Since deleting my social media accounts last Wednesday, I have picked up my phone and stared blankly at the broken screen at least two thousand times in lost confusion. I hate to admit it, but my broken record has been shattered and I don’t know what to do with my hands, my thoughts, and my eyes anymore. I am a creature of habit, a rotational grazer, a forager, a hunter who returns to the same locations time and time again, the late-night eater who opens the fridge a half dozen times to eat nothing at all. Only my grazing, foraging, hunting, and fridge diving is all done online between a few websites that consume over an hour of my physical time (my screen time was right around an hour and a half a day), and well over two hours each day of mental energy.

My cell-phone routine looked like this. (Maybe you can relate). I picked it up dozens of times a day to check both emails (usually nothing), Facebook (give me those red bubbles! And heck, while I’m here I may as well scroll for a minute or two), hop over to Instagram for a quick dopamine fix followed by a quick scroll, back over to Gmail to reply to a message (if I am lucky), and then on to weather (how many times do I need to compare the weather in Alaska with the weather in Missouri?) and onto banking. The cycle took less than a minute of undivided attention, followed by at least a few minutes to come down from the breath-holding high of jumping between sites so fast. Finally, at the end of the day, when the kids were asleep and I had a few minutes alone, I would get on social media for upwards of twenty minutes to see what the people I care about were up to.

That was the daily phone routine. Now, add in creating reels, posts, pictures, promotions, advertisements, comments, reconnecting with old friends, groups, attracting followers by following them, liking random people’s stuff, sending messages, and brainstorming for more reels and posts, and all of a sudden my 1.5 hours of screen time is dozens of hours each week of using my dwindling brain cells for something that doesn’t bring me joy.

Hours that could be better used on raising my four kids, writing my next book/s (I think it’s a trilogy), growing food, helping neighbors to grow food, planning a fall road trip, brainstorming money earning opportunities, learning a foreign language, snuggling with the kids while watching a movie, reading to the kids, playing with them outside, beach combing, talking to a friend on the phone, huddling around a fire, praying to my beloved God, playing cards with Savanna, listening to music, reading, consciously doing nothing, building cabinets, brushing my dogs, taking a walk, playing guitar, doing laundry, bathing, Jiu-jitsu, driving the tractor to fix the road, brushing my teeth, calling an in-law, researching international travel opportunities, seeking a literary agent, writing letters, querying podcasts, working on our website, reaching out to someone newly sober, or going to visit a neighbor. The list is endless…

I subscribed to the belief system that since I am a self-published author I needed a social media platform to be successful. I did what was suggested, I built a 4.5K following on Facebook with a professional Author Page. I had 1.4K followers on Instagram. My X account was a bust, and I wasn’t willing to try Tik-Tok. And while these are tiny numbers in comparison to “influencers”, the majority of people who followed me were absolute strangers. Yet there I was, posting pictures of my beautiful children and wife for strangers to see. Sharing my personal struggles openly with people who could give two sh*ts about me. I had drifted away from being a writer and had become nothing less than an entertainer seeking an audience with the hopes of making money, selling books, and making something of a positive difference.

But friends and family, I hate to admit it- the return in value did not reciprocate the input in energy. Sales on our online shop stayed low and my book sales were even lower. I didn’t receive invites to podcasts, writer’s conferences, parties, TV shows, and all of the other cool opportunities an author might dream of. Nope, nil, nada. I did make a few distant friends who I hope to visit in time, but we all know how that goes. I basically got bombarded with pictures of young women (are they real or AI) in bikinis, and even more pornographic images that I cannot unsee, coupled with private messages from these same women on a weekly basis. But that isn’t the point of walking away, the main reason for walking away from social media was because of the time-suck.

Yet for some strange, addictive reason, when the time came to delete my accounts, I stared at the screen in fear while a rotating circle of questions presented themselves. “What if businesses who stock my books can’t get ahold of me for more books?” “How will I know what is happening on my neighborhood and community if I’m not in the Facebook Groups?” “How will my Aunts and Uncles keep tabs on me, and me on them?” “How will my brother reach out to me from the Philippines?” “What about buying and selling things on the Marketplace?” “Should I just deactivate my account instead of deleting it– to keep Messenger?” “What about all of the work I put into it?” “What if a literary agent shows interest in me and asks what my social media platform looks like and I tell them I have none?” And on, and on it went… Until finally, I took a deep breath and clicked “Delete” on my Instagram and my Facebook accounts. And instantly, a wave of relief washed over me.

You see, I wrote both books with a pen and a notebook, later typing them on a laptop. They required thousands of dedicated, quiet hours of alone time for the writing and revision process. Not to mention, thousands of hours of subconscious and conscious thought patterns to dig up the stories from the past and to put the stories together into a single narrative. Every reel and post I made on social media, every hour spent scouring the social media networks, was an hour gone from my finite life- an hour that I could have better spent actually doing the things I love. Focusing on my family, my farm, my friends, and my writing.

I am currently on day five of my newfound “social-media sobriety.” I stared out the car window for thirty minutes today while waiting for my bride to shop for clothes at a thrift store. It was the most peaceful and quiet thirty minutes I have had for months. I felt rejuvenated afterwards instead of annoyed, anxious, and tired from overworking or staring at blue-light.

After years of putting out SPAM for strangers to scroll past and comment on, I am grateful for the dedicated subscribers, friends, and family who support our family and our way of life every single day. You all know who you are! Get in touch with me the old fashioned way. Call, text, email, and stop by. But please, call or text before you stop by. I will hopefully be home working on something other than trying to be rich and famous while single-handedly saving the broken hearted dejected souls who are spinning downward in quiet desperation. I can’t save ’em, and I can’t make people read my books. I can only save myself, and try to influence my little bubble of family and friends positively along the way. That is where my focus will stay.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the endless support.
Until next week,
Robert Stark

P.S. The day after deleting my social media accounts, I bought a round-trip ticket to Kalispell, Montana to be a guest on the Cleared Hot Podcast for the second time.

P.S.S. If you are like our dear friend, Nana, who did not realize that our blog was an offshoot of our website, check out our website at SecretGardenAlaska.org and subscribe to our monthly publication, Stark Raving Mad, for $1/month.