I Am Disconnecting in 2026

This morning, after having a night of poor sleep and rumination, I decided 2026 is the year I delete social media from my life. Here is what I posted on facebook earlier today (I see the irony): 

"In the coming months I’ll be setting up a newsletter that you can all sign up for if you’d like. I’ll also be more active on my blog. And I’m going to work on building up my Ko-fi page…. I might even revive my Patreon. 

Why? Because I’ve been on this platform since my senior year of high school…. Actually maybe even before that. I hate what social media has done to me as a person.

All we do on here is fight or try to grasp at the emptiness for an attention that is devoid of much of its meaning and impact. This country is in absolute shambles. My brain is fucking rotted from the anxiety and desensitization like we are supposed to just go on living a normal life while none of this is normal or acceptable in any way. We aren’t angry enough at what these companies and this government has taken from us. 

We all think we have adhd (not downplaying that diagnosis, I have it and was diagnosed for it) because our phones won’t stop buzzing and beeping and chiming and begging to be held. But we don’t hold our children. We don’t hold our families. We don’t hold our friends. We don’t hold the hands of those we love. But the phone? We’d die without it. 

I’m not even typing this from my personal phone. I deleted everything from that one. I’m using an old iPhone that I use for art documentation. 

And you must be saying, “But Tania, you’re an artist. How will your career survive?”

I don’t have a concrete answer for that. Probably never will. But I know several who do just fine without it… better, even…. Because they don’t feel the need to answer to distraction. I believe this year my college professor Jed Morfit just decided he was going to quit one day. And I remember saying, “I admire that. I wish I could just delete it all.” And after a few days of longing for that disconnection, I realized I have the same power to do this as he did. Since that day, I’ve been trying to figure out how. 

Social media is no longer the social connection and networking tool it was for artists, anyway. Once it became the misinformation machine, filled with hatred and division, it stopped being helpful to this community. We have been relabeled as content creators… asked to post 5 times a week and also make a marketing campaign and do short videos because we have 0 attention span and where…. Where is the time for art? Do we even enjoy painting anymore? Do we even make the art we really want to make? Do we even know who the fuck we are? 

I have turned into someone who doesn’t even like leaving my house anymore. I used to go for walks in the woods with a camera and forget what time was. I used to sit on park benches and look at the lake and feel ok with myself and all my imperfections because I understood myself to be a human being just trying my best. I wasn’t so afraid of every single goddamn thing. Presently, I am a person afraid of so many things, most of them irrational and stupid, but it’s because my anxiety is always high. Always. I am 36. This isn’t normal. I am programmed to expect negativity and constantly worry about failure. I was not that person when I was in school. Anxious? Sure. But what kid doesn’t deal with the anxieties of growing up? 

But crippled by existence itself? Never. I was never that person…. But I certainly became that person. I look tired, weak, and bitter. I hate it.  

Don’t worry though, you’ll know when I’ll delete it all. And you’ll have a direct way to contact me. Several ways, actually, that will also benefit you because you’ll spend less time on here, too. 

Put your phone down. Go live your life. You only have one of those. You can buy a phone a day until the end of your life and replace them constantly…. But you can’t buy back your days. 

Those are gone forever. 

Here’s a work in progress that sums up how I’ve been feeling internally lately. Where these works in progress will go in the future…. I don’t know. I do know that I don’t need to have every answer in front of me in order to change my life, though… and so I’m ok with not knowing that right now. I know that I make good art (one of the few times you’ll ever see me come close to “bragging” about anything I do), and I know that my life purpose revolves around a deep respect for the sacred role that creativity plays in my life. So my work will end up going where it needs to go…. And I won’t have to sacrifice my soul to do it."