written by Maryam Dada, M.A., RCC ; intro/outro by Linda Lin RCC, RCAT

We are living in a moment where information is everywhere, yet attention feels increasingly scarce. Our phones promise connection, stimulation, and ease, often at the cost of depth and our sense of presence. As scrolling replaces reading and fragments replace stories, some are describing our entry into a post-literate society.

Each notification shapes the way we think and feel, speeding up a pace that asks our nervous systems to adapt faster than we might choose or want. This creates what some call cognitive debt: the mental fatigue and attentional strain that builds when our minds are constantly stimulated but rarely allowed to rest or reflect. Navigating social media today is therefore not simply about screen time. It is about how we care for our internal wellbeing in an attention economy that profits from this depletion.

History of Instagram and its Original Function

Instagram was first released in 2010, fifteen years ago. It was a time where pink-coloured skinny jeans and shudder shades were all the rage. We wore bright colours and messy prints, our hair in a trademark sock-bun, lips pursed, and duck-face at the ready to post on Instagram. 

Instagram at its inception was so new and so special. Previously, if we wanted to share photos they’d be through a Facebook album – and while that was an online sharing platform it didn’t have the instant effect of instagram. An instant way to share photos and only photos with friends and family.

In its humble beginnings, Instagram existed purely as a way to share photos with loved ones and build community. Photos were sequential, we could comfortably scroll to the end of our feed, feel ‘caught up’ and neatly put our phones away. It was simple, easy, and a mark of the time. 

In the 2010s we started to see a shift to online platforms, whether that was through Facebook, Instagram, or Buzzfeed, a subtle shift had started to take place. Our attention was moving online. 

We didn’t know it at the time, but this would mark the beginning of a new way to consume media and with it, of course, would come a whole host of other considerations that we are only now starting to unpack. 

In this blog post, we’ll be exploring:
• the different pitfalls of social media (like targeted marketing)
• being bombarded with content
• influencer culture and performativism
• having an online presence
• our self-perception
• and doomscrolling.

At the end, I’ll share some tips to help you navigate social media in today’s world.

Pitfalls of Social Media 

Today, social media looks a lot different, with the advent of short form videos like TikTok/Reels, instagram stories, and ads, we are living through a time where we are constantly being bombarded with content. 

In addition, marketing strategies, advertisements, and a daunting algorithm, curate content that is specifically tailored to you. What you are seeing has been cultivated for you. In a lot of ways this can be efficient, intended to make your life easier, and in other ways, it can feel nefarious, taking away your ability to choose the time/place you want to look into something.

Social media has also taken on an amorphous quality – a shapeless thing that is somehow tangible in nature. The platform exists online but we are very much impacted by what we see.

We are influenced by influencers, locked into other peoples’ routines: what I eat in a day, what my 5-9 looks like after my 9-5, get ready with me’s…etc. This can negatively affect our sense of self and self-esteem. 

It has made news accessible in a way that allows us to be informed but also pressures us to feel on top of everything all the time (a big ask).

This can lead to performative activism which actually serves to disconnect us from what we are seeing/feeling and how it’s impacting us and shift instead into thoughts of, how is my online presence being perceived? 

While it is important to be informed about what is going on in the world, when we are operating from a place of “I need to share this to fit” or “I feel anxious because everyone is talking/sharing about this”. Give yourself permission to take the time to learn about the issue at hand, and then, make an informed decision about your impact. 

Additionally, it is important to note how our attention spans are being impacted, short form content has made it difficult to focus and we find ourselves in the endless chasm of doomscrolling - content that is targeted and tailored to us, with no end in sight.

It’s what our parents warned us about: social media can be a distraction. Not only is it impacting our ability to focus on longer forms of content, it can also surreptitiously eat up hours of our time without us realizing if we’re not paying attention. Revenge procrastination, time warps, and of course, doomscrolling. This can be particularly harmful if we use social media to avoid tasks that we need to complete. 

All of this makes it especially important for us to be able to filter what we are seeing. Not necessarily to turn away, but instead to start tuning in to ourselves. 

