How to get more out of social media without the shortcomings of short-form content

Introduction:

As many platforms change their algorithms to surface more short-form content, I asked myself how to resist the constant pull toward short. This post is about quitting, exploring alternatives, and forming a new social media habit.

#1 Review your social media habits

Think of yourself as a machine executing the same tasks every day. You may not notice, but you have several systems in place that tell you what to do and when to do it. To learn about the impact of short-form content on your life, you need to investigate your habits first.

Questions I would ask myself:

• When do I access short-form content?
• Do I feel better or worse afterward?

#2 How to make it easier to quit short-form-content?

• Evaluate if short-form content provides long-term value for your life
• Ask yourself what you can do with the freed-up time after quitting
• Ask yourself why you use short-form content in the first place

If you want to quit short-form content you’re likely to be the person that doesn’t get much value out of consuming short snippets of content. This is evident in the experienced regret of the time you spent on the platform. If you can surface the negative effect consuming short-form content has on your life, you can provide a “why” for quitting. The reason why you quit in the first place can be important to be remembered in hard times.

If you ask yourself what you can do with the freed-up time after quitting you can build an alternative to your consumption habit. That’s good because this alternative is the thing at stake if you fall back into consuming short-form content for long periods. You simply increase the opportunity cost of falling back into your bad habit.

Getting to know yourself better and the purpose of your consumption can be a great way to support quitting short-form content too. This will provide you with the reasons you use it. Tackling the problem at the root of it is the best way to sustainably quit short-form content.

Bonus: You don’t have to quit everything at once. Commit to reducing screen time in apps like Instagram or Tik Tok by 10% each week. As you find yourself getting near 20% of your former time spent on these platforms you may ask if you want to consume simply less or cut short-form of your information diet completely.

#3 What you DON’T want to do

• Don’t abandon social media in one rush of excitement (because you will likely relapse)
• Don’t use short-form content to defeat boredom
• Don’t watch short-form content if it doesn’t bring value to you

The biggest mistake I make time and time again is opening social media and especially short-form content when I’m bored. At first, this is a welcome distraction, but in the long term, you suffer from information overload.

The problem with this overload of information is that I found, that most of the short-form content I consume doesn’t add much value to my life. Not only do I suffer information overload, but there is no reason to consume this information in the first place if it doesn’t add value.

If you suffer information overload content pauses are important. Therefore boredom isn’t a bad thing, but a good thing. You do “nothing” while the mind is recovering from the inputs. That is also the time I generate most of my ideas.

#4 Find activities that you get more value out of

• cut back on activities that actively steal your time
• cut back on activities that you regret doing afterward
• spend more time on activities that are meaningful to you or provide long-term value

If you conclude that short-form is draining your energy, rather than adding excitement to the tasks at hand you should look for better activities to do in that time slot. Maybe you catch yourself going to the toilet with your phone and spending 30 minutes there. To get some of the time back, you could quit taking the phone with you to the toilet, or you could take a book with you to get at least something out of the 30 minutes you are likely to spend there.

#5 The economics of quitting short-form content

• more free time
• less time wasted on things that are not meaningful to you
• less time wasted on things that don’t make you happy

Quitting short-form isn’t easy because it’s easy to build the habit to scroll through reels or Tik Tok. But breaking the habit of scrolling can provide you with enough time to start your next business venture or side hustle. If you commit to a more meaningful and intentional relationship with the content you consume, you can get a way bigger positive effect from the use of social media than if you were to scroll e.g. Reels or Tik Tok mindlessly.

Scroll mindlessly: You’ll likely suffer information overload. Your mind will dispose of the information because it doesn’t have enough context as to why the information is important to you.

Search with intention: You’ll likely find something that will provide you with the tools to achieve your goals.

The freed-up time that you have now, can be used in other ways that support you in achieving your long-term goals. Even if you use the time on social media, spending it intentionally will increase the value you get out of it.

#6 What are the best platforms to use?

• Text platforms (Blogs)
• Video platform (Youtube) -> best not to use the mobile App because shorts are unattractive in the browser
• Podcast platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcast

I think that podcast platforms like Spotify or apple podcast are of tremendous value. The potential of being distracted on such a platform is very limited and listening to podcasts is an activity, which asks for a lot of commitment. Commitment is good because we can replace getting fed something through a feed with searching for something we like or want to listen to. Oftentimes you can also watch the podcast, which is a nice bonus for people who like the visual aspect of consuming content. Because you have to look for the podcast you want to listen to, it is more likely to be an intentional decision.

YouTube is also a great platform if you can avoid getting pulled into watching shorts. I find myself getting more value from YouTube if I search for something directly or only watch people I subscribed to. If I want to watch a video from another YouTuber, I ask myself, if I would potentially want to subscribe to them. This enables me to set my “I want to commit to watching this” bar very high. This means that I consume less content I would regret having watched later on.

Text platforms like blogs or even E-mail newsletters are also a great source of content. Because on a blog you commit to a person or topic much more intentionally than you would in short-form content, which is also the case for E-mail newsletters.

#7 Which platforms do I avoid?

• Tik Tok (I never have even downloaded it)
• Instagram (I download it occasionally)
• YouTube shorts

Platforms that are focused mainly on short-form content are actively stealing my time. Tik Tok is the worst place I could spend my attention followed directly by Instagram. I only download Instagram to check in with my friends occasionally.

YouTube shorts is the most likely to distract me because I like to watch long-form content on YouTube. Shorts are just one click away most of the time and therefore easy to reach. I would recommend watching Youtube on your PC in a browser to avoid the excellent implementation of shorts into mobile applications.

#8 How can I make this a habit?

• Start by analyzing when you start to consume short-form content
• Know the activities that trigger the bad habit of scrolling short-form
• Use the knowledge to reframe these activities as triggers of a much more positive habit

Start by analyzing how you consume short-form content (I elaborated on this in #1). To form a good habit, you need to find the activities that trigger the bad habit and reframe these as triggers for the new, good habit.

Example:

I take my phone to the toilet with me every day and consume short-form content for 30 minutes.

Trigger: Going to the toilet

Habit: If I go to the toilet, I take my phone with me to consume short-form content

Reframe (new habit): If I go to the toilet, I don’t take the phone with me, instead, I take a book with me and read for 15 minutes, getting information that is meaningful to me.