My loneliness is a hunger

Thoughts on social media, addiction, and why I'm "broken."

The sun is shining. My dog is sleeping next to me. The house is clean and silent and calm. And it’s writing day. 

This is a brief snapshot amongst an array of chaotic moments where I think to myself “here is the life I’ve always dreamed of.” And yet, sadness wraps itself around me like an itchy sheet, creating the thinnest veil of discomfort between me and this moment of meant-to-be-happiness.

If you’ve engaged with any of my Substack notes recently, you’ll know that I’ve been experimenting with better boundaries around Instagram and Facebook. It’s been fascinating to see how any note I publish about this process seems to receive a LOT more engagement. 

We clearly all have feelings about the little slavedriver we carry around with us in our pockets.

One of the first things I noticed in the comment section was how many people attached their definition of a “virtuous breakup” with social media onto my own story. They’d proudly tell me how they’ve gone months without logging into Instagram, or a year without checking Facebook. To which I say, with my whole heart, well done! That is truly amazing. However, when I’d praise their feat and thank them for their advice, I’d also confess that I have no desire to “break up” with social media – merely to create healthier boundaries around it, and I’d receive confusing replies like “Don’t worry, you’ll get there eventually” or “It all has to start somewhere.” I could have totally been misreading the undertones, but it felt as though a large majority of people were saying “there is no success with social media apart from cutting off all ties.”

For practical reasons, I truly never wish to do this. I have too many friends overseas whose life updates I care about seeing, and I also use social media for my business. But it’s fascinating, truly, to notice how we can’t seem to live in the tender balance of things. I include myself in this generalisation. I’m an “all or nothing” girly. Finding balance in any aspect of my life requires SO much more energy than abandoning moderation.

Needless to say, after one successful week of having no social media apps on my phone, I relapsed, re-downloaded them, and found myself looking at the clock at 4pm on a Saturday, not knowing where the time had gone as I scrolled Instagram.

My rationale for re-downloading the app was valid. Following some major political shifts in my American homeland, I wanted to access information from sources that I trust, and their primary platform is Instagram. I also have this slightly self-destructive habit of checking on my atheist friends and seeing what they’re saying, partly from a morbid curiosity and partly because it’s the easiest way I can think of to ensure that I’m not living in an echo chamber. 

Either way, I found myself, in the first few days back on IG, feeling wildly irritated by everything. I didn’t want more cute dog videos, cookie recipes, clips of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, or shots of floaty ethereal dresses (all of which make up the substance of my “Discover” page – touché, algorithm, touché).

But wait, what?! I love all of those things! I’m a Goldendoodle-owning, Taylor Swift-loving, ethereal-dress-wearing, cooking-eating FIEND! Why was I suddenly, upon absorbing this tailored-to-me-content, feeling an incessant antsyness to escape my body? An irritation washing over me? An anger, almost, towards the phone in my hand?

Some little voice inside of me whispered the answer: absorbing this content, day after day, is not helping you rest OR grow; it’s sparking neither recovery or action; it is, quite simply, numbing you. 

Day after day, I fill my head with useless information that keeps me from becoming the person I want to be. Day after day, I am the one choosing this pattern. I have a loooong list of saved, unread Substack essays, and yet I waste hours watching my millionth puppy video. I tell myself that it’s because my brain needs a “rest,” but this agitation in my body tells me that I am not finding rest here.

But after a few days of the irritation, I get used to the numbing feeling again. Sure, I’d spontaneously delete the app from my phone in a huff, but within hours, I’d re-download it, wanting to “check something.” And before I know it, hours have gone by. Again. Hours that I could have spent painting or writing or reading or cleaning or working on building my writing course or even bloody napping if I’m supposedly so tired. Instead, here I am, caught in a habitual cycle of time-wasting and self-loathing. 

No wonder my dear Substack readers were encouraging an “all or nothing” approach. This life I’m living sounds like addiction to me. 

