In a series of six posts, I explain how teachings from early Buddhist scriptures can help us break free from social media addiction. These teachings come from the Vitakkasanthana Sutta, which outlines five strategies for overcoming distracting thoughts and urges. I like to call it “the Social Media Sutra” because it makes it more relatable and applicable to our modern lives.
Now, let’s discuss the fifth and final strategy, which might surprise you—it’s all about sheer willpower. The Buddha advises using strong, determined efforts to overcome harmful thoughts when all else fails. This technique involves mentally overpowering and suppressing those negative urges.
Although this method sounds harsh, the idea is to be firm with ourselves when necessary. However, it’s clear that willpower should be used only as a last resort. For instance, if I find myself late at night endlessly surfing the internet, I might suddenly feel a strong sense of disgust and shut my laptop. This reaction isn’t necessarily willpower; it’s more like an instinctive repulsion that stops the behavior.
There are more effective and subtle ways to manage our urges. One approach is to use your willpower when you’re not actively craving. For example, deleting social media apps from your phone makes them harder to access. You can even use parental controls to block social media sites entirely or install browser plugins that limit your time online.
A more drastic measure is to delete your social media accounts altogether. This demands significant willpower, and few people do it. I deleted my Instagram and Facebook accounts because they made me crave validation and feel disappointed. Plus, Facebook, in particular, had privacy issues and often led to arguments and exposure to political propaganda.
Research shows quitting social media makes us happier, but the addiction and the lies we tell ourselves make it hard to break free. Even though these platforms didn’t exist in the past, we managed just fine without them.
Lastly, I found a final willpower trick that helped me quit Twitter, which often left me feeling outraged and wasted lots of time. Instead of deleting your account, you can lock yourself out by changing your password to something random and not keeping a record of it. This creates a barrier that makes it difficult to log back in.
In summary, we’ve explored five tools from the Vitakkasanthana Sutta to free ourselves from obsessive thinking and compulsive urges related to social media. Thank you for joining me on this journey to use the Dharma for overcoming social media addiction. I hope we can all continue to progress in living with mindfulness, compassion, and joy.