All the feelings about a work-in-progress relationship with social media and screens.
You’re listening to Burnt Toast!
We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your April Indulgence Gospel!
These episodes are usually only for paid subscribers but we’re releasing this one for free! If you like it, you can get even more Virginia by becoming a paid Burnt Toast subscriber.
There has been so much conversation in online spaces over the past few months about divesting from social media. Folks are dropping X, Facebook, Instagram as a form of protest against billionaire tech bros like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And a lot of us are also feeling the need to doom scroll less as a form of self care. Plus, when Tiktok drops a new Chubby filter, it doesn’t really make us want to be there.
So today we’re chatting about how we’re both feeling about social media. What are we divesting from? How’s it going? And does any of this feel like a diet?
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Episode 187 Transcript
Corinne
Well, you’ve really been a leader in this field.
Virginia
A pioneer, would we say?
Corinne
You’ve been a pioneer in the field of quitting Instagram.
Virginia
Since December? I feel I cannot really claim pioneer status for something I’ve been doing for three months! But let’s start at the beginning.
What was your starting point in feeling like you wanted to start reevaluating your relationship with social media?
Corinne
Well, to be honest, I don’t know. I still feel mixed about it. We maybe should start by acknowledging that the “quitting Instagram” conversation just feels like it’s been going on forever.
Virginia
Forever!
Corinne
It feels like it has been years of people being like, “I’m so tired of Instagram blah, blah, blah.” And I’m someone who has always sort of felt like, “whatever, it’s fine.” I don’t necessarily feel like I go down an Instagram rabbit hole and then feel terrible about myself. Maybe in some specific circumstances.
So maybe for me, it started with our screen time episode.
Virginia
Where we looked at how much time we were spending on our phones. That was a hard day for both of us.
Corinne
I saw some stat recently that was like, if you spend two hours a day on Instagram, at the end of your life, you will have spent 10 years on Instagram. And that felt a little bleak.
Virginia
Okay, I don’t love that.
Corinne
Yeah, I didn’t love it. But there are also things I enjoy about Instagram. I do have a lot of friends and community there. SoI thought, well, why don’t I just delete it for the weekend?
Virginia
And that’s what you’ve started with.
Corinne
And that’s what I’ve started with.
What about you? What was your starting point?
Virginia
Mine was a little bit of a whim. I’ve been trying different things for a few years now to manage my relationship with Instagram specifically and with my phone more generally. And some of that was realizing that as a business strategy, it was not serving me to keep putting a lot of time into making reels and elaborate content for Instagram. Instagram is so siloed. It wasn’t translating to people coming over and finding Burnt Toast and the podcast. Maybe a handful of people do every week. But it’s not our main driver, and never has been.
So once I connected those dotes, I had to ask: Why am I spending an hour+ per day making content, for free, for this evil billionaire-led corporation? It didn’t feel right to me. So I’ve been scaling back and scaling back. But then it was really a total whim that in December, right as my kids’ winter break was starting, I was just like, you know what? I’m going to just fully delete it while my kids are off school. It’s the holidays, and I want to be able to focus on that.
And I will say, that was the first time I’d ever deleted it. I’ve often, in the past, on vacation, logged out or taken it off my home screen or taken a two week break, or a one week break, just by hiding it in my phone somewhere. But I always knew the tricks to find it again. So if I wanted to get back on I could. And this time, I was like, nope, it is not on my phone anymore. And that felt really huge.
And then. I really did not miss it at all. I really loved not having it in my space over the holidays in particular. And while I would agree with you that I’m also not someone who was spending a lot of time looking at beauty influencers and feeling bad about my skin or whatever, it turns out that I was getting locked into a comparison trap I didn’t even recognize. Especially around the holidays when a lot of people are posting their perfect family photos—I realized I enjoyed my own Christmas much more when I wasn’t comparing the messy reality of my family navigating the holidays with what people are curating for social media.
Corinne
Totally. That makes a lot of sense.
Virginia
I hadn’t even realized how much that bummed me out! But I was like, oh, I don’t want to see people’s Happy Family photos! Which makes me feel like a jerk, but it’s where I was.
Corinne
I think that’s very honest, and good to be aware of.
