Social Media Broke My Brain. Substack Helped Me Rebuild It.

I’ve spent over a decade on social media — not just as a user, but as a strategist. It’s been my work, my craft, my career.

Jun 24, 2025

But somewhere along the way, I lost something important.

Not followers. Not engagement.

Focus.

I noticed it in the little things first.
Reading a long article made me impatient.
I’d get annoyed if a podcast intro didn’t get to the point in under 30 seconds.
I couldn’t finish a single book without checking my phone every few pages.
And when I tried to write — really write — I couldn’t hold a thought long enough to form a paragraph.

And that scared me…

Because writing used to be where I came alive, before I ever had an Instagram account, I was a blogger. Before that, a journalist. I used to fall into flow for hours. Now I couldn’t sit still for five minutes.

And the irony?

I never even got into TikTok.
Instagram was enough to chip away at my attention span, day by day, swipe by swipe.

Social media is reshaping our attention

It’s not just anecdotal.
A 2023 Journal of Behavioral Addictions study found that heavy social media use correlates with weaker attentional control.
Other research shows our screen attention span dropped from about 150 seconds in 2004 to just 47 seconds in recent years.
Short-form platforms also hurt memory retention and focus.

Our brains weren’t built for that much input, that fast, that constantly.

Your attention span isn’t broken. It’s been trained to scatter.

And I was feeling it in real-time.

Then I discovered something strange:
The cure wasn’t digital detox.
It was digital depth.

Instead of quitting the internet, I started writing on Substack.

At first, it was hard.
Putting together a single post felt like dragging my brain through mud.
I forgot how to hold a single thread of thought without breaking it up into slides or captions.
I’d sit down to write and instinctively reach for my phone — just to “check something.”
Half an hour later, I’d be knee-deep in reels and wondering where my day went.

But I didn’t give up. Because I remembered how it used to feel.

Writing used to make me feel clear.
Powerful.
Present.

And slowly, Substack helped me find my way back.

14 months in, I’m a different person

I can read books again.
I can write 1,000+ words in a sitting without checking my phone.
I can stay in deep work mode for hours, something I thought I’d lost forever.

And here’s what that looks like now:
I sit down to write, put my phone away, and start typing before I overthink.
I trust that my thoughts will land, because they finally have space to land.
There’s silence around them. There’s time.
And more often than not, I finish writing and feel calm, not wired. That’s new.

Writing isn’t just how I create. It’s how I come back to myself.

What changed?

Not the internet. Not my job. Not the world.

Just the container.

Substack gave me a space for long-form thinking.
For context.
For slowness.

It reminded me that content doesn’t have to be bite-sized to be valuable.

That attention can be rebuilt — not by rejecting the digital world, but by reclaiming how we show up in it.

And honestly, we need to talk about this more.
Because if we don’t protect our ability to focus, to think clearly, to write and read and reflect, we lose more than productivity. We lose the part of ourselves that knows who we are, underneath the noise.

For creators and solopreneurs, this matters more than ever

I still use social media, and it’s still part of my job. But now, I treat it like what it is: a tool, not a home.

If you’re building a business online, you need places that reward focus, not distraction.
Places where you can think clearly.
Create deeply.
Connect intentionally.

For me, that place is Substack.
For you, it might be something else (e.g. YouTube)

But if you’re constantly feeling scattered, restless, unfocused…
It might not be you.
It might be your environment.

And the good news?

You can change it.

Want to rebuild your focus as a creator?
Here’s what helped me:

One long-form platform, no pressure.
Timed phone-free writing blocks. Start with 25 mins. Work your way up.
Reading actual articles and books again. Even if it feels hard. It gets easier.
Noticing the addiction loops. Especially the “let me just check...” moments.
Creating more than I consume. This changes everything.

📌 Your turn: Have you noticed a shift in your attention span over the years? What helped you get it back, or are you still in it? Let’s talk in the comments.