I am of the belief that social media is here, and here to stay. There can be some really lovely benefits in finding and participating in online communities, but the onus is on us to be aware of social media pitfalls too. How can we be using social media in a way that benefits rather than harms us? 

Practical Tips for Navigating Social Media Use

(download full list in pdf below!)

• ‘Hack’ your algorithm - intentionally watch videos that will bring you comfort, joy, humour…etc 

• If you are getting your news online, allow it to digest (i.e. take a moment to understand what you are seeing) before instantly sharing/reposting 

• Recognize the system at play (i.e. capitalism) that makes things like doomscrolling so appealing. 

• Opt out of notifications

…more in our pdf download!

Benefits of Social Media 

Finally, I want to end with a positive take on social media. I think we do have to be mindful of how we spend our time online and that it is our responsibility to do so in ways that are sustainable and overall feel good for us. 

Social media has also been a place of community, education, resource building. It’s created platforms for us to learn about each other directly, learn from one another, we’ve been able to see things as they are happening in real time and form our own opinions about them. We’ve felt less alone in our struggles. We’ve enjoyed fandoms, communities, allyship, memes, and advocacy. It’s given us a place to express ourselves, our love, our friendships, our style…it’s taken some of the mystery out of being human. Sometimes, it helps us feel as though we know one another. These are all good <3

Living in a postliterate society does not have to be black or white like accepting where technology will lead us or grieving of a predigital past. It can mean noticing the costs within our personal lives and the broader shifts in society, while making intentional choices about how we reclaim our attention, how our bodies are responding through our behaviours, and what we truly value. It can also mean supporting and challenging the status quo by strengthening our capacity for critical thinking.

Navigating social media today is less about discipline and more about relationship—how we relate to our attention, our time, and our sense of self. We do this through small and intentional acts: reading slowly, writing imperfectly, posting as if we are speaking with the people we want to connect with, and pausing before the next scroll. In choosing moments of depth over endless input, we are not falling behind. We are remembering a different rhythm of being human, one where meaning is not optimized, but felt.

Maryam is a Registered Clinical Counsellor at Decipher. If you like to explore themes in tv, media, or literature and how it relates to your life or the different things you may be going though, she may be a good fit.  She is currently taking new clients! Book a free consultation with Maryam today—available online and in person in so-called Vancouver, BC.

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, RCAT

Growing up my grandma who raised me always said, “friendships and learning to connect with others help us cross the bridges of life” 🪷 ୧ ‧ ˚ (this is roughly translated to English)

A couple of decades later, I find myself circling back to her wisdom, because building connections and friendships is active resistance to capitalism and individualism. Friendship is a refusal of a culture that tells us to stay polished, self-contained, hyperindependent, and endlessly ‘productive’.

But here’s the question, how do we actually build real friendships when we’re swimming in a culture that glorifies capitalism, perfectionism, and even buying into community, when it's dressed up as 'self-respect'?

via Pinterest

-`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´-

Reciprocity is the heartbeat of relationship.

Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us that reciprocity is the heartbeat of relationship. The Earth offers us gifts—berries, shade, clean water—not so we can hoard them, but so we can learn the joy of giving back. Reciprocity flows in a circle, isn't one-sided, sustaining everyone involved. It also reminds me of generosity, a value my mother taught me.

When we strive to live in the rhythm of reciprocity instead of keeping score, we learn to offer, and make room to receive. 

We make listening as important as speaking, holding as important as being held. 

 Reciprocity doesn’t keep score; it trusts that when we give, it returns in another form, in another season.

-`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  -`♡´-  

sleepover and zine making a friend~

Prioritize connection > productivity! 

Individualism and capitalism teaches us to prioritize our needs above our communities and view relationships as transactional.

It's literally designed to keep us in disconnection and in loneliness.

There were so many days when I find myself after a full day of work and feeling so exhausted to make plans with people who support my nervous system and would interrupt these cycles of anxiety.

snippet of my friendship mantras zine!

✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Rest and pleasure are portals to receiving care and love ♡

Especially when we are trained/conditioned to work, serve, and over-function, choosing rest, joy, pleasure, and time with friends is a way to restore love’s presence in our lives. Communion helps us interrupt cycles of hurt: healing personal wounds with relationships and those passed down through generations and systemic oppression. 