Virginia
So that was an interesting data point. And then after the holidays, I really was not dying to get it back on my phone, but I felt like I needed to bring it back for work. So here’s what I’m doing now: A couple of times a week, when we have a new podcast episode or new newsletter to promote, I’m logging on. I’m putting some stuff in stories. I’m spending a little bit of time responding to DMs. And then I delete it again until the next time I need to do that. So I’m really only downloading it like three or four times a week for an hour or two at a time.
Corinne
Wow, that’s awesome.
Virginia
Yeah, it’s a big change.
What have you noticed about not having it during the weekends?
Corinne
I think I’ve done it for three weekends, so hasn’t been super long. The first weekend, I was still looking for Instagram on my phone all the time. And then the second weekend, I think I actually forgot to delete it and just didn’t look at it.
Virginia
Interesting.
Corinne
One thing I’ve noticed is, I think we’re in a day and age where a lot of useful information is on Instagram. I was trying to look up whether something was open.
Virginia
Oh, like local businesses.
Corinne
And the only thing I actually trust would be Instagram. But you can still kind of use it in the web browser app.
Virginia
Yes, and it’s not at all addictive there because it’s so bad. You can quickly look something up if you need to. That’s how I’ve been using it for podcast episode research or story research is strictly web browser. Yeah, the local business thing. I definitely hear you on that.
Corinne
I’ve also noticed how quickly I can just use something else the same way. Like Substack notes have kind of turned into a similar thing. Or I also used to be really into playing Candy Crush, and so I’ve gotten a little bit back into Candy Crush as a zone out phone thing.
Virginia
Because you still need the dopamine hit and the “I’m going to just check out for a minute and do something mindless on my phone” break.
So when I went on vacation in February, I deleted Instagram, I deleted Substack, which felt terrifying because that’s my lifeline to my whole business, and I deleted my email off my phone, which felt even more terrifying. But was actually great. And I had the privilege of saying to Corinne, “If something explodes with Burnt Toast while I’m away, please text me.” And I would do the same for you. So it’s nice we have that option.
But now on the weekends, I’m trying to remember to delete all three of them to cut down a little bit on that mindlessly-looking-at-my-phone thing. I would so much rather be reading a book if I’m going do something where I just need a brain break. I would rather be reading a feminist romance novel than scrolling an app! It’s going to be more relaxing for me. I know this—but I have not yet broken the pickup phone check. I have not broken the muscle memory of that and I don’t know how we do that.
see the shape of my phone out of the corner of my eye sometimes it’s distracting, you know?
Virginia
I’m also such a power texter. And I do love texting for the connections it brings me. I don’t live with another adult and my kids are amazing, but I need adult conversation. Texting helps me feel like a part of my community. So that means I’m looking at my phone more for texting. And then once you’re texting, it’s like, oh, let me just check… And so I’m really on top of my New York Times word games. I’ll often find myself mindlessly doodling around my phone being like, wait, I’m not doing anything because there’s nothing here.
So I don’t know if that just fades eventually, or if I need, we need to do something more concrete to break that cycle.
Have you ever tried the brick?
Corinne
No, but I’ve been hearing about that. I’ve been hearing a lot about the brick, and also this app Opal, that similarly blocks certain stuff on your phone.
Virginia
I bought a brick maybe a year ago, and I did use it for a little bit. I was totally like, “This is going to be my Butter on the next podcast episode because it’s changing my life!” And then I put it down and never used it again.
Corinne
That’s so funny.
Virginia
But as we’re talking I’m like, should I try it again? Maybe it would turn my phone into a texting only vehicle.
Corinne
I’ve heard about people using it so as you go out the door on the way to work, you tap it and then it blocks stuff while you’re at work. But as a person who works from home, it doesn’t feel like that makes as much sense for me.
Virginia
You would just get up and go get the brick when you wanted to break into your phone, right? That’s what was happening to me.
Corinne
And I feel like it’s more like, I want to block stuff on my phone when I’m at home.
Virginia
I’m like, should I brick everything except text messages over the weekend? It’s something to play around with, maybe. Except, like, Google Maps or something, the essential things. Like, can you make your phone as unfun as possible?
Corinne
There are also now all those smartphone alternatives. I think there’s one called, Wisephone where they have the basics, but they just try to make it not fun. I think they’re black and white and don’t have social media apps, but still have phone calls, maps, texting stuff.
Virginia
Have you noticed any differences in terms of how you’re feeling about your body just because you’re less on Instagram and Tiktok?
Corinne
To be honest, I haven’t noticed. I feel like my body stuff is more influenced by real life and discomfort in the actual world.
