It’s been approximately 4 days and 32 minutes since I was on Instagram.
And I’d be unreservedly ashamed of how pathetically brief that duration sounds if I wasn’t also slightly, self-righteously smug.
I didn’t log off for any particular reason. It was a long weekend; I was finally escaping the city with family and friends. Then seemed like as good a time as any to allow my mind and body to be in the same place for once.
Although, as righteous as that sounds, it would be untruthful to pretend as though the break started for any other reason than the fact that my phone died and I simply could not be bothered hunting around for a charger.
It’s a common occurrence my family can’t stand, which always seems to amuse me. Looking down at a device that welds such influence over our days and minds yet is so infantile in its dependence. Simply a chromatic slab of smooth metal without the right cord.
The weekend passed slower between unoccupied hands and I learned to like the pace, even leaving my phone dead when I returned to the city. Forgetting it amongst prep for the week ahead.
Queue the following work day and it was a very different story. Armed with a fully charged phone and hundreds of micro-moments previously filled with a scroll, that absentminded abstience quickly hardened into active resistance. Why? Because, I’d made it three days. I had a streak on my hands and I didn’t want to let go.
But why?
What is it about streak that our brains find so damn satisfying?
It’s supposedly about momentum; accumulating little wins that our intelligent yet lazy brains don’t want to have to re-earn. Suddenly, we reach a point of no return (or at least, very resistant return) and the next challenge requires less effort to overcome than the combined work it would take to return to the start and do it all over again.
There’s also a kick of excitement that accompanies a streak according to Jesse Walker, an assistant professor of Marketing at Ohio State University.
“In a lot of cases, streaks challenge what we previously thought was possible in terms of human performance,” said Walker. An experience that can lead to ‘feelings of awe’.
In the beginning we may be motivated by the benefits of doing (or not doing) an activity. But, according to Walker, we’re further encouraged simply by doing it and for longer than we predicted. A pleasure that increases exponentially every day the streak grows.
By this logic, the sense of contentment you feel after being offline isn’t just owing to a lack of envy-inducing images or inflammatory opinions, but a sense of accomplishment for simply staying offline. Made even more satisfying by the fact that few other peers can maintain such a streak.
For the cynic inside of me, this elicits a kind of suspicion towards those touting the emotional benefits of tech detoxes or social media fasts. Do they feel good because they’re off the platform? Or simply because they’re maintaining a streak?
As is the case often with this internal cynic, it’s a line of questioning that is neither possible to answer nor particularly helpful.
Because, flaws aside, streaks are one of the more positive ways we can game our mind into tackling what journalist and cultural critic Jia Tolentino calls, ‘a problem that shouldn’t exist’. The particular problem Tolentino refers to being our addiction to online platforms that monetize the very human desire to negotiate and present our identities.
It’s been a few weeks since that accidental four-day fast and already I’m back to bouts of what can only be described as a technological hangover. A visceral kind of grossness and heightened sensitivity that we always seem to try solving with hair of the dog. Just another swipe to feel all right.
Perhaps it’s time to gather up a streak again.
So, that’s what I’ve been thinking.
What about you? Any ways you stop the endless scroll? Do you even feel like you need to? Then…
Got a gram obsessed mate? Click the handy button below to passively-agressively let them know they should take a break.
Signing off yours truly,
Sarah.