Self Discipline, Control & Restraint

Podcast
Written By Tosh

Overview

A short conversation on how I am processing "goodbye instagram" or "quitting facebook".

Maybe try controlling what you can instead of not accepting that you have no self control?

Try these accounts out on IG...
@allthingsgoodco
@tanksgoodnews
@upworthy
@wholesomemeettheinternet
@globalpositivenews
@lovewhatmatters
@givingeveryday
@spreadlovemovement_
@khaby00

Listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, iHeartRadio, Castro, Castbox, Pocket Casts, Goodpods, Podfriend, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Summary

Tosh addresses the trend of quitting social media as a statement against its adverse effects, like censorship or data mining. He admits to understanding the gesture but suggests a more balanced approach of selective engagement over complete withdrawal. He emphasizes the importance of personal responsibility in curating one’s digital environment to avoid echo chambers and sensationalized news. Tosh advocates for a conscious effort to follow uplifting content, thereby transforming one’s feed into a source of positivity. He compares this to self-discipline in other life areas, such as alcohol consumption, reinforcing the idea that moderation and control can lead to personal growth and better mental health

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How can we maintain a healthy balance with social media?

Q: Is leaving social media the only way to reduce its negative impact?

Q: How does the content we follow affect our mindset?

A: The content we engage with can shape our outlook, with negative content fueling discontent and positive content promoting a hopeful perspective. Mindfulness and Media: The impact of screen time on mindfulnessReferences and Additional Reading with Hyperlinks:

Additional resources

Tosh mentions several accounts that embody the kind of positive content he values, such as All Things Good Co., @globalpositivenews, and @tanksgoodnews, which could be included in the blog post as examples of positive influences on social media.

For additional reading and references, here are some articles discussing the psychology of social media, the effects of echo chambers, and strategies for digital well-being.

  • "Digital Minimalism" by Cal Newport for an in-depth look at choosing a focused life in a noisy digital world. Digital Minimalism

  • "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr for insights into what the internet is doing to our brains. The Shallows

  • "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier for a critical look at the impact of social media on life. Ten Arguments

Transcript

Alright, hey what's up man?

Another day and what's going on?

Man, I've had a rough couple days, last couple days, but no big deal managing that.

You might hear some heavy breathing in the microphone today because it's not me I swear.

It's a few just wants to be on my lap for some reason.

110 pound lap dog.

What I want to talk about today, it's funny because I was just, my buddy Diesel Mike reached out two days ago about the monster and caging a monster and boys.

And that's all I thought about for the last day since he sent that email and I watched and there's a Jordan Peterson thing and Jaco talks on it and there's a few things out there.

And it's interesting stuff, but I want to wait until next week. I want to process through this week all of that.

But it's not something that I haven't been thinking about. In fact, shared my thoughts with two Marines actually in the last couple weeks that were struggling with that.

And so, oh excuse me, I'm not chewing this morning yet.

But anyways, what I did want to talk about was like something that I've been working on for myself.

I've been noticing. So let me just dig like right like you get these Instagram posts or these Facebook things and they just go on and they say goodbye Facebook.

Goodbye Instagram or I'm quitting Instagram or whatever and I was thinking about that.

And I'm like, Yeah, hey, I get it.

I get it. Good statement, bold statement.

Quit it, stick with your values, you know, right? Like if you're opposed to it because of censorship or ad flooding or data mining or something like that.

And you're like, Hey, man, I think that's important.

So I'm not bashing people that are just saying, Hey.

I'm also not saying like, Hey, I need a break.

There's people that say, Hey, I'm just going to go off Instagram for a couple months or a couple of weeks or this or that.

And I just need a break. I think that's cool too. Right.

I started thinking about it because I find I keep finding my feed.

I've been deleting people from my feed and usually not friends or anything like that.

It's not that I'm not I don't care about them or anything. It's just I'm just oversensitive these days to just that whole reverberation.

Right. Like I'm being fed and reinforced the things that I believe in and it finds me getting worked up and I'm fed bum news or bad news.