This isn’t a revelation. I’ve known that I’m addicted to my phone for a long time. What I struggle to swallow, though, is the fact that the very nature of addiction turns me into exactly the kind of person I claim not to be. I confidently declare that I am a woman of action – I know my own mind and I act upon my core values. I’m the person who didn’t drink until she was 21 even though she moved to a country where the drinking age was 18; the person who decided that she was going to move to England at 16 and then somehow (by the grace of God), actually went through the painful 12-year process in order to do it; the person who knew exactly what kind of wedding dress she wanted despite every dress-shop clerk telling her to “keep her options open because most brides go with a style surprisingly different than what they imagined.” (I didn’t. I bought the second dress I ever tried on and it was exactly what I’d always intended). 

These are all trivial examples, and one could reasonably argue that I’m just a stubborn pain-in-the-butt (valid), but the point is, I am someone who has grown to believe that I know my own mind, I know what I want for my life, and I go out and do the thing to make it happen so long as God doesn’t tell me anything otherwise.

But when it comes to my relationship with this stupid little screen that I carry around with me, I seem to have zero ability to do the thing which would bring about the life I want. I want a life where I am connected to the people and world around me. I want a life of curiosity and learning, where I read more than I write and I ask questions and truly listen to the answers. I want to be deeply engaged and present in this beautiful gift of being alive.

And instead, I yield myself to a quiet numbness dressed in puppy videos and Taylor Swift and fairy gowns. The content I’m consuming is arguably harmless, but it doesn’t feel harmless in my body. It feels like violence against myself as I hand over my minutes and hours and weeks to things which do not fill me up, do not give me rest, do not teach me or inspire me or grow me.

No, what I feel in my body after spending more than 5 minutes on those platforms is a sense of hopelessness, of dissatisfaction, of yearning for things which don’t spark the joy of eternity in me. I rarely feel the fruit of the Spirit after spending an extended amount of time on my phone; rather, I feel despair.

And I ask myself “Why? Why do I keep doing this?”

I published a note a few weeks back where I was keenly aware that whenever I run TO my phone, I am running FROM something else, and I was pondering what it is that I seem to be running from. It was an open-ended question that received a fair amount of engagement. 

I think, in some way, we can all relate to this phenomenon.

Jonathan M. Seidl talks about this in his essays about alcoholism, and while some may think that comparing a phone addiction to alcoholism is a bit extreme, I would argue that the core motivators are often the same, and the core outcomes can often be the same, too.¹

One addiction may rot your kidneys, but the other rots your mind (there have been studies which show that minds which actively engage in meaningful and challenging reading material are less likely to develop dementia later in life, so there is a reasonable physiological argument to be made that scrolling through endless IG reels and TikToks for hours on end might prove detrimental to the strength of the brain muscle as we age).² 

What’s more, both forms of addiction mar our relationships, both with others and with ourselves. Addiction of any kind chips away at us, telling us the story that we are powerless to be the people we want to be. We are powerless to build the beautiful life we want to build. And our loved ones become the collateral damage in that story of despair.

I often hear Paul’s words here: 

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Romans 7:15

In short, my addiction does not tell me a story of dignity. But Jesus does.

Every time I put down my Bible, even when I understand less than a tenth of what I just read, I feel a closeness to an Almighty God who is gently whispering that He wants better for me, always. And what’s more, He wants to teach me how to do it. I get to participate in the building of my own life. I am not a victim to myself. The Cross ensured that.

Yet I come back to this “Why?” question. Why am I having such a difficult time building boundaries around my screen time in the first place?

I texted my friend this morning: “I’m so lonely, B.”

