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Sunday Story: Social Media Sobriety – richmondmagazine.com – Richmond magazine

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On a cold November night nearly 10 years ago, I was slumped in the passenger seat of my mother’s car, plunging down a dark highway in Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from home. I was emaciated, bitter and tired, uncaring as to what lay beside me, behind me or in front of me.

Words I had not dared utter, even within the chambers of my own mind, pushed forward with firm insistence: 

Addict. Alcoholic. 

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That was Nov. 11, 2012, and I was on my way to an in-patient treatment center, having finally accepted that I had a drinking problem. It still stands as my sobriety date.

Alcohol was a solution to all my problems: I drank to escape, I drank to feel at home in my own skin, I drank to feel more alive. On my final bleak night with the bottle, I had a moment of clarity. I saw that everything I loved and cared for had slipped away, that I had willingly handed it over to King Alcohol in exchange for his succor.

I do not think I am abusing the concept of such lucidity by applying it to another realm of my life. As someone with firsthand knowledge of the subject, I know addiction when I see it.

I am addicted to social media.

The more I drank, the less engaged I was with my life and the less habitable my world became. Living in such a condition, I was invariably forced to engage with the most effective solution on hand — the whiskey bottle. But when one drinks to excess, penalties and costs arise — problems that require more drinking in order to escape. This repeats itself endlessly in a vicious cycle. 

And so, too, with social media. The more I engage with social media, the less I enjoy other pursuits, the less inclined I am to participate in life. “Why read a book or finish that project,” my frontal lobe seems to say, “when you can feel good right away, with minimal effort, scrolling though Instagram?” One begins to crave this flight from the temporal. 

Why am I giving myself away to these online distractions? Does the time spent on social media enhance my life? Am I happier due to its presence? 

Save for a dormant Facebook account on my desktop computer that I kept for contacting far-flung relatives, I quit social media on Sept. 5, 2021. 

At first, I found myself reaching for the phone constantly, and I began to take note of when this urge would strike. I noticed that I wanted to get online not only when I was bored or had an urge to check in on friends, but at any time where I felt in any way uncomfortable in the present moment, which, strikingly, I realized was rather often. When had this started? I had clearly developed a longing for some kind of pacification, diversion and comfort. From what was I trying to escape?

The content I was creating was reducing the better moments of my life to a spectacle, causing me to partake in the act of living through a performative lens.

The following week, on a day trip to Sandbridge Beach, further insight was revealed to me. Sitting in a colorful chair, root beer in hand, an urge came to post a picture of my sandy legs, ocean waves parenthesized by my splayed feet, a book of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry between them. In other words, excellent fodder for Instagram.

But devoid of any outlet for this imagined photo, questions about the purpose of social media content were illuminated. Who was I creating this for, and why? Did it matter that I was reading Ginsberg on the beach? Why would anyone need to know? Most importantly, why would I interrupt such a sublime pursuit to broadcast it? 

I realized social media was not making my life better. The content I was creating was reducing the finer moments of my life to a spectacle, causing me to partake in the act of living through a performative lens. 

When I quit drinking, life did not immediately get better. I had to rediscover the things drinking had supplanted or prevented me from ever having found in the first place. With social media, the fallout has been less steep; the primary consequence was that I was not paying full attention to the life I was living. Instead, I was feeding off small dopamine hits the way a pet hamster might suckle his water straw — a caged life. 

I never blamed alcohol for where life took me in my mid-20s, when I hit rock bottom. In that same vein, social media is not entirely to blame for my spending multiple hours a day using it. However, for me, social media precipitated a disengagement from the true bounty of living, while cheaply repurposing some of life’s most beautiful moments into online content. 

I want better for myself. I do not wish to distract myself from life. I do not profess to have all the answers, only what works for me. I know that what I am looking for, the true quality in life, doesn’t reside in the bottom of a bottle or the glass of a phone screen.


Matt Crane is a freelance writer and photographer who has lived in Richmond since 2013. A former professional bicycle racer who was a member of the U.S. National Cycling Team from 2004-06, he currently works in the technology sector.  

