If you could get an extra hour of free time every day, what would do with it? No, really—let’s pretend the space-time continuum has just been rearranged, and physicists tell us we get about an hour more each day. How would you spend it?

Ok, here are some other questions:

If you learned that a couple friends were—without your knowing—tracking your everyday, fairly boring habits, as well as your likes and dislikes, so that they could manipulate you, would you care? (As long as the manipulation is subtle and not overt, is that ok?) Would it matter if they found some weird way to make a gabillion dollars off this ability to subtly manipulate you, without you realizing it? How about if they shared this scheme with others so that they, too, could manipulate you and make money off you, would that matter?

Just a few more questions—because we have that extra time, y’know.

Do you wish there were a way to reduce the polarization in our country? Do you want something you can do, individually, to decrease the generalized tension and divisiveness? Something that could help “both sides” agree on factual information and get less caught up in “I’m right, you’re wrong” stand-offs?

There is a way to get about an hour of time back, to stop others from manipulating you and your friends, and to do something that builds more “us” and less “them.” Be anti-social. Stop using Facebook and other social media. Even for goodness.

It really doesn’t matter if we’re posting cat videos or spiritually uplifting content. In fact, the sweeter, the funnier, the more “like-able” our posts, the more we perpetuate the cycle. In fact, just showing up to browse—even if you don’t post—contributes to the problem. By the nature of Facebook’s business model, our online participation in any way, shape, or form allows us to be unwitting accomplices in a milieu of manipulation. (But if I like it, can it really be bad for me?)

Meanwhile, here’s how our seemingly insignificant social media habits affect us.

• It atrophies our reasoning ability and increases confirmation bias, because as Tristan Harris, founder of the Center for Humane Technology, says, “Polarization is built into the business model.”
• It decreases empathy and serves as a platform for narcissism—yes, even when sharing spiritual words of wisdom
• Despite the marketing hype that we’re connecting with others, we’re actually increasing our loneliness
• It leads to distraction, impaired memory function, and an attraction to what’s new rather than what’s important
• We increase judgmental perceptions—of others’ lives and our own

Let me be clear: I don’t believe social media is evil. I do believe that like so many other things in life, we’ve talked ourselves into using something because it seems innocuous and because we think we can counteract any of its downsides. Those negative effects don’t apply to us, just others. We’re better than that. Besides, we only spend a little time on social media; it’s not like we’re addicted or anything. (We may be distracted and unfocused, but dang if we don’t have the ability to churn out rationalizations in the wink of an emoji.) I don’t need to be convinced by others who engage in amazing social media experiences. I’m happy for you. I conducted my own non-scientific experiments to track my sense of purpose and well being. I was very mindful of what kind of content I posted, how I engaged, how much time I spent. Sure, I had some good interactions occasionally. But overall, the return on investment was not worth it.

From my perspective, social media directly thwarts the values I want to nurture in myself and others: deep listening, contemplation, humility, equanimity, and personal connection. The technology itself rewires our brain functioning, countering both the spiritual purpose as well as the secular, beneficial side-effects of meditation. I prefer thoughtful, nuanced pieces that make me think, rather than hyped-up headlines (like the one I purposefully created for this blog) and echo-chamber content. I can access the content I want online in other ways. The business model makes money off gorged egos, individual and collective. So much so that even when we engage for positive purpose it nonetheless subtly, surreptitiously cloaks our egos in faux furs of virtue. We’ve convinced ourselves that sharing content that results in hundreds of hearts and thumbs-ups is the same as changing hearts and minds, which it is not. And finally, because I’m a bi-vocational minister, I need to be stingy with my time. I want to align my personal values to the way I spend this one wild and precious life.