I question news and information and I see other people that are passionate about something and then they try to get other people to be passionate as well.

And that can be neither good or bad or it can be both.

But I also see this like theme of trying to get people angry or get people riled up.

And, you know, we start to get reinforced by the same stuff that resonates with us.

And it's just been happening. You know, it's like I deleted though.

I've deleted a lot of these very vocal conservative because I'm finding that they're just as bad as the people that they accuse.

And I know I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but they're just acting in the same, whether they're right or wrong or they think the right or wrong, no different than the other people on the other side.

And all it's doing is just making me more grumpy.

And I just started trimming all that out. I don't need to constantly be reinforced and keep getting angered and energized.

I want to be more based and more level.

And, you know, in fact, like I'm just tired of drama, just tired of negativity.

And I'm not the one who can't trust you.

And so I got to cough real quick. Hang on.

No, sorry about that.

Here, side note too, like, how about Fox News? Like, the fuck is wrong with them?

Right? They push so much shit out and they keep updating their stories and they're like, "Oh, we're the best and CNN's the worst" or whatever, whatever.

And I like the Fox News, again, because it kind of aligns with, you know, maybe some of my political beliefs or whatever.

But you never notice, like, when you're rolling through Fox News, "Hey, Fox News, I hope you're listening because here's some feedback for you."

Like, who's doing your editing before you publish?

Because, like, your spelling errors in your poor, you know, leaving words out and weird shit on your titles and your headlines sucks, man.

If there's anything that, like, destroys credibility, it's that.

I get it. I make mistakes on my Instagram posts, but I go back and I reread them and I proofread them and I reread them and inevitably I go back and I edit them.

And, hey, I make mistakes. No problem.

But it's like every day your shit is jank, you know?

And it just makes me think you're just JV2 and then you're flooded with advertisements.

It's like, "Hey, you know, you're bought just as much as everybody else is."

And, oh, like, you read a title or a...

You read the title underneath a picture, right?

And it sounds so... It's like, "Oh my God."

And then when you actually open up the article and you start reading the article, you're like, "That title was just absolutely sensationalized."

And it's just... It's like, "Hey, you're no better than anything else."

So I just quit that again. You know, I took a break from it for a while, hoping that when President Trump left and everything like that and things settled down that maybe we could get back to some normal shit.

Obviously not.

It's just like... It's just out there.

I don't know why I just went on that little side remark, but it is. It's funny.

I get Fox News and get super hyped up, sensationalized, because I'm just scrolling through and I see a picture and I see a subtitle or a title.

And it's like, "Oh, now I think I know exactly what's going on."

And then when you actually read the article, it's not.

It's just bogus.

And like half the shit that they're reporting on is dumb.

It's like, "This isn't news. This is drama."

But we tend to like drama, right?

Tired of people's drama because it makes our drama feel silly or okay or it makes us feel normal, I guess.

Mind everybody else's business except your own because it helps you be ignorant to your own bullshit.

Tired of people's bullshit, too.

But another story, another day.

But anyways, how about this?

I don't want to quit Facebook. I don't want to quit Instagram because that's to suggest that there's not a lot of good going on there.

Because there is a lot of good going on there.

And there's a lot of utility and value in using those platforms.

And whether I agree or I disagree with certain things, when it hits a threshold of where I'm really disagreeing and I feel like I'm informed, then hey, maybe I quit it or whatever.

But seeming to make that bold statement, "Hey, guess what? If you just need to say goodbye to Facebook, just fucking don't log on. You don't have to tell everybody."

Because now you're trying to virtue signal and you're trying to value signal and it's like, "Hey, you're a suspect, too."

"Oh, goodbye Instagram."

"Okay, cool. You're cute. You're just another attention seeker."

And how about this?

If you need to flat out quit, I question your discipline or your self-control.

"Instagram's terrible. Instagram's feeding me this and feeding me that."

And I'm not pointing my finger at anybody else. I'm actually talking to myself right now because I've gone in this place and I'm like, "Hey, I'm in control of me, man."

