, read, and create. And I had the time and energy to do it all. Then I came back, and felt super alienated. Like everyone was suddenly speaking a language I never learned. And scary things were happening around the world that I felt helpless just reading about.

I was back to holding my phone more. My average screen time had gone down to 2 hours during my detox, now it’s back to around 8. I started scrolling like crazy, making up for all the time I wasn’t here. And so I went from an extreme, right into another.

Yesterday, on my IG Stories, I asked: What distracts you the most everyday? 75% of the answers were related to social media and being on the phone. That’s when it started sounding too alarming for me.

We’re all here to distract ourselves. From our thoughts, from reality, from the lack of connection, from everything.

More accurately, we’re all here, because we all in fact are here. We’re all here, because we want to connect with people who’re also here. We’re all here, because we don’t want to be the only ones missing out on what happens here. We’re all here, because we want to share thoughts, journeys, achievements, and have an audience for that - one that’s really nowhere but here. We’re all here because some of us need to create memes while others desperately need a laugh. And we’re all here because our virtual presence has become, in a way, a proof that we exist. That we have a say in what goes on. That we can argue and argue back.

And we can’t leave, because we all can’t leave.

Because how else would the world look like if we’re not here?

But then, we’re actually all exhausted. It’s exhausting to be here. And exhausting not to be.

How are we collectively ruining the space that we all in fact want to be in?

It just feels weird, for a distraction to eventually turn into what one needs to distract from.

June 16, 2020