Disconnecting
Feb 17, 2026
Last weekend Bill Maher hosted Jonathan Haidt, who talked about social media and the addictive nature of these platforms. If you don’t know, Jonathan is a social psychologist and the author of “The Anxious Generation” book (still on my to-read list!!!), and his newest book is titled “The Amazing Generation” (my to-read list just got bigger). He compared social media platforms to tobacco companies, and also made a horrifying point about how these two are different. I sat motionless on the couch with a cup of coffee cooling down, and the conversation hit close to home, as I myself have been on my journey related to social media platforms for a while now.
I am old enough to remember a world without the Internet, without social media and without cell phones. I remember the world filled with fan-zines, fliers, and run by human-to-human organic grape-vine information distribution.
I witnessed relations and information gradually move from the analog world to the online one.
It was innocent enough in the beginning… - until it wasn’t.
I rely on social media posts to get information that I want, and I also know that I have to rely on the good humor of an algorithm - more than once I saw a tour announcement on my wall two to three days after the band had already played in my city. And it sucked, so as a work-around I started pulling out the walls of musicians, artists, directors that I like by typing - one by one - their names in a "Search" box. By the end of the day I want to be the one that calls the shots as to what information I am being presented with. It is a bit of work - and it misses the charm of a freshly printed color magazine or a decibels-filled vibe of a music store, that we were all hanging out at. I miss the walls of a music store plastered with the posters announcing new releases and bulletin boards/tables promoting local concerts, events, parties. Yes, I am that old. ;)
But my relationship with social media grew in a different direction when I started my own business in 2023. Everybody who was everybody - from colleagues/entrepreneurs to business coaches were telling me that I needed to be on social media, create content, post, create content, post, create content, post, post, post…
“Are yooouuuu a goooood TikToker? Do you like, follow, comment?” - I heard more than once after opening the mentioned app. “Post every time you open your phone”, somebody else advised and I felt like Tamagotchi, except where in the 90s we were playing with these, now I felt like I was inside of one of these. Feed the beast, create the content daily, post, post, post, or we will all die if we don't "trend".
IT IS EXHAUSTING.
We all know it,
we are all quietly tired of it
and nobody wants to say it out of fear of breaking the line. It is scary, I know.
Algorithms change, what was working yesterday does not work today, we are dealing with more platforms and shorter media forms as a direct response to reduced attention spam. We fight for each other’s attention during the first 3 seconds of the reel, and we have no issue with TL;DR.
We are missing a lot, friends, we are missing a lot because there is no connection to be made in 3 seconds and no nuance to be found in 140 characters. And somehow we agree to that!!!
Over time this whole social media thing in my business has become like a ball and a chain - the toughest, most challenging, the most dragged out part of my business.
I felt like it should be so trivial, such a low-stake thing, and yet it was taking so much of my mental energy.
I struggled with the idea that something - let’s call it as it is - so damaging to our mental health and so damaging to our attention spam was proclaimed to be so crucial to our businesses, and our existence in general (if it is not online it does not exist, right?).
I felt bad when I didn’t post - indoctrinated to believe that “I don’t care for my audience” if I don’t post.
I felt bad if I posted beyond what felt honest and truly genuine - I was worried it would come across as forced… and it possibly did. “It is part of your job now,” I was told, except I didn’t create my business to push through what I didn’t want to do; I didn’t create my business to be so out of alignment. I don’t want my business to be this “get s*** done” kind of enterprise.
And life has heard me, and it started poking me under my rib…
First it was the “Stolen Focus” book by Johann Hari (https://stolenfocusbook.com/). If you follow me you know it was the book of the year for me, and if you didn’t read it — do yourself a favor and please, please, please read it. That was the first crack in that wall.
Then there was a community that I unexpectedly became a part of: I joined this community in my area “for networking purposes”, and I quickly became a regular during monthly meetings that have become so much more than just “networking”. This is a close circle of entrepreneurial women that welcomed me in. We meet in person. We talk. We laugh. We end up in each others’ lives a bit. We hug and we support each other. We meet in a non-chain coffee place, and so we support a woman-owned business. Bonus. We drink coffee from real clay mugs, none of that paper-cups s***. And this has become so important to me that even though the meeting place is one hour's drive away from me, I am there basically every month.
And then there was a Social Impact Roundtable with Jessica Sato in December of 2025, (https://jessicasato.com/) where we were talking about alignment in business, and after that I needed to make a hard call and call myself out on my own crap. It was time to stop pretending that social media “should be” part of my business strategy, that somehow it made sense to me, that somewhat it made sense in context of who I am. I wanted "out" for a while, but I was afraid to admit it even to myself, and that December session was a breaking point. It was scary as hell, it took me another 1,5 months to come to terms with it — but here I am… slowly refusing to be an active contributor to the 3-seconds-and-140-characters-world.
What will happen? - I have no idea.
How do you stay visible and relevant without being visible on social platforms? _ I have no idea and I will figure it out. So if you noticed I wasn’t posting on social media in a while it was kinda sorta intentional since about November.
I will keep some accounts still open but make these your go-to places for EBSW world.
I plan to explore Substack as it is supposed to be a space that welcomes longer (and deeper) forms of communication - stay tuned.
Maybe I will start a “Back to Analog” or "Disconnecting to Connect" - like blog documenting non-digital life in a digital world; I don’t know… but for now I will focus on reaching out to people in a way that does not rely on social media platforms. I actually already feel like I can breathe and I know it will show. I will continue reaching out to people in person and via email, but much more and even more intentionally. One-to-one. With one-person-in-mind-at-the-time.
I want to move from audience to community.
Who’s with me?
You know where to find me: [email protected]
