How to cut back on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media

Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley joins the Live show to discuss how to cut back on social media.

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BRAD SMITH: Switching gears, Elon Musk agreed to buy social media platform Twitter last month for a total of $44 billion with the stated intent of taking it private. But now he says he wants to make it public again just a few years after the acquisition goes through. Joining us with more on this is Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley. The ever changing kind of nature of this acquisition, perhaps, Dan, what more do we know about acquisitions?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, I mean, it really is strange just because this is something that he said he wanted to go against, more or less, because he wanted to be able to have less oversight, you would think, of the company than it has right now. And so what they were originally planning to do was go private. And then Elon Musk was going to do things, I guess. He's not even really clear on what he wants to do.

You know, I've mentioned this before, but prior to the full acquisition announcement, he had had a TED talk where he basically said, we're going to add an Edit button. OK, so that was worth $44 billion? I guess. So I mean, now they're, obviously, going to go through with all the pending approvals and have the company on his own. And I guess we'll just have to see what he does, and then what that'll bring when it goes back into being a public company again.

So I mean, look, this is a social network that its growth has never been amazing. Its revenue has never been amazing. Everybody has always talked about how it's not properly monetized. But how are you going to monetize it? He's discussed things like, OK, maybe we'll charge people. Maybe we'll charge people for embedding tweets, which just doesn't make sense because you can quote a tweet. You know? So it doesn't seem like he really understands what he wants to do here yet.

JULIE HYMAN: It's not unusual for a company that goes private to come public again, but still, you never know with him. Speaking of Twitter and other social media, you getting off it, getting off Twitter. Are you getting off Twitter? Does that include Twitter?

DAN HOWLEY: I can't. I can't. So I've had it with social media, right? I'm writing a column this week where I'm basically just leaving what I can. I'll have you know that I've downloaded and deleted TikTok five times because, yeah, I have a problem. So I've decided that, after sitting there laying in bed for, like, an hour and a half sometimes just, like, scrolling through social media, that I probably shouldn't be doing that. So I've decided to take some limits here.

What I'm doing is, I've used the limiter that's in iOS to limit my Instagram usage to 20 minutes a day, which, by the way, is not a lot of time when you spend that much time on social media. I've never used Facebook because, let's face it, you know, I'm not, I guess, 80, because that's basically, I guess, the age for Facebook. And I don't want to use Twitter anymore during my spare time.

And I talked to a couple of psychologists about this for my piece, basically, going over how these habits kind of evolve and how they aren't necessarily always bad when it comes to social media because there are good sides to social media. People can meet people that they haven't seen in years, join up with new causes, find out interesting things in their lives.

But for people like me, I think it was just a total time suck. And I could have been spending that time doing other things. So I'm going to try doing this. I have the limiter on Instagram right now. It popped up yesterday. And I swear, I have instinctively swiped up to unlock my phone and move over four pages to Instagram and go to press it. And now it's locked. And I don't know what to do with myself.

BRIAN SOZZI: Dan, how confident are you that you can maintain this? You've already brought back TikTok numerous times.

DAN HOWLEY: I know. Look, I'm trying. You know, I mean, Twitter is just like-- it's a hellscape. So I never really want to be on it. But I have to be on it for work. I have to look for breaking news and things like that. So I'm not going to use that in my spare time. I feel like that that's just-- unless I really want to be depressed about something, then I'll just-- I'll either watch-- I don't know-- a period drama or go on Twitter.

But I do think that the Instagram thing is going to be a bigger issue. But it kind of speaks to, I guess, my addictive personality, but also how these companies build their products, and that this is the point of them, is to keep you using them and keep you stuck on them, so you're engaging more, and then they can sell more ads against it. I'm saying no. I refuse to be a part of that system.

BRAD SMITH: Well, the platforms have been built like casinos. There's such an eliciting of a psychological response and the behavioral response that they want you to keep coming back to. I mean, are we going to see a future ever where social media companies are being more forward about how they actually want to make sure that they're maintaining the mental health of their end users?

DAN HOWLEY: Well, I mean, right, that's exactly what legislators in Congress are looking at as far as Instagram goes specifically, because they had spoken about the impact that it has on young girls as far as body image goes. Frances Haugen, the whistleblower, had brought up how the platforms are designed this way, trying to get people to stay hooked as much as possible. And they do that by driving engagement through negative interactions with people, the kind of stuff that really gets you going.

For me, that's not why I'm on social media. I literally send my wife pictures of golden retrievers in a bathtub with ducks, little baby ducklings. It's the greatest thing in the world, or, like-- