Comparison Sucks

Click. I scroll down to the next YouTube short. It’s some computer narrated video of somebody doing something. My brain doesn’t even really comprehend. Click. I scroll again, this time to a video I’ve seen before. It’s a guy with a glorious mustache throwing a dart up in the air and catching it on a carrot he pulls out of his pants. That one I remember. I wish I had that talent, but I’m not a fan of impaling my hand with darts. Click. On to the next one, another forgettable one in a sea of forgettable shorts. Click. Man, I really need to stop, I think to myself. Click. My head almost hurts. It’s like pain adjacent. Click. Stop, Sammy. Click. Please stop. I flex my hand, feeling the tension building up in my body. I feel somehow completely calm and totally out of control at the same time. Click. How long have I been doing this? I check the computer screen. 3 hours?? I need to stop. Click. Just one more. Click. Just one more. Click. Ok, really now, just one more. Click. I need to stop. Click. I need to stop…

Goodness, what a depressing paragraph. How can I allow such a thing to happen to me? My time is so precious. I’m supposed to guard it, to use it wisely. And yet here I am, scrolling it away, looking at short-form content. My body feels stressed just thinking about it.

When I was a kid, I learned a lot about addictions. I was raised in a conservative Christian household, and my parents wanted to protect me from the pain that they saw in the world. So from a young age, I learned about drugs and alcohol and smoking. I was grateful (and still am)! Imagine if I had gone out into the world unprepared for the dangers that lurked around the corner. Knowledge is power, and since I now knew of these addictions, I could be sure to steer well clear of them.

As I entered high school, I looked around with pitying scorn at friends of mine as they picked up vaping or drinking. How could they be so foolish? I held strong, looking forward to a bright, addiction-free future.

And then I got a smartphone.

I had seen my friends get wrapped up with holding on to their precious Snapchat streaks or silly games, so I knew there were downsides to having a phone. But the possibilities that lay before me! I felt like I had walked out of a small, sparsely furnished room into a wide open landscape whispering of adventure and social status everywhere I looked. I was giddy. Suddenly I was no longer the kid who had to make phone calls on a landline or write a letter to stay in touch with friends. I had the power of texting right at my finger tips. Gone were the hours of boredom on long drives. I could just play a game, listen to music, or even watch a movie.

I dove headfirst into everything, relishing the newfound freedom and connection that my phone brought me. But as the months began to pass, I noticed something odd. Rather than becoming brighter, my life was actually beginning to become more gray. Things that I used to enjoy fell to the wayside in a forgotten pile as I surged forward chasing all the shiny new promises that my phone offered me. My number of relationships increased, but the overall quality of them began to wane. I became stressed and anxious, looking at my life with increasing dissatisfaction as I was exposed to all the wonders that the rest of the world was experiencing.

But it couldn’t be my phone could it? I was just using it wrong. That’s it! If I am more careful with how I use my phone, I can still have all these games and social media accounts and friends while also being happy. Right?

…right?

Turns out trying to be smarter about social media is a lot like trying to quit alcohol and keeping a bottle of bourbon next to your bed. It’s just too accessible. It is meant to be! The only way these apps can survive is by being as addicting as possible. I personally find it easier to file my taxes than delete an Instagram account. They hide it deep within their settings to discourage people from wanting to take that step. I know it’s worked for me. I have made the decision to delete accounts before in the past and then simply given up because I didn’t want to click through all the pages in settings.

And all those friends? They quickly started leaving when I stopped texting them as much. So of course I panicked and went back on my plan. A few months later, I would try again, and the same thing would happen. Again. And again. I wasn’t happy, but I was going to be even more unhappy if I didn’t have any friends. So I made the sacrifice, kept texting them, and my mental health slid a little further down the drain.

It has now been almost 5 years since I got that first phone. That first paragraph? That happened to me a couple weeks ago. But my life is not the same as it was 5 years ago, 3 years ago, or even 1 year ago. In the time since I got my first phone, I have had to come to terms with the fact that screens can be an addiction just as much as drugs, alcohol, shopping, sex, or any of a number of other things can be. I have a feeling that if you’re reading this, you have experienced some kind of screen addiction. It is hard to have access to the internet without getting sucked into its all-consuming vortex. If that is the case I want to encourage you with a couple of things.

First, you are not alone. If you look on social media, all the people that you see flaunting their lives are showing off because they probably feel a lot like you might feel: that everybody else has it better. It’s like a worldwide one-up competition on social media. Somebody always has more money, a better car, a sexier body, a happier family, etc. But a lot of it isn’t even real! People take photos with cars that they don’t own, Photoshop out their normal physical blemishes, and buy meals that they can’t afford all because they are chasing some affirmation from the world that they have a good life. The crazy thing is, it doesn’t work. If you try to lift yourself up by showing off how great your life is, you just end up pushing other people down. Those happy people? Yeah, most of them aren’t that happy. They’re just normal people like you trying to find happiness and purpose in the wrong ways.

Second, you’re not stuck. I still have some issues. I have to guard myself against a lot of the things that used to just be a normal, unhealthy part of my day. I finally took the step this past week to get YouTube blocked on my work computer because it kept distracting me and bringing down my mood. But guess what? I also finished my sixth book for the month of April that same week. Reading was a huge part of my childhood. I read hundreds of books from the time I learned to read until I was 17 years old. After I got my smartphone and I had access to all those “wonderful” distractions, my reading took a dive off the deep end and seemed lost forever. Even just two years ago, I remember picking up a relatively simple fiction book and struggling to focus on the pages. Now, after cutting out social media and eliminating texting as a primary source of communication, I actually have time in my day to sit down with a book and read it.

For you, it might be something completely different. Different people find joy in different things. I just want you to know that it’s not gone or impossible to have. You just have to be willing to recognize the effect that certain practices might be having on your life and cut those things out. And I mean like cut them out. Don’t put your social media account in a box in the closet. Throw it out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. You want that thing gone. If you try to hold on to your goals and your addictions, your addictions will always win. But they don’t have to, and my life is a testament to that.

In everything, remember that there is grace in your failures. I still wrestle with certain habits and addictions, but every day I experience a little bit more freedom and I gain a little bit more contentment. A lot of the people you and I really want to be like are not on social media. They don’t need to be. They’re not comparing their lives to others because they are too busy simply living in the moment and being grateful for what God has given them. Get off your phone and go find some people like that to talk to. It’ll change your life.