I guess I do notice on Tiktok especially, that there is just a lot of filtering, I guess. Both skin and body stuff. Right now, there is a lot of talk about the new AI chubby filter, where you can use this certain filter and it makes you into a chubby person.
Virginia
I want to know what it would do to actual fat people. (Spoiler: Not much!!!)
Corinne
Yeah, I have seen fat people using it. It does not do a lot.
But the thing I’ll say about it is: It’s Disney chubby. It makes you into a cute cartoon fat person. Like chubby arms, but they’re smooth and you still have a waist. And then I also was realizing Tiktok has this app called CapCut that is a video editing app, and there are so many things you can do to your body. There are little things you can click like “square shoulders” or “shrink in waist,” just all these tiny little edits that you can totally mess with your your body.
Virginia
I mean, it’s not hard to see the potential for harm there is from that. Like, if you are uploading content of yourself and using these filters to digitally alter as much about yourself as possible, it is going to create a major disconnect with how you feel about your actual body.
I don’t use CapCut. But when I am editing photos, I use A Color Story, which is a photo editing app. I mostly doing it to brighten up a photo that didn’t have good lighting, or cropping it to fit into how I want it to look on Substack or something. But I do brighten, and I sometimes use a filter that makes the photo look higher quality. But of course, in doing that, it also is smoothing out my skin, or making me look a little more tan, that kind of thing. And there are times when I then look at an actual mirror and I’m like, oh, wait, I don’t have the Color Story “Welcome Home” filter on me. I am less glowy in real life. And it is weird. And that’s like, such a mild use of it.
Corinne
Totally. When you’re recording TikTok videos, I think maybe the default is to have some kind of beauty filter on that like smooths out your skin.
Virginia
Oh god! So wild! Do you ever use filters when you make Tiktok content?
Corinne
I think I have unknowingly in that way where it’s just the default.
Virginia
I’ve been coerced into it.
Corinne
Yeah, not that I’ve looked at my face and been like, dang, put something on there. But I’ve also played around with some of the like, makeup-y filters, and usually I hate the way they make me look.
I recently posted a TikTok where I was like, Does this not work on me because I’m fat or because I’m gay? I just don’t like how it makes me look. So, yeah, I think I’m maybe like, less susceptible. But I mean, it’s really strange. It’s just weird.
Virginia
It is really weird! We will link to Elise Hu, who was on the podcast a while back, talking about her book about Korean beauty culture. She has a greatTED talk she did recently about digital beauty standards and how they are messing with all of us, and particularly teenagers. It is a grim piece of this.
Corinne
The other thing I think about a lot with this is plastic surgery. Because the filters are one thing. But then I also think there’s just a lot of really popular people who are doing a lot of stuff to their face.
Virginia
It’s just like intentional weight loss. It’s a necessary survival strategy in a capitalist society for a lot of people, a lot of job descriptions hinge on it. So it’s there. And it also then has these ripple effects, of the more we look at those images, the more our brains normalize to those images, and the more we expect out of ourselves and others, and that way danger lies.
Corinne
Right? And it’s one thing to like be doing that and disclosing it, and then it’s another thing to not be.
Virginia
Totally.
Are you deleting Tiktok as well on the weekends? Or just Instagram?
Corinne
I have been deleting Tiktok as well. Tiktok is way more of a problem for me. I have this thing where I’m like, I’m just going to look at Tiktok for 15 minutes before I go to sleep. And then it’s literally two hours later, and I’m like, what?
Virginia
So then that leads me to the next thing on our outline, which is we are going to check our phone time.
I am curious to know if not having Tiktok is actually lowering your screen time.
Corinne
Well, not having Tiktok for two days. But yeah.
Virginia
So for anyone who missed our previous episode, Corinne and I were both averaging around eight hours of screen time a day according to our phones. Now I will put a caveat in that, which is, I talked to
after that episode came out. And Ash told me that the iPhone screen time is not actually accurate, because it keeps recording after you put your phone down if you haven’t quit out of an app. So, like, there are lots of ways the phone is amplifying your screen time, which I think is very important for us to know.
However we can at least compare. It was somewhere around eight hours before. What is it now? So let’s look at last weekend.
How did you do, Corinne?
Corinne
Last Friday, I had six and a half hours. I had eight hours on Saturday, but I had 12 hours on Thursday and 11 hours on Wednesday.