Prioritizing our needs is not above our relationships (capitalism/individualism) nor is our relationship above our needs (relational trauma/wounding).

✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

via Pinterest

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

Communion is the antidote to loneliness and alienation! 

Communion counters loneliness and alienation. Our culture reinforces individualistic behaviours, which shape how we maintain—or let go of—relationships, like the drifting or disappearance of friendships in adulthood after life changes such as moving away, starting a new relationship, landing a new job, or having a child.

bell hooks reminds me in Communion that true connection invites us into intimacy, belonging, and presence. 

I’ve been practicing little ways of stepping off the hamster wheel, where I prioritize friendships and relationships instead of letting the system dictate my pace. I’m learning again and again that connection can be one of our greatest sources of nourishment and healing.

When we slow down enough to be with a friend, we’re pushing back against the myth that our value lies only in output.

Whether it’s cooking a meal together, walking or playing at the park, or even having an adult sleepover (SO fun), friendships are how we choose connection over keeping score, competition, and the endless busyness capitalism asks of us. 𖦹

⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹⊹₊｡ꕤ˚₊⊹

So here's to choosing each other in a culture that doesn't.

₊˚🍏 ྀ౿ written by yours truly, Linda

Community building events coming to Decipher this Fall/Winter!

✮ monthly TEAR CLUB! (anti-perfectionism) with Chloe, our art therapist .ᐟ.ᐟ ˚⊹

 

✮ weekly OFF-SCREEN HOURS art therapy drop-ins with our interns coming soon .ᐟ.ᐟ ⋆˙⟡

A space where we can build community, make art, and connect more deeply with yourself and the world! Think of it as a group therapy session, but in a fun, casual, community-focused way, away from screens and winding down from our week.

Also a perfect activity for rainy days with a friend or two in our studio located in downtown ‘Vancouver’.

Check back soon for updates!

quick note: this blog post is not written by AI. The writing below features ideas and wisdom of artists, personal journalling and newsletter writing, curated to what a therapist feels the world is needing these days. 

Image via @realizationbypea

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, RCAT

Be real with me… what is your relationship with time like?  ୧ ‧ ˚ 

When I am overwhelmed, time feels like the scariest, most unattainable currency that I cannot get back once it pasts by. From the hours, minutes to seconds, I find myself reacting to my thoughts, the ‘standards’ and shoulds on how I need to be spending my time and transforming it into something valuable, productive, ~rich~.

This obsession leaks into how I see money, work, relationships and I'd hate to admit this, my entire sense of self.

I’ve met so many people who try to force outcomes to ‘shape their reality.’ That might look like getting a perfect job with no career gaps or trying to appear as though they have their life together by a certain age (we're not even on linkedin btw •̀ ᴖ •́). Over time, those expectations can attach themselves to our identity and perceived reality.

via pinterest

The more we obsess over time, the more it breeds fear, frustration, hesitation and misalignment.

Did you know? 
Your energy is your most VALUABLE resource in life.

Therefore where you put your time and attention determines everything.

Instead of forcing outcomes, what if we start curating your reality with alignment, creative direction, and thoughtful refinement. Like an artist curating their work 𖦹

via pinterest

I journaled this the other day: “my relationship with time is kind, sweet, caring, full of life, light”

Perhaps mourning/stressing about time and next thing, which is heavy in weight, is dictating a relationship with time that isn’t valuable to me!

We cannot time hop in multiple streams of consciousness. 

So disappointing, am I right? It's really too bad that we can’t live in every parallel timeline like we are everything everywhere all at once. Trying to juggle all the goals, tasks, and “what ifs,” whether it’s making our days off perfect or savouring the end of summer, usually just leaves us with an abstract and confused state of feeling.

HOWEVER, I’ve been thinking a lot about quantum leaping, also called timeline jumping. The idea is that if you’re on level 1 and you want to get to level 8, it’s really about giving yourself room to believe that level 8 is just the next step, waiting for you.

Time is not something we need to centre and obsess over.