Living in a town that is cut off from my deep-rooted community, I look around at this peaceful, empty house with my dog asleep at my feet, and I can’t escape this heavy sense of loneliness like a gnat buzzing around my ears. I might swat the gnat away as one of my few friends from the area comes to visit for a couple of hours (and what a blessing they are), but as soon as they leave, the buzzing comes back. Because while I do have a small but precious group of people in my life, my heart is longing for something deeper. There is a connectedness I felt back in my old town, where I knew that I was only a 15-minute walk from a high street where I might bump into any number of familiar faces. It’s like a child being able to fall asleep simply because they know that their parent is there, sitting in the corner of the room, reading a book. There is a comfort, a safety, in feeling connected, in feeling part of something bigger even if you aren’t actively in the presence of the individuals who make up the “bigger.”

I won’t speak for you, but for me, I sense that every time I reach for my phone, it’s an attempt to keep my feelings of loneliness at bay. It’s an attempt to feel like I’m connected to something. I see faces and hear voices filling up my empty living room through that phone screen, and I can numb myself from the buzzing gnat of loneliness for just a moment, or two, or maybe for days. 

Now I want to pause for a minute to ask that you don’t hear what I’m NOT saying:

I’m NOT saying that social media can’t facilitate connection or curiosity or healthy learning. It can do ALL of those things. I have made some of my dearest friends over social media. I have learned some life changing things by being curious on social media and finding beautiful content to read. Heck, my phone is what enables me to talk to my mom 5,000 miles away every single day. Within seconds, I can hear the sound of her voice. What a gift it is to live in the 21st century and find connection in virtual spaces.

One other thing I’m NOT saying is that other people are inherently on social media because of their own loneliness. I’m only speaking for myself here, and if this resonates with you, then great. If it doesn’t, well, I pray that you ask God to reveal to you first IF you have an addiction to your phone (or anything else) and next WHY that addiction is there.

For me, specifically, it’s loneliness. Or at least, that seems to be the issue that God is rooting up in me right now. I know that when I’m in a room full of people I love, I have next to no need to pick up my phone. I also know that when I am at my loneliest, I can’t seem to put my phone down, even when I have a MUCH more interesting book literally in my other hand. 

And in my typical “let’s take this one step further” fashion, I beg the question: why am I lonely? What is this loneliness that’s so heavy inside of me? Why isn’t a sense of God’s presence “enough”? What is that ever-present “bigger” that keeps eluding me while I chase it with a heart full of longing?

Apart from the fact that I live in a forlorn town, which I’ve discussed here on Substack in the past, I do think another obvious fact needs stating: if you’re going to social media to quench loneliness, it is only going to make you feel lonelier. Posts about friends starting families, going to concerts together, travelling the world? Man. This isn’t an essay about the fatalities of comparison (enough people have written about that), but I can tell you that the very nature of addiction is to rob you of the exact thing which you’re in search of. So in short, I make myself lonelier when I look to my phone to numb myself from loneliness. I believe it’s referred to as a “vicious cycle.” Vicious indeed.

On a less obvious note, though, I’ve compared loneliness to a buzzing gnat – to this external thing which hovers around me, reminding me of its presence. But what if its origin is, at times, more internal? Sometimes this loneliness feels like something growing from inside me, like a hunger that I can’t seem to fill.

My dog’s current GI issues result in symptoms of constant, insatiable hunger, and because of it, he seeks out anything – and I mean anything – which might fill his need. He eats faeces, soil, grass, stones, sticks, fabric, rubber, plaster, hair. You name it, and he’ll consume it with a ferociousness that is disturbing to watch. It’s one of the symptoms that has made our life with him so utterly heartbreaking – because he is actively seeking out things which not only lack substance but which could actually kill him.

I don’t need to spell out the metaphor here for you, do I?

Right this second, he’s trying to eat our wooden fence (he woke up from his nap), and there is only so much I can do to stop him when this is his default setting every moment he’s awake. 

We still don’t know WHAT exactly is wrong with him. All we know is that there is a strong likelihood that the delicate bacterial balance of his gut is off, making it nearly impossible to process nutrients from his food. 

