Social Media Brain Rot Made You a Bad Friend: Why a 30-Day Detox Won't Fix It | Ep 82
“Believe me, nobody actually wants to keep in touch. People are very, very lazy.”
What coming back onto social media after 6 years off has taught me about accessibility and adult friendship, and who actually shows up. A solo video on visual impairment, audio messages, why your prefrontal cortex isn't coming back with a trendy 30 day detox. And yes, I'm calling out precious Substack:
Read Full Transcript
00:00 Social Media Is Rotting Your Brain — Yes, Really
Sophia Chang (00:00)
Why are you sending me a wall of text when I just told you I cannot read it?
Social media makes you a bad friend. It makes you a bad friend.
Welcome to the Sophia Chang Show. You are in the right place.
One of the biggest questions that people ask about social media and smartphones and now even AI is: is social media rotting my brain? The answer is yes. We have countless studies, countless government reports, warnings from the Surgeon General. Don't put your kids on it — you are screwing them for the future. We already know this. Everybody knows this. People are complaining about their lack of focus. It's pointless to even ask this question when you already know that's the case.
I think the bigger question now that people are like, "Okay, fine. I admit it. This is ruining my relationships. This is making it hard for me to concentrate." It's not fun to walk around in a world where everyone's like this. I certainly don't like sitting behind a car where the light has turned green and the driver's still sitting there because they're on their phone. It's not fun to live in this world anymore.
01:13 Can I Fix My Focus From Social Media Brain Rot?
So now the question is: can I come back from this? Will my focus return if I detox? If I go off social media? Can I recover?
That answer's a little more complicated. The broad answer is yes. Most things you can recover from, as much as the doomsday people tell you that you can't. However, a 30-day detox — I'm sorry to say — it's not going to cut it.
I went off social media starting in 2018. Facebook, Instagram. And no, I didn't do the passive-aggressive post of, "Oh, I'm leaving, everybody miss me." I just deactivated. The one thing I did say on Facebook was, "If you have my phone number, we are real friends." And almost all of them had my phone number. See you on the phone.
You know what the response was? It was, "What's your number?" You have my number.
02:06 Bad Friends Are on Substack Too
I think the thing that I'm noticing most is that social media makes you a bad friend. It makes you a bad friend.
How? I'm going to give you an example. This whole inability to concentrate doesn't just affect your writing and your creativity and any kind of deep work that you have to do for your paid job. It makes it impossible to communicate with you about something as simple as how to reach me.
So I talk a lot about making friends as adults. And if you aren't making any as an adult, that's on you. That's your fault. I have plenty of episodes that I will link below that tell you why that's your fault and how to fix it. For me, I do my part by reaching out to as many people as possible. I am constantly hitting on friends.
I've been dragged kicking and screaming back onto social media. So I'm on Substack. I hate it. I hate every bit about it. I hate the notes. I hate the having to do all this stuff. That's social media, right? That's the algorithm. This is all part of needing to have a platform now as an author, as opposed to just having good writing. But that's a soapbox for another day.
One of the things that I am trying to leverage about it is connecting to fellow writers. Since becoming disabled, it's been impossible for me to travel to writing classes. So one good thing that I've been trying to get out of this is meeting other writers and connecting with them and making new friends.
03:34 People are Lazy
So one thing I do is I will give my phone number like it's candy. I will sprinkle it like it's jelly beans. It is not precious to me.
You would think, "Oh my God, why? You don't even know these people." Believe me, nobody actually wants to keep in touch. People are very, very lazy. They have their own lives. They are used to their schedules. They don't care. So even when I give them my number, the messages may start at the beginning, but they peter out.
But the one thing that I have noticed the most of is the inability for people to respect my disability.
What I do is I will write to them. If we know each other, we've already been going back and forth, they already know who I am. I'm always like, "We should talk, we have so much to talk about." I will go, "Here's my phone number." Even if it's international, it is now free. The internet has made anything possible across any number of oceans. You can message somebody for free through your internet — just make sure you're not using your plan, you're using your Wi-Fi.
And I'll say, "I use audio messages." You know, if they've seen me for even five seconds or read anything about me, they'll know that I'm disabled. I have a visual impairment, yada yada yada. Let's do audio messaging.
04:43 I Made a Tutorial. It Didn't Help.
I even created a tutorial — Olds for Olds tutorial. I make it as frictionless and dummy-proof as possible. If you give me your number, I will audio message you first so you can see what it's like. If you don't know how to audio message, I will send you my tutorial. It's got a video. It's so easy.
I do not come on Substack. I'm very rarely there. I schedule the notes, which is the necessary evil, in advance, and I leave and I go on with my life. I have a lot to do. I don't have time to sit on Substack.
05:14 No One Cares About Your Disability
I say all of this very clearly, just a few lines: here's my number, I only audio message, I don't come on Substack, let's connect.
Do you know what I get back? Is it an audio message ping on my phone? It is not. I will get a message like, "I would love to talk."
Why are you sending me a wall of text when I just told you I cannot read it?
I complain about this all the time. I was complaining about it at breakfast this morning, outside right here. And I was like, what is going on? I don't understand. It's not that hard. I just said I don't go on Substack. Why are you messaging me on Substack? I gave you my number. What is so hard?
05:51 "People Don't Read"
And my family member said, "People don't read." And he was like, it's just the easiest thing they can do. You message them on Substack, they'll just hit reply.
The agita that I get from this. I do not have a lot of patience for people. I'm just like, has the brain rot gotten so bad these days?
This is the second thing I would do. I'll leave an audio message for somebody and then they'll type back. And I once actually had somebody — and this I respect, I respect that she actually said this — she goes, "You know what?" Like, after she saw my tutorial, she's like, "I realized you have to send me audio messages, and it never occurred to me that I should send you back."
What part of visual impairment doesn't quite compute? I don't understand. I don't understand.
I know this is a lack of common sense. And I'm trying to figure out whether this is because of the brain rot. Like, we're so used to being passively force-fed crap from the algorithm. You're just scrolling all day. You're not thinking. So your prefrontal cortex is gone. 'Cause I'm just like, how do people even make it to adulthood these days?
06:55 30-Day Detoxes Won't Fix It
You came here for the rant. Back to the question: can you salvage this? Yes, you can. Will a 30-day detox do it? No. No. This is actually a lifestyle that you need to adopt. A 30-day detox can go a long way in maybe giving you like a push to get off the phone so that you can build up some momentum and then implement these habits.
07:15 What's the Solution? Party Like It's 1999
But you really have to go back to living like you're in the '90s. Pick up the phone, call your friends. Video. Make a Zoom appointment. Go face to face. Relearn your skills. Relearn your social skills. They will come in handy in making you a better friend, which in turn makes you a better person, which in turn makes you a better creative. See how it all comes full circle?
Sophia Chang (07:39)
Thanks for tuning in to the Sophia Chang Show. I would love if you would give it a thumbs up, hit that like button, hit the subscribe button. And if you want more of this good stuff, there are tons of videos and audio episodes you can go back and listen to. I appreciate you.
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Sophia Chang is a Reese's Book Club LitUp fellow, disabled dancer, and extroverted writer. She hosts The Sophia Chang Show podcast where she shares No B.S. publishing stories and advice she wishes she'd known. Subscribe if you don't want to cry alone.