Thanks to this tiktok I watched last month, I've been on this case ever since. Obsessing about time traps us in procrastination, locks us into overwhelm, and confines us to cycles of productivity and capitalist urgency which are the very things we don’t want taking over our lives.

When our most easeful and fluid path (the realm where time flow exists) starts to blur under pressure, how can we anchor ourselves to remember how we want time and life to truly feel?

Here’s your art journalling prompt:

Draw and describe how fluid time is to you currently. Draw a portal that allows you to experience time the way you want time to feel.
 

Use your fave mediums: Mine are stickers, collaging, digital media like Pinterest images, sparkly gel pens, words, pencil crayons, oil pastels, coloured pens to express myself.

From this prompt, TIME IS A MEADOW came up for me. I call her, Mother Time. Instead of me trying to micro-manage/control time, or duelling it out with time, she is here to support me. This isn't a battle. I also don't have to mother time. Time is here for me and with me. I'm rolling with it and curious to what this art prompt will reveal for you!

TLDR; or don't feel like journalling? Try reflecting on this in the month ahead:

✩ Gently build curiosity by learning your unique rhythm and pace.

✩ Practice your ability to redirect and focus with purpose and intention. 

✩ Slowly expand your capacity for flow instead of control with time.

I see you! ⋆˙⟡ written by yours truly, Linda

quick note: this blog post is not written by AI. The writing below features ideas and wisdom of artists, personal journalling and newsletter writing, curated to what a therapist feels the world is needing these days. 

from our newsletter, written by Linda Lin, RCC, CCC, RCAT

What does it take to feel our enough-ness these days?

Lately in therapy sessions, in conversations with friends and family, and while recording the self-directed workshop series in collab with @friendlybureau on healing money (made for children of immigrants and working-class folks), I keep sensing a common thread. That we’re all experiencing a quiet, complex grief, each in our own way.

And one symptom that festers is the feeling of being stuck on a hamster wheel of proving.

There’s this unrelenting pressure to stay urgent, distracted, productive. Proving to others, yes—but if I’m unbearably honest, we’re trying to prove to ourselves that we’re enough.

My nervous system is so often on edge, caught in a cycle of not being there for myself enough—not resting enough, not reaching out enough, not building the right kind of structure. Always chasing a version of 'enough' that was never mine to begin with. These 'enoughs' don’t align with the values I want to bring into the world, or with what truly matters to me.

But when I slow down even just a bit, I become increasingly curious:
Do we know what our enough is?

Has it been named, clarified, or felt?

If we don’t know what enough is—how can we feel the enough?

When is enough... enough?
What even is ‘enough’?

Is the ‘enough’ we’re chasing actually important to us?

The attention economy: colonization of the mind

 It’s becoming harder to tell the difference between what we actually need and what the internet insists we should do.

Like taping my mouth shut so I don’t mouth breathe at night. Or doing facial yoga because I’ve been told my smile lines are deepening.

Each effort, well-intentioned, chips away at my energy: time feels tighter to the point where I want to hide in a dark cave, just to escape from all the noise.

Because there’s no actual importance, softness, appreciation of my life energy.

And that’s not even the life I want.

What if we could see that our body is trying its best—working so hard to meet the demands of the culture we live in?

Gentle reminders for you and me

 When we disconnect from our dreams, from presence—that’s a signal that we’re drifting from our body, our vitality, our aliveness.

Starting is enough.
Connecting our mind and body to witness how we react to the instability, unsustainable practices from these uncertain times, is enough. Like paying attention to our breath, we don’t have to change anything.

I believe that our bodies know deep down what doesn't matter to us and what actually matters.

What matters could be being witnessed, cared for, getting recognition or loved by those we hold close.

Maybe what matters is being of service because that is what heals us too.

Living with meaning, with pleasure, or with living dreams!

What if our collective aliveness is already in you—beneath the noise, quietly patiently waiting for you? 

When we confront the truth that we’re not here forever, something softens.

What if you are not existing and came all the way here to be excellent, but simply to connect?
To try.
To show up just as you are.
To bring something that matters to your soul.
To reach for life.

 
And as you find your way through all the noise...
you discover that you’re still enough.

 And that enoughness doesn’t define you either.