This weird parallel with my own life is not lost on me. Like Humphrey, I know that there is clearly SOMETHING that is off with the “balance” in which I process the world. And it leaves me with a hungry kind of loneliness that will see me turning to any substance-less thing to satiate me – even if it metaphorically kills me.

I know what this lonely hunger is telling me I need – a sense of connection, of love, of safety, of feeling “known.” And the lighter things, too. A sense of fun, laughter, happiness and togetherness. And if I’m being honest, as a Christian who spends regular time with God in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings, there is part of me that feels like a failure when I admit that I still lack these things.

The fact that we live in an isolated town and still haven’t found a church is no doubt on the list of practical reasons why loneliness has crept in, but I know that there are deeper issues at play, and it’s annoyingly inconclusive to say that I don’t know what those issues are. 

What I do know, though – what I’ve always known – is that my discontent in this life is proof that there is a better way of living that God planned for us. My heart knows that it belongs to the “bigger” even when I don’t fully understand what that “bigger” is. 

Last year, before I left my office job, I felt so incredibly guilty for my discontent. And while discontent can certainly be due to a lack of gratitude or some other fleshy issue, I soon understood my own discontent for what I believe it truly was: a sign that eternity is real. 

C.S. Lewis says it so much better:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

What if my loneliness is actually the hunger coming from that eternal part of me – that part of my soul made in the image of God which knows that there is more to life than this? What if I am not lonely because I am broken but because I was inherently designed to be whole? What if the broken part of me is that part running to mindless squares on Instagram in search of a temporary food which cannot satiate an eternal hunger? What if I don’t need to know the mechanics of why I’m lonely? Only that I am, and that it’s proof, yet again, that our God made us for a life better than the one we’re living.

Paul follows up his acknowledgement of defectiveness with this:

“For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;  but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”
Romans 7:22-23 (emphasis added)

In our inner being we delight in everything that God delights in. Sometimes (more often than we realise, I think) our despair, or hunger, our need for “numbness” is based purely on the fact that we were indeed “made for another world,” and yet at this moment in time, we are still separate from the physical presence of our Creator, the One who affirms us, connects us to the “bigger,” reveals to us the glorious joy of eternity which every cell in our body craves before even knowing it as a reality? In this current separation between us and our Creator, the “law of sin” seeks to push us towards the numbing.

I am reminded of the simplicity of sin as a mere broken attempt to find the wholeness that only Perfect Love can satisfy.

Friends, this isn’t anything groundbreaking. The saints and poets have written about this truth for millennia. But for me, it’s a big mindset shift. And I wonder… if I can keep myself in this frame of mind, might I be able to run TOWARDS the threads of eternity that are woven into this life? Can I find fingerprints of the “bigger” I crave? Instead of turning towards my ephemeral screen to run FROM my loneliness, what might I be able to run TO instead, when I recognise that my loneliness is my soul’s instinct to seek out “on earth as it is in Heaven”? 

I don’t know the answer yet. I don’t know if this mindset shift will even result in a genuine change in my habits. But for as long as I live in a world where I believe in a God who is good, I’ll spend my days trying to find out.

All my love,

P.S. Just a reminder that I will be continuing my series exploring the theology of healing which I kicked off last week. These essays will be posted along with my usual Monday posting schedule. Free subscribers will still receive their Monday essay, but if you would like to read the remainder of the series on healing, you can become a paid subscriber for 30% less at the moment. Either way, please know that I am just so glad you’re here.

1. Please know that I recognise that the comparison of these two addictive behaviours can only go so far. I grew up with serious substance abuse in my family, and so I am keenly aware that no amount of phone usage can do the same damage as substance abuse can do. However, the same family member who had a substance abuse problem also had his own screen addiction, and I saw many of the same destructive fruits resulting from that addiction as I saw from his substance abuse.

2. I’m speaking loosely of studies which I’ve known about anecdotally for years, but just to be factual, here’s a rough summary of some of that research from Alzheimers Research UK.