Unfriend your way to a better social media feed

👋 Welcome back to the Medium Newsletter
Issue #192: pet death doulas + what your therapist really thinks about you
By Stephanie Georgopulos

I recently celebrated an accidental anniversary: It’s been one year since I last posted on social media. Proud of me? (Don’t be; I still lurk.) Not-posting wasn’t a goal I set for myself, but it does reflect a personal accomplishment: This year I was too focused on how my life feels to think about how it looks.

Still, I’m not ready to retire my @s entirely. There’s no denying social media isn’t what it used to be — and no evidence that it’s going to improve anytime soon. Of course, those of us who soldier on despite this reality have our reasons… but whether those reasons hurt or help us is worth unpacking.

Digital hygiene requires mindfulness. Otherwise, it’s too easy to get sucked into an addictive cycle of doom-scrolling, hate-watching, self-loathing, and soapboxing. (Or, in my case, buying products I didn’t know existed five minutes ago from companies that didn’t exist five minutes ago. Instagram ads are no joke.)

Approaching these platforms with intention might mean fine-tuning our feeds, going private, or limiting our scroll time — but it can also mean questioning how and why we use them in the first place. During a recent attempt to make Facebook useable again, Medium writer Dan Foster found himself baffled by his bloated friends list: “Why did I allow myself to accumulate so many ‘hangers-on,’ half-friends, acquaintances, and — let’s be honest — people I don’t even know?”

There is no right or wrong answer to a question like this — just an opportunity to understand what drives us to keep scrolling and posting. Questioning our motives gives us the insights we need to make conscious decisions about how — and whether — we exist online. For Foster — who spent six hours removing 90% of his Facebook friends — upsetting the status quo paid off:

When you only have real friends on Facebook, it becomes a much richer and surprisingly more enjoyable online experience. Every post and status update is from or about someone you genuinely care about. The spam is gone. The random political rants are gone. The haters are gone. And when I post something, almost all of my friends respond.

An enjoyable online experience? Now that’s worth posting about.

What else we’re reading

• Most people who work with animals do it because they love them. Euthanasia technicians are no different — but helping animals transition has its costs: compassion fatigue, burn out, and stigma, to name a few. Pet death doula Ute Luppertz recently held a ceremony at her regional shelter for the techs — and the animals they’ve helped — in Room Number Nine: “[​​T]he room nobody speaks about at the animal shelter. The end of the road.”
• Ever wonder what your therapist really thinks about you? Psychotherapist Gail Post, Ph.D. shares some of the unintended consequences of therapy notes going digital: “Most clients want their therapist to like and respect them. It can feel devastating if your therapist’s terse writing style (common to most record-keeping) inadvertently suggests a lack of caring toward you as a person or if the notes don’t reflect what you felt was relevant during a session.” Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are still in their infancy, so Post advises asking your therapist how they use them, if at all. And if you really want to know what they think of you, she has a radical suggestion: Ask them.

Your daily dose of practical wisdom

Looking to declutter your space? The first question to tackle isn’t how — it’s why.

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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