Virginia
I had 13 hours on Thursday.
Corinne
Yeah, I’m really questioning how accurate this is.
Virginia
I’m really questioning how accurate it is, but I’m also like, wow, so it doesn’t fucking matter? Because even if it’s not accurate, it’s still roughly the same as what we had before, when we were on Instagram and Tiktok all the time?
Corinne
I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s making a huge difference. For me it looks like there’s maybe like, one hour difference. I don’t know.
Virginia
I mean, my most used app before was texting, and that’s still true. Like last Saturday, 8 hours and 39 minutes of total time, 3 hours and 22 minutes on texting. And what can I say? I had my kids last weekend, and I need adult conversation when I’m parenting. So there we are. But there is no Instagram time listed because I had deleted it.
Corinne
Yeah, yep. Definitely spending less time on Instagram. Is that a net positive?
Virginia
I don’t know, but it is distilling for me what the problems are. It tells you how many times you picked up your phone in one day, and I’m picking up my phone like 150 times a day. So maybe that’s the next piece of this I need to work on.
Corinne
Yeah, my daily average is 140.
Virginia
Yep, that sounds right. Wow, cool, great. So that’s depressing. We’re getting no better, but we are noticing benefits from being on these particular apps less.
Corinne
Yeah, right. We are? What are they?
Virginia
Did we just like ruin our entire sense of accomplishment? Oh, my gosh.
I mean, I think what’s interesting is we had both verbalized concrete ways this was making our lives better, and then we looked at the numbers and we felt like garbage.
And what does that remind us of, Corinne?
Corinne
Hmmm, dieting?
Virginia
So how do we think about wanting to use our phones less and not get caught up in a perfectionistic diet-y mindset?
Corinne
As you said, the tracking is not accurate. So I think we need to just not track. And not turn this into an information thing.
Virginia
It really should be more about how we feel. I also think there’s still some work that I personally need to do untangling morality and screen time. Like when I said earlier, oh, I’d be so much happier reading a book. I know that is true in the way that my brain feels after reading versus the way my brain feels after scrolling. I know I feel calmer and less stressed.
But what I don’t know is how much of that is because I think reading a book is a morally superior activity to being on my phone.
Corinne
I mean, I think it’s also really easy to make a diet culture parallel there. It’s like, sometimes I might actually physically feel better if I eat some salad with my pizza, rather than just eating a ton of—I don’t know, pizza is not a problem for me. But I think there’s an argument sometimes, where it’s like, I do feel better when I eat this way, and it’s not the whole story.
Virginia
How much of that is “I feel better because I’ve been told this is better” versus “I’m really noticing some physiological shifts.” And I think it can also be both, right? And I think with me, with books versus phone, it is both. But it is that is a piece of it. And I think I have to be careful to interrogate that part of it, in order to prevent this from becoming like…the phone diet.
Corinne
Totally. I also feel like you’ve pretty clearly identified what part of the phone using is helpful and valuable to you, like texting.
Virginia
Yeah, that’s true. So there’s no reason to feel bad if there’s a lot of hours spent texting, because that’s me being in touch with my community. What about you? Do you feel like there’s a clear way your phone is valuable to you?
Corinne
I feel very clear on what I don’t like, which is scrolling TikTok for three hours before I fall asleep. But that also seems to be one of the most impossible things for me to kick.
Virginia
What if you deleted it before bed?
Corinne
I mean, it’s just like, would I? There are all kinds of tips that are, like, put your phone in the other room, blah, blah, blah, and I’m just like, I’m going to put my phone in the other room after I look on TikTok for five minutes. So I don’t know if deleting it would be any different.
Virginia
I used to put my phone in the other room when I shared my room with someone else who had their phone on the nightstand, and now that I don’t, I want my phone in my room in case of emergencies. I want it in my room if my kids are not with me, in case, a kid gets sick in the middle of the night and, God forbid, I need to be notified. And I want it in my room when the kids are with me, in case the killer breaks into our house. So I can’t do that one anymore. And I think that’s fine.
But I do think editing down what’s available on the phone is helpful for the bedtime thing. But I also understand it’s like, are you going to do it? Maybe that’s where one of those apps, or the brick or something, could come in handy. But we haven’t gotten there yet.
I mean to that note of us being like we need our phones in our rooms for safety, which I think is valid for people who live alone, we should also talk about like the function of privilege in all of this, and how much divesting from screen time is, in and of itself, for privilege,
Corinne
And just the privilege to have a ton of screen time.
