#52 Your Slow Sunday Scroll ☕️
books/pods/links/inspo
The reason I left Instagram — (as in I no longer personally use my work account, unfollowed everything, no more time spent interacting on there but I do have someone who will post the occasional work update for me) — is because I kept thinking of the old phrase ‘garbage in, garbage out’ i.e. poor-quality input (into your system) will produce poor-quality output. On the flipside: good stuff in, good stuff out. The internet version of ‘you are what you eat’ = you are what you consume.
I'm not sure when Instagram started to feel garbage-y. (Maybe it’s the hectic Discover tab, the adverts of unverified scammy brands in Stories, or viral videos of fake food in my feed.) Is this like the moment when Facebook went all “Farmville” on us? It just didn’t feel good and I think that is a good enough reason alone to stop doing something. I needed to put a firm boundary in place so that I could no longer get lost in a doom-scroll, read random DMs or open the app first in the morning and see a million different flash-in-the-pan opinions. A good old scroll used to feel quite good; now I just can’t hide from how much of a time-suck it truly is.
For those who think “lucky for you, but I could never leave a platform like Instagram because of XYZ”, I love these wise words from coach
that I spotted on Notes about the business-y aspect of it all:“Simply being on Instagram is kind of like simply picking up a hammer. Are you building a birdhouse? A bookshelf? A barn? If you don’t know, it will be a waste of time.
Being on Instagram doesn’t sell books. Engaging with people around your topic — offering something in terms of your energy and engagement, having a point of view — sells books. There are so many ways to do that work that don’t have to do with Instagram.”
Instead of a joyful open space to share art, photography, tips, ideas, creativity and simply connect; Instagram became a place that prioritised video and views, morphing many of us into passive puppets who felt trapped by likes and stars and numbers. As a writer, it’s also not a platform I want to use to earn money and rarely do.
This year, I’m putting the majority of my focus on Substack (and other publishing projects to be announced) instead. My feed/inbox is curated very intentionally on this platform and I always see good people and good work in my feed. So, thanks for being here. I’m excited to bring you lots of interesting stuff this year.
I am in a phase of my career where I want to put a deeper level of faith and trust into my creativity, writing and work. I recently wrote another novel which has taken me the best part of three years to write a draft that I was genuinely happy with. Three years is actually a normal length of time for a novel or bigger piece of work to take shape, but in a world of Instagram and constant updates, everything was starting to feel unnecessarily pressurised. I also found entering a creative flow-state was getting harder — I was starting to worry that three-second videos of things I didn’t need to see on a loop was going to affect the quality of my work or at least my concentration. So it had to go. I care more about my work and my life behind-the-scenes than I do looking successful on social media.
Since leaving Twitter and unfollowing everything on Instagram, my Internet experience is so much more joyful these days — and these Sunday Scrolls are full of those joyful nuggets I stumble across. If you love to create new things, it’s important to keep that creative inspiration burning. I still love the Internet and the dopamine rush of finding bargains and interesting things in little online pockets. These Sunday Scrolls remind me of the good old days of the Internet — finding things that light you up and make you think. Please also feel free to share what you’re currently enjoying in the comments, too. Hope you enjoy this issue.
For any newbies: this is my Sunday Scroll email that I send out every other week. It is one of my most popular features of The Hyphen and I’ve been compiling these lists for my readers of everything I’m reading, listening, watching and inspired by since 2016. I always describe this round-up as ‘the opposite of doom-scrolling’ — a curation of interesting gems, podcasts, recommendations, ideas that have got me thinking in new ways.