March 9, 2025
By: Daniel Shin

For the past few weeks, I have been able to change my free time habits and become more focused and intentional than I have been in the past few years. While YouTube and other online social media networks are a great treasure trove of information (as long as you filter the junk), spending too much time caused more headaches and unexplained feelings of regret as if my subconscious was telling me that I just wasted my time.

Since my last post here at DayMindXPression, I have been busy researching more about Hugo and its templating system to get my online writing system back up and running again. During my “off programming days,” I also started to build up my habit of reading a book (I have already completed reading two books for non-work purposes this year—which is absolutely abnormal compared to the past decade . . . .) or watching an episode of a TV show or parts of a movie. Before all this, I would have spent a lot more time with social media networks on my phone, going through endless feeds until it was time for bed. Why do I feel more energized and motivated this past week than when I previously spent a bit of time on social media?

Focused and Intentional Free Time and Pursuit of Hobbies

When I was relearning about Bootstrap or trying to wrap my head around Hugo’s templating system, I was absolutely razer-focused on the task at hand. I would experiment with writing different codes to see if I was getting my intended results and try again if I failed. Even though there were multiple setbacks, I really had a lot of fun, as if I was intently playing a video game. In my mind, I had a clear, ambitious goal with a substantial impact, and I was making progress one step at a time.

If I was not coding, I was reading a book on my e-reader or watching a TV show or a movie. During this information age, it is strangely funny to say that I didn’t get a single ad as I was reading a book. While it took some time to improve my attention span, I really enjoyed being immersed in consuming these media, which rarely happens when browsing social media. In fact, even though I was focused on doing one task at a time, my unconscious mind considered this approach to time spent as being more productive than when I was engaged with multiple content creators on my social media feed.

Walking Through (and getting lost in) the Unending Maze of Social Media Feeds

I think social media feeds start with great intentions of providing what the user might like but end up trapping the user in an unending maze of content. There are a lot more identifiable harms of social media feeds in general, but I would like to focus on a single point: One source of mental harm arising from social media may be due to the user’s engagement with too many content creators that it is difficult or impossible for the mind to appreciate every single engagement and, instead, the experience becomes a mush blur.

For instance, I can clearly recall my favorite scene in the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption, because I had a clear, focused engagement with the movie this weekend. In a contrasting example, I can hardly recall any YouTube video I watched this week because the experience was quite fleeting. If my mind fails to recall anything I did, even for an unimportant activity during my free time, I think I can understand why my unconscious mind thinks I wasted time away.

There are definitely immense, positive uses of social media networks, but I think I need to stay away from the social media feeds and leave the platform once I am done with my planned business on the site. Besides, there are mountains of deeply engaging experiences waiting to be presented by books and other media during my downtime.