I Spent 30 Days a Year on Social Media. I Never Posted a Thing.
120 minutes. 2 hours. 1/12 of my day, spent on social media in 2024. Probably more in the years before that. If we run the numbers, that’s 30 days.. 30 DAYS! out of the year spent watching other people’s lives. And in all that time? I probably posted 5-8 stories, liked a few posts.. but mostly I just watched..
The average person spent 141 minutes on social media in 2025. Over 35 days. That’s mad.. the same hours as a part-time job.
I think you know the feeling. The muscle memory of pulling down to refresh. The little hit when something interesting appears. The slow deflation when nothing does (or maybe that’s just my internet connection..). The way you just thought you’d spend 10 minutes before bed, but somehow it’s 2:36am and you’re not quite sure where the “10 minutes” went.. or what you got from it.
I’d close the app feeling vaguely empty. Not angry, not sad. Just less than when I opened it.. if that’s a thing?
And here’s what took me longer to notice: I wasn’t connecting with anyone. What even is connection on ‘social media’? I was just.. observing. Watching clips of podcasts. History clips. Sport clips. Clips of people I subconsciously compare myself to because they’re my age and seem to have their life together.. albeit on a video.. but that still counts no?
But the actual people I cared about? My family, my close friends, the people whose ordinary days I actually wanted to see? I had no idea what was happening in their lives.
The algorithm had long stopped showing me people I actually knew. It was influencers, ads, strangers having arguments, people competing for attention. My actual friends? They’d either stopped posting or got buried under the noise.
I guess people don’t post unless it’s perfect. So the ordinary stuff.. the stuff I actually want to see.. never makes it.
The scroll wasn’t connection. It was a very convincing imitation of it.
So instead of just scrolling.. I started thinking.. Thinking led to building.. Which led to this post..
It’s called 142. I’m not going to over-explain it here. Partly because it’s still being built, partly because I’d rather show you than tell you. But the short version: it’s a way to stay close to the people who actually matter. No followers. No likes. No infinite scroll. Just the 142 people you genuinely want in your life. And a reason to actually hear from them.
That’s the idea, anyway.
I don’t know exactly where this goes. The app might work. It might not. Some days I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.. other days I wonder what I’m doing. But building it has already taught me things I didn’t expect. And I figured the best way to make sense of it was to write about it.. out loud, in public, as it happens.
So that’s what this is. An experiment in building something, and documenting what I learn along the way.
If that sounds interesting, stick around. I’ll be posting every few weeks.
And if you’ve ever felt that strange emptiness after an hour of scrolling.. maybe you can help me figure this out.
Matt