Virginia
Yeah, yeah, to have the time to do it. But also, I really, again, love Ash Brandin’s work on this. They talk about screen time and kids. So they’re not really talking about social media. They’re usually talking about video games and younger kids. And Ash wrote:
If we fear a child has too much screen time? Perhaps the question to ask is, what underlying need is not being met for this child? And if we do think that’s related to screen time, the question becomes, what need is this screen time meeting? Is it replacing a lack of parental leave, child care, a regulated parent, outdoor access movement? How do we address that need? Focusing on the screen will only make the caregiver feel shame, and that doesn’t help anyone, especially the child.
And I read that, and thought, yes. Because I know in addition to me needing my phone with me more as a single parent, my kids get more screen time now that they live in two single parent households, because there are not two people there all the time to have other things going on. And it does meet some needs.
And I think we can definitely extrapolate that to ourselves and ask what need is our screen time meeting?
Corinne
Yeah, that’s a great question.
Virginia
So what need does three hours of TikTok scrolling meet for you?
Corinne
I don’t think I have an answer, but I will definitely be thinking about it.
Virginia
I do think a lot of it is social connection. I mean, I think all of our screen time increased during the pandemic because social media became a replacement for community. I think there’s a lot going on there. And I think talking more honestly about that piece of it and understanding, what are you actually getting out of this, seems more useful than just, it’s bad, it’s bad. I’m bad for using it.
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Butter
Corinne
Virginia. Do you have a Butter this week?
Virginia
I do. I’m going to suggest a fun, non screen time activity to do with kids. Not because I think screen time is bad, but just because it has been really fun in my house lately. It is giant coloring sheets, where you just put this giant poster roll of paper with a printed coloring thing on it, on a table with some markers, and you and your kids or your friends or whoever go to town on it, and it is really soothing and lovely.
Some recent coffee table coloring at Virginia’s house
Corinne
Wow, that sounds fun.
Virginia
Yeah, I got the first ones at Christmas, and I did buy them off Amazon, which we are no longer shopping at. And I had them out over the holidays when grandparents were visiting, and it was really nice for giving them an easy way to hang out with the grandkids, and just like, anyone could do it. There’s no skill. There is not really a lot of skill in coloring, and it’s just a nice it’s a nice way to be together. I don’t know, it’s great.
And then I posted about it on Instagram, and said I was looking for some non-Amazon options. And folks sent me two good ones. One is Friends Art Lab, which makes some really cute 10 foot long coloring rolls. So I’ve ordered some of those. And then I got some from Grove Collaborative. They’re smaller, but that was actually kind of nice. They fit better on our coffee table. And we’ve been doing those. I just keep it out on the coffee table with some markers. And I particularly find when we’ve had a cranky day, or there has been a lot of squabbling, that sitting down to color calms me down, and then inevitably a kid will join me. And maybe we’re not really talking, but we’re kind of like co-regulating ourselves.
Corinne
That sounds really nice!
Virginia
It’s also good to do while you’re watching TV. if I don’t have a puzzle going, it’s the same kind of like, keeps my hands busy, keeps me off my phone.
Corinne
I love that.
Virginia
What about you?
Corinne
My Butter this week is maybe a little bit niche.
Virginia
I love a niche butter.
Corinne
I was really struggling with the water pressure in my shower, my shower hose head thing was broken, and like all this water was just leaking out of it. Anyways, I replaced my shower head. It’s incredible. I highly recommend replacing your shower head, especially if you have hard water.
Virginia
Oh really?
Corinne
We have really hard water here and minerals build up and break everything and clog all the little shower holes. But I got a new shower hose and shower head, and it’s incredible. Like, what was I doing? Was I even washing shampoo out of my hair? Or was I just leaving it there? I always kind of dread stuff like that, but it was literally like, I could do the whole thing with my hand. I needed a wrench to get the old one off, just a tiny bit. But then you just hand tighten it. It doesn’t leak. it It’s so great. It’s such an easy little upgrade. So, highly recommend getting a new shower head.
Virginia
I love when any house thing that I think is going to be a nightmare turns out to actually be quite easy. A lot of them do. Not all of them! And then you’re like, oh, this dramatically improved my daily quality of life. Why didn’t I do it a year ago?
Corinne
Yeah, it has really, really improved my quality of life. So, something to think about!