[belthesar]

One of the things I do agree with, and personally struggle with, is that the attention economy makes it incredibly easy to fill gaps with things that spark the good brain pleasure chemicals, but do not create any positive outcomes. Removing the space to process complex information, or think about ourselves and our needs/wants/desires seems to lead to a lack of capacity to think critically, at least in my own experience.

It sounds like you made more space, and that allowed you to invest more in things that interested you, which translated to being able to make a career change. I imagine that could be swapped with "thinking about how to improve one's mental well being" or "engaging with other folks to discuss things that bother you".

[pksebben]

You hit the nail on the head, there. Facebook et al represented a large enough timesink / extreme enough "attention shelf" adjustment that removing them provided a dramatic and measurable change to what I was capable of.

Just try telling people about it, though. I can't count the number of times someone's been telling me that they're depressed b/c they can't accomplish their goals and I've tried to invite them to disconnect, only to come off sounding like a know-it-all. It's a really hard thing to communicate.