What my Four Months of Social Media Sobriety Has Taught Me

Simon R Turner
7 min readApr 13, 2022

Typically I take a one month break from social media when I return home to Australia for the Christmas holidays. However, Covid-19 and Fortress Australia’s border closures over the last two years has directed me to a new course of action over recent months. Quite simply, I needed a longer break!

After three months of social media sobriety, I started feeling somewhat ready to rejoin the self-inflicted yearn to scroll and post, but there was also an increasing internal burden, need and responsibility to return with something profound to say, with lessons I’d learned, epiphanies I’d had, and a barrage of exciting news, such is perhaps the value I still place(d) in the tiny corner of the metaverse that I call my online presence. The only problem was I didn’t feel there was any Headline News or Light Bulb Moment to return with.

This burden became an increasing weight that was defeating the object of the hiatus and reminded me why I’d “gone dark” for a few months in the first place.

But then, having given up on the idea of writing something meaningful and accepting I’d just return softly, gently and quietly — like I’d never been away -(despite some really nice check-ins from people via email and Whatsapp to check whether I was ok given they hadn’t seen me online for sometime), I finally found myself composing something at 4am with genuine clarity.

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Simon R Turner

Building, bolstering, and bettering startups in Africa’s entrepreneurial sandbox | Venture Partner | PropTech Founder | Angel in Disguise | Veteran