In a series of six posts, I discuss how to free ourselves from social media addiction using teachings from early Buddhist scriptures, specifically the Vitakkasanthana Sutta, which offers five strategies to overcome persistent thoughts and urges.
The Vitakkasanthana Sutta, which means “the Discourse on Quieting Thinking,” will be referred to as “the Social Media Sutra” for convenience and because it highlights the relevance of these teachings to our modern lives.
The fifth and final strategy, which may surprise you, is the use of sheer willpower. The Buddha describes this as clenching your teeth and pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth to mentally force out unwanted thoughts. It sounds harsh, but sometimes we need to be firm with ourselves. However, this method is to be used only as a last resort when other strategies have failed.
Personally, I’ve found that sometimes this form of willpower can be beneficial. For example, late at night, I might find myself mindlessly browsing the internet, depriving myself of sleep. A sudden wave of disgust makes me close my laptop forcefully, which effectively ends my compulsive behavior.
However, solely relying on willpower can be problematic. Better, more subtle methods exist—ones that involve using willpower when not actively caught up in craving. For instance, deleting social media apps from your phone makes accessing these services more difficult. You can go further by using parental safety settings to block social media sites or installing browser plugins that limit time spent on these platforms. For those who can manage it, deleting social media accounts entirely is a powerful step, though it requires significant willpower.
I’ve done this with my Instagram and Facebook accounts. Instagram left me seeking validation, while Facebook often descended into arguments and had serious privacy concerns. Research indicates that quitting social media makes us happier, yet addiction and self-deception hold us back.
Eventually, Twitter became my last social media connection. Although less time-consuming than others, Twitter’s environment often left me feeling outraged or exhausted. So, here’s a final willpower trick I used to quit Twitter and free myself from its grasp: locking myself out of my account.
To do this, change your password to something random and forget it, making it very difficult to log back in. This barrier has kept me out of my account for months.
To sum up, we explored five tools from the Vitakkasanthana Sutta to help free our minds from obsessive thinking and compulsive urges. I appreciate the journey of exploring and sharing the Dharma with you and hope we all continue progressing toward mindfulness, compassion, and joy.