"I got discipline. I can exercise restraint and boundaries."

I can't blame Instagram for me laying in my bed for two hours and scrolling through bullshit feed.

I can't blame Instagram for when I hit my search that it populates things that it thinks I'm interested in and then it keeps my attention and scrolls through.

And I just keep scrolling through, scrolling through like, "Hey, put the phone down. Give yourself boundaries."

You know?

"Hey, I'm not going to look at Instagram when I get to bed. I'm only giving myself five minutes."

"I'm going to only look at it twice a day." Whatever. I don't care. But that's exercising control, restraint, discipline.

But I get it too, right? I started thinking, "Okay, dodge. Beat up that statement. Beat up that statement."

You know, alcoholism. Some people have to just straight up go sober, right?

Because they don't have the control and potentially there's some biological thing that's going on.

And they're like, "Hey, that's a course of action that they have to take and there's nothing wrong with that."

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Because they've tried to exercise control, self-control, restraint.

They just can't seem to do it because there's some sort of dependency thing and it just can't be broken.

And fine. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and it's actually honorable.

And I go through bouts where, "Hey, I'm giving up alcohol. I'm going to go dry for a little bit of time here or there."

But that, to me, is exercising discipline because it's saying that, "Hey, I've got another priority. I'm training."

And the alcohol is something that is a drag to increase performance.

Or, "I find myself slipping," or this or that. Or, "I want to be able to reinforce that I do have discipline or self-control.

So I'll go for a couple weeks and I won't drink, or a couple months and I won't drink."

Or I'll say, "Hey, from now on I'm only going to have two drinks a day."

Which a lot of people will say, "You're an alcoholic. You're having two drinks a day."

You know, the doctors all say that. You have more than five drinks a week or something.

Or I'll just say, "Hey, I'm only going to have two beers on Friday and two beers on Sunday."

Whatever it is. But I'm putting control measures in there that actually help me exercise restraint and discipline and reinforce that I am in control instead of just removing everything.

I'm not saying removing things is a bad thing or not a good strategy, but also is not totally pulling yourself out or abstaining or anything else.

Like being in the environment, right? To help reinforce patterns so that you can cope, so that you can grow, so that you can develop.

There's plenty of things that, yeah, hey, don't put yourself in that environment, don't put yourself in that situation.

And there's plenty of things that, hey, continue to be in the environment, but do you really believe what you believe and do you have control over your actions?

So that's how I'm looking at this thing with Instagram right now. I can control me.

And I'm choosing to do that. So I'm deleting a bunch of different things that I find myself just getting soaked into or it affecting me in a way, a negative way.

And I'm just taking those out and I'm going to continue to use it. I put some time limits.

I mean, the iPhone's really cool. It just tells you your screen time and it tells you your screen time percentage and the number of hours spent over the course of the week and different things.

And it's like, yeah, I want to watch my social media usage go down. I don't want to totally eliminate it, but I want it to go down and I want to control, you know.

And so I'm not a big fan. I don't think I'm a fan of just, oh, I'm just going to quit it.

And just quitting something is a, and this is a different conversation of being a quitter also, right? So maybe it's not quitting something. Maybe it's making a decision, a hard decision to, I'm going to sneeze now.

Oh, excuse me, making a hard decision to do something different than you want to do or not do something that you want to do. And it's like, OK, cool. Like I get that too.

But anyways, yeah.

Maybe it's not a last resort, but maybe it's a later resort. You know, you find yourself always, I find myself keep playing Solitaire to kill some time on my phone or when I don't want to do a task.

And sometimes I delete the app from the phone and that helps, right? And that's cool.

And sometimes it's like, oh, man, I just sit on the airplane or something. I want to play Solitaire and then I can't, I don't have it there because I already deleted it.

So I'm going to wait, upload it when we land or something. And why can't I just say, hey, Tash, like, no, go do the task that you're supposed to do and don't do the Solitaire.

And just little things like that help me just try to stay in control and be in charge of managing my own time, life, interest.

