06/19/2026
24 Hours and Social Media
We have 24 hours, and not everyone has the same 24 hours like the hustle and grind “gurus” want us to believe.
A family with a newborn does not have the same 24 hours as a young adult, a worker with a hard job and a long commute does not have the same 24 hours as a white-collar office worker with home office.
My normal 24 hours could look like this
- minus 8 hours sleep
- minus 8 hours work
- minus around 1-2 hours for commute, cooking, buying groceries, cleaning and other stuff
So if I visualize a normal day, it would look like this with blue = sleep, green = work, red = other stuff, orange = free time
So I have around 6 hours left for my family, friends, hobbies, sport, relaxing and my freelance work.
Where does media consumption fit in there, why would I take one hour from these 6 to spend on short-form videos or someone who tells me how I can achieve more in these 6 hours in a 30-minute video.
And why do I do it sometimes?
Sometimes I am too much on the phone and consume content I don’t want to consume. Or think that when I am reading the headlines and comments that I educate myself. But I never feel more educated after it.
Also even though I watched a lot of “productivity” YouTube, whatever that is, hear podcasts, read about productivity etc. etc.
I didn’t learn a lot and it didn’t change the quality of my life, maybe it even made it worse, feeling bad when not doing the stuff I am supposed to do according to the last YouTube video / podcast on my for you page.
And the same for “relaxing”, I never ever feeld good or relaxed after a session of doom scrolling reddit, youtube etc..
So the only thing that really has had a positive impact on my life is doing less.
Less social media.
Less news.
Less productivity tips.
Less media consumption.
Less “hustle” culture.
This is the hard part because here FOMO hits.
But why does social media work so well?
In the food industry, there is the so-called “Golden Ratio”, the Golden Ratio is the empirically measured combination, often of sugar, salt, and fat, that maximizes liking and desire to keep eating.
So the food industry has millions in research money and very smart people whose only job is that the chips we eat are as tasty, which is good, and as addictive, which is bad, as possible.
Social media has the same and I don’t have a chance, and I don’t have the self-discipline, against a budget of millions and very smart people whose main goal is that I spend as much time as possible in their product.
So why even try, when it’s easier to just delete the apps.
