After some weeks of feeling unhappy with my social media experience, I decided to change what I do in the first 60 minutes out of bed. Social media seems to leave me feeling more anxious and some times angry, and rarely does it tell me anything I couldn’t have gotten of a news site like NYTimes.com. It had been my custom to enjoy 2 cups of coffee while messing with my phone.

I decided my new ritual would be to meditate for 10 minutes, then use Duolingo to do a couple Spanish and Norwegian lessons for about 20 minutes. The remaining 30 minutes has sifted back and forth between writing and doing the New York Times crosswords puzzles. I am still trying different things with the remaining 30 minutes. I will likely settle on writing of some sort. I think I write with more clarity in the morning.

I’ve cut social media out of my mornings entirely for about a week now. I feel better. My days start off much nicer with meditation and language study rather than anxiety, existential dread, and anger.

It feels difficult to put down the social media even while I can see it doesn’t make me happy. Part of it is this COVID situation. I don’t get the chance to see others as often as I’d like, and I feel like Facebook keeps me connected. But connected to what exactly? The answer I want to put here is people, but that’s not true.

I’m sure it’s possible to use social media and not have it become habit forming. I’m just not that sort of person though. So, I need to be thoughtful at every juncture about what that time can and cannot do for me. And the last week has shown me that it cannot start my day off well.