How about this? How about being in control of my own mind? And maybe that's really what this is all coming down to when I talk about like the Instagram and Facebook because there's a lot of good that can be there.

But yet we find ourselves going in directions when left unchecked devices, right? Like our own personal devices and our mind ends up getting manipulated.

Because that's the big thing, right? Oh, Instagram is manipulating my mind and social media is manipulating my mind. It's like, well, because you're letting it.

You know, because you're being seduced by it and you know you're being seduced by it, but you just don't want to say no.

So here, check this out. This is really what I wanted to do. I started thinking about why Instagram, I just think it's, I started looking at a lot of my accounts, started eliminating a bunch of them because I don't need to be

re-intudated with why the left is all fucked up and the right isn't or something like that. And it just gets tiring.

And I think that the far right is just as much full of bullshit as the far left.

But I started replacing some things. I started following, like there's like a dozen of these things. Two, four, six, eight, ten, eleven.

I got eleven of them written down right here. And I'll just put them in my notes for this podcast, but watch what happens.

One of the accounts that I started following that I just really love, it's All Things Good Co. I just started following that.

I started following @globalpositvenews, @wholesomemeettheinternet, @givingeveryday, @upworthy, @tanksgoodnews, @worthentertaining, @lovewhatmatters, like @givingeveryday.

I got @givingeveryday twice on this bad boy here. But I just started following those and I watched what happened to my search feed and what I'm exposed to more.

Good shit. Stuff that's encouraging and positive and reinforcing of good stuff and values and gives you optimism and hope.

And I know there's so much more of that in the world than there is negative or this drama or these arguments.

And I'll tell you what, man. In the last week that I've been doing this, my search feed has changed significantly.

And I'm finding a better place, a better relationship with the Instagrams.

And isn't that what it's all about? It's about recognizing what is good and what is not good in our behaviors, our habits, and the people that we keep around us.

Right? The both. There's goods and the bads. And then putting things in place to continually receive the good and reinforce the good and try to mitigate some of the ugly.

That's about being in control of your social space. And I think about what it's doing to my mind. And it's been really cool.

So I guess what I'm cheering out loud is maybe a little discipline, self-control, whatever, whatever. I've said those words probably 50 times now in 15 minutes.

Do it, man. Just do a little experiment. Right? Like just start deleting some shit because you know you're going to go find it again.

Right? You're going to go find Donald Trump Jr. again and you're going to go find David Harris Jr. and you're going to go find like whatever, whatever.

Guess what? Just delete that shit for now. Write him on an index card and stick it in your desk drawer or a local problem or something.

So if what I'm saying doesn't work or you miss it, you can go back and you can re-follow. But just start scratching those. Get rid of them.

And whatever people on the left side are watching too. Right? Like I don't care. I just speak from a more conservative place and stuff like that because that's where I am and what I follow.

Right? But it doesn't matter where you're at. This isn't a political conversation per se. It's just using that as an example. But just scratch some of that stuff and replace it with these accounts.

And like all things good, co. @lovewhatmatters, @spreadlovemovement_, @globalpositivenews. I'll list them out in the show notes.

But give it a week. Just give it a week. And when those things go through there, just look at the video, look at the picture, like the photo, don't like the photo, don't care. Read the script.

Some of them have longer things, some of them don't. I like to follow this guy @khaby00. The dude's brilliant.

And he just puts a smile on my face. In his own way, he's really making fun of and pointing out the bullshit that's all out there, man.

And he's refreshing. But I've been doing it now for a little over a week and I've been really excited. So that's what I wanted to share this week.

Just something that I'm doing. Maybe you're interested, maybe you're not. But let's just take a pause and think about what we're doing and what we can do to take ownership.

So anyways, that's it for today. Next week, I plan on queuing up a good one. I wanted to take a little bit more time and listen to that podcast with Jordan Peterson and read something that he wrote.

And just do a little bit more research to just fill out where I stand with it to see what other people are saying before I vomit all over the airwaves.

Hope everybody's having a good week, man. Talk to you later.

Thank you.

Tosh
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