How personal are my personal projects?
Looking back at the list of personal projects I’ve done (Meet Goa, Desert Bloom, Vaccines for Fear, Brain Food…), I can clearly see that all of them have actually been quite social. They have been about finding ways to communicate my feelings through creative expression. They’ve been about a desire to connect with those who might feel the same way.
For me, creating is most definitely a form of connecting.
I’ve written about this in my book as well – about how creative expression serves as a “conversation starter” and how, when you feel isolated, it can really help you find common ground with others. Find and start a conversation with those who might “match my vibe”.
Keep aside these bigger, structured projects. I love creating hand-made cards for people on special occasions. These used to be very elaborate when I was a kid and I made the large foldout A3 card with a million hand-drawn details for my best friend’s birthday. They are now more aligned to grown-up aesthetics – like these new year cards I made for friends this January. Over the years, I’ve made one-off pieces paintings, and gifted them all away. I’ve simply ever seen the point of keeping them.
I think it’s this part of me which wants to keep creating for social media – to keep connecting with people like myself. To keep the conversation going.
All of these reflections – they're meant to serve as indicators for how a more "healthy" relationship with social media would look like, for me, in the future. When do I cross over from “watching for entertainment” to “zombie-scrolling”?
Both entertainment & distraction were a mindless click away when my thumb could involuntarily navigate to the Instagram app on my phone. With that option gone, I still head to YouTube for some entertainment. The only thing I want to be more aware of is – when am I going there intentionally for entertainment, and when have I transitioned into zombie-scrolling.
(Sidenote: I thought I was coming up with the word zombie-scrolling to describe what I felt like I was doing. But apparently it exists already. Clearly it’s a common experience)
Ofcourse this awareness is only aspirational right now. My brain is still in the process of rewiring. It automatically itches for some distraction the minute there’s some discomfort – whether in-between a work tasks or during the course of the day. When I gravitate to short form videos for distraction is when I’m most likely to zombie-scroll.
Over time, what I’d like to intentionally start doing is: Recognise this itch, and actually step outside of my brain. Pay attention to the breath, and other senses. I know that works. I just need time to get into that new habit.
Favourite type of short form entertainment on YouTube right now: Clips from Young Sheldon
Favourite type of long form entertainment on YouTube right now: Deya’s, Caroline Winkler’s & Alexandra Gater’s videos.
Floating thought on sharing things on social media
Not all social media sharing is unhealthy. (Blanket statements are what are actually unhealthy) We can share something that’s already happening in life, for a variety of reasons. The trick is, I suppose, to not start doing things so that they can be shared.
Note to self: I don’t want to do things FOR social media (create posts FOR social media, go to events so that I can show that I went, etc etc.). I want to do things for people IRL & then document it on social media IF I so please.
Fascinated by Casino SOPs
12th February 2025: We went to a casino yesterday (yep!!) and I was endlessly fascinated by how many SOPs are at play. I really want to dig deeper into this eventually. But for now, an initial search threw up some examples:
This isn’t relevant to social media. But it’s super relevant to my work as a Design Operations consultant. People feel like “SOPs can’t be followed” but there’s something about seeing all this staff trained and executing them really well, with layers of clarity, which delighted me a lot!
When “distractions” become relief
17th February 2025: I’ve been down with a mildly sore throat and an intensely aching body. YouTube has been my friend all day long. Definitely helps to take my mind off the aches and pains.
“I need to be on social media so that people can reach me”
One of my notions about being on social media was that I want to “be accessible”. If someone wants to have a conversation with me, they should be able to DM me straight away, and I should be able to respond soon enough.
Now that I’m offline from Instagram, I’ve also clearly stated on my profile that I am offline and I’m still reachable through my topmate page.
Today someone reached out through the page to invite me to their podcast. And that feels so amazing, because — they had me in mind (from a conference that I’d attended), and when the time came to reach me — they could easily do so through the communication channel I’ve set up.
💟 Definitely counts as a positive experience on this social media experiment.
Can your Instagram vibe get you hired?
25th February 2025: I’m helping a client review applications for a marketing role. And because this brand has a very particular artistic aesthetic, we’re looking at Instagram profiles too. While I am not consciously giving too much weightage to this aspect of the application, I couldn’t help but notice how a 2-second glance at their profile made me form an opinion about them. The minute I saw some Instagram profiles of applicants who seemed to understand Indian art & culture, I mentally gave them brownie points immediately. This makes me wonder — what all roles does social media play in our professional growth (apart from being a portfolio for visual designers)?
2 months into this sabbatical…
The idea of being off Instagram is starting to feel more and more normal.
Life is still full of friends & experiences, and there’s plenty of work to do! More than I can do right now, to be honest.
Book sales are negligible. And that’s something I just have to accept as part of this experiment.
Sooo… is Instagram essentially something that I just need to use as a marketing tool for the work I do and then humanise it, instead of putting out all of my life & humanity onto it and then also try to market there sometimes?
I’m still taking notes. The eventual goal of this experiment has now become: Taking a break can help me observe my relationship with social media from the outside, and find ways to improve it for the future.
nishita mohta 