Reeling in My Social Media Addiction

Written by Isabella Castelo

Art by Lucy Latorre

I knew I had a problem when I was convulsing on the bathroom floor, hunched over, holding my stomach in pain.

I had rewatched a video of a chubby kid trying to do a backflip at least 20 times. Something about him flinging himself backwards just killed me, and as I laughed alone, the video looped over and over again next to me, sending me deeper into my fit of laughter. Suddenly, I caught myself, shut off my phone, and sat up. My cat stared at me—judgy.

How long ago did I say I was going to shower? How long have I been lying on this floor?

An hour and a half, that’s how long.

I had no idea. I was entranced by “Orange Cat Core” videos, and car crash scenes, and how to knit colorwork tutorials, and ads for new boots, and recipes for “Italian Penicillin," and Coraline analysis videos, and—

It’s not that the time flew by or slowed down; it just felt like no time passed at all. I had entered some kind of warped reality that changed every 5-10 seconds based on my interest level. As time went on, my eyes and head started to hurt more, but I was stuck on the tile, as if there was some kind of magnetic field pulling me deeper into the black hole of reels.

I’ve tried everything to squash my short-form social media addiction. I deleted TikTok a year ago to “be more present,” and three days later, I went to Instagram to get my fix. I’ve tried setting screen time limits and even apps that lock social media apps and spoon-feed it to me in five-minute increments. But when my time is up, I find easy ways to bypass my self-inflicted securities, like putting in the password to override the time limits or going to my computer so I can keep my “screen streak” on my phone and not feel bad about myself.

I can feel this very real addiction stripping away who I am. My creativity is at an all-time low. I love to write, but rarely do it when I’m not forced, and I have fewer and fewer ideas for personal essays and pitches. I grew up an eager learner and now when I see an academic article longer than five pages I roll my eyes.

I miss who I was when I was able to balance my social media use with real hobbies. I resisted the lure of overuse for so long, somehow making it until college with my brain still mostly intact. Now it just feels like mush, a pool of matter waiting to be mopped up by a 10-second clip of an awkward neurodivergent dog.

I know that trying to quit cold turkey or weaning off doesn't work—I’ve tried it. I am attached to social media as a way to suppress boredom and critical thinking, but also as a way to communicate with my friends and family. One of my biggest reasons for not deleting Instagram is the fear of not being able to send or answer reels. I always used to think that my social media addiction only had an impact on my attention span and ability to be comfortable in silence, but it has infiltrated the way I communicate to the point I believe my relationships would not be as strong without it.

No part of my life is free from the grips of my social media addiction and I need to take steps to reclaim the parts of me I’ve given up to this addiction. I want to start engaging with social media in healthier ways instead of punishing myself for being human or giving up and sinking deep into a hole of screen time. Instead of spending hours on reels I could allow myself a 20-minute YouTube video essay—I used to love those. Or I could commit to watching more movies and engaging TV series. I can’t say that either of those things work, but acknowledging my issue and its reach seems to be an important start.

I used to have things I loved to do, and I want to love them again. My poison is reels, but if you’ve made it this far I bet you can name yours too. If it’s TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, or even the Pinterest videos section—it’s all the same, and it’s all taking away a part of us, even if that part is just our time.