Never miss a Sunday Story: Sign up for the newsletter, and we’ll drop a fresh read into your inbox at the start of each week. To keep up with the latest posts, search for the hashtag #SundayStory on Twitter and Facebook.

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Five of the best books about social media – The Guardian

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From Covid conspiracy theories to recent speculations about Catherine, Princess of Wales, social media is at the heart of how we share information, and misinformation, with one another in the 21st century. For those who want to have a better understanding of social media and how it affects us, here are a selection of titles that explore how we consume, share, and manipulate information on social media platforms.


So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Journalist and author Jon Ronson argues we live in “a great renaissance of public shaming”, and this book tracks down some of the many victims of online shaming to understand what happened to them as a result. In the process, we learn about Ronson’s own values, question our own, and figure out how we’ve reached a time where an online feed can become a social courtroom.


Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

After getting repeatedly mistaken for feminist-turned-conspiracy-theorist Naomi Wolf online, and then in real life, Naomi Klein penned Doppelganger as an earnest and introspective look at herself. The book explores how conspiracy theories and lies spread quickly through the internet, and how the social and political climate of the physical world manipulates the way we experience online platforms. While not exclusively about social media, the story behind Doppelganger is a perfect case of the ways our digital lives and identities intersect with what we experience in reality – and how dangerous the repercussions of spreading online lies can be.

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Irresistible by Adam Alter

Have you ever wondered why you can’t stop scrolling on your TikTok “for you” page, or obsessing over how many likes you got on a recent Facebook post? You’re not alone, and Adam Alter’s book explores why we get sucked into the digital world. He answers what makes an online addiction, whether it be to emails, Instagram, or Netflix, different to other forms of addiction – and warns us of the dangers this could cause long-term. As well as introspection, he gives practical solutions to how digital addiction can be controlled for good.


Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz

Journalist Taylor Lorenz calls this book “a social history of social media”; she uses real-life case studies of mothers, teenagers, politicians and influencers to assess how social media touches all demographics. Extremely Online explores topics from the digital economy and influencer culture, to what makes moments go viral on Twitter and how this is all influencing the way we socialise and understand the world. At its core, this book explores the idea of what it means to connect – and how social media as an innovation has warped communication.


TikTok Boom by Chris Stokel-Walker

TikTok is arguably one of the most significant advancements in social media in the past two decades. This book by journalist and writer Chris Stokel-Walker explores how the app is changing the way users interact with content. It moves away from the social-commentary style of the other books mentioned here, instead using business and technology analysis as a means to describe wider socio-political repercussions of the app. Stokel-Walker bridges the gap between the digital and the physical, showing the feedback loop that exists between what happens online on platforms such as TikTok and the real world.

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Ontario school boards take social media giants to court for disrupting student learning – CBC.ca

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Four major Ontario school boards are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their products, alleging the way they’re designed have negatively rewired the way children think, behave and learn and have thus disrupted the way schools operate.

The public district school boards of Toronto, Peel and Ottawa, along with Toronto’s Catholic counterpart, are looking for about $4.5 billion in damages from Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd., which operate the platforms Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok respectively, according to statements of claim filed Wednesday.

“The influence of social media on today’s youth at school cannot be denied. It leads to pervasive problems such as distraction, social withdrawal, cyberbullying, a rapid escalation of aggression, and mental health challenges,” said Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, in a release Thursday.

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“Therefore, it is imperative that we take steps to ensure the well-being of our youth. We are calling for measures to be implemented to mitigate these harms and prioritize the mental health and academic success of our future generation.” 

The school boards, operating under a new coalition called Schools for Social Media Change, allege students are experiencing an “attention, learning, and mental health crisis” because of “prolific and compulsive use of social media products.”

Trying to respond to this has caused “massive strains” on the group’s funds, including in additional mental health programming and staff, IT costs and administrative resources, the release states. The boards call on the social media giants to “remediate” the costs to the larger education system and redesign their products to keep students safe.

Neinstein LLP, a Toronto-based firm, is representing the school boards in their lawsuit. The boards will not be responsible for any costs related to the lawsuit unless a successful outcome is reached, the release states.

“A strong education system is the foundation of our society and our community. Social media products and the changes in behaviour, judgment and attention that they cause pose a threat to that system and to the student population our schools serve,” said Duncan Embury, a partner and head of litigation at Neinstein.

CBC Toronto has reached out to the companies named for comment.

The latest lawsuit comes after a large civil suit against Meta Platforms Inc. was initiated in the U.S. last fall. Over 30 states accused Meta Platforms Inc. of harming young people’s mental health and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that cause children to be addicted to its platforms.

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Four Ontario school boards sue social-media giants for products that harm students' behaviour and education – The Globe and Mail

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Colleen Russell Rawlins, Director of Education with the Toronto District School Board, talks to students at Selwyn Elementary School on Mar 27.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Four of Canada’s largest school boards are suing the companies behind social-media platforms Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok, accusing them of negligently designing products that disrupt learning and rewire student behaviour while leaving educators to manage the fallout.

In four separate statements of claim filed on Wednesday in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Peel District School Board accused social-media companies of employing “exploitative business practices” and choosing to “maximize profits” at the expense of the mental health and well-being of students.

The addictive nature of social media means that educators spend more classroom time trying to have students focus on their lessons, the boards say in the statements of claim. They say the compulsive use of social-media platforms has also strained limited school board resources: Schools require additional mental health programs and personnel; staff spend more time addressing aggressive behaviour and incidents of cyberbullying; and information-technology services and cybersecurity costs have increased.

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“The Defendants have acted in a high-handed, reckless, malicious, and reprehensible manner without due regard for the well-being of the student population and the education system,” according to the statements of claim.

Similar lawsuits against social-media companies have been filed in the United States in recent months by individual states and school districts. This would mark the first time it’s being done by school boards in Canada.

The four boards filed their lawsuits against Meta Platforms Inc., which is responsible for Facebook and Instagram, Snap Inc., the parent company of SnapChat, and ByteDance Ltd., owner of TikTok.

The school boards are advancing combined claims of around $4.5-billion. They are also asking that the social-media giants redesign their products to keep students safe.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

In an e-mailed statement, Tonya Johnson, a spokeswoman for Snap, said the platform was “intentionally designed to be different from traditional social-media” so that users could communicate with friends. “While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence,” she stated.

Meta and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Social-media use by children and young people has been the topic of widespread discussion among parents, policymakers and educators. Earlier this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that bans social-media accounts for children under 14 and requires parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds.

In Canada and elsewhere, there are growing concerns over the role social-media platforms play in cyberbullying, disrupted sleep patterns, brain development, and the inability of young people to focus.

A survey from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in 2021 found that 91 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 12 use social media daily, and about a third spend five hours or more daily on it. Researchers surveyed more than 2,000 Ontario students. Almost one-third reported being cyber-bullied at least once in the past year.

In their lawsuits, the four school boards said the companies “knew, or ought to have known, that the deliberate design of addictive and defective social-media products would interfere with students’ access to an education, negatively impact the learning environment, and create a public nuisance within the education system.”

Colleen Russell-Rawlins, education director of the Toronto District School Board, the country’s largest school board, said in an interview on Wednesday that social media has affected the education system in “very significant ways.”

“Students are not present,” she said, describing the addictive nature of social-media platforms. Educators are hearing about more incidents of cyberbullying. They are witnessing the rapid escalation of aggression that starts online. And they are helping students who are coping with anxiety and other mental health challenges.

The lawsuits, she said, are not just about raising awareness, but about protecting children by calling for safeguards and ensuring that school boards have the resources to help address the negative effects of increased social-media use.

“I think there’s no other childhood addiction that’s impacting children’s futures through education that we as educators and leaders would be expected to remain silent about. We feel compelled to act on behalf of our young people,” Ms. Russell-Rawlins said.

Pino Buffone, the education director at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, echoed the sentiment, adding that the compulsive use of social media has further strained the finite resources of the school board. Educators and other school staff are being forced to manage behaviour that stems from social-media use.

“It has become clear that we need to hold social-media giants accountable,” Mr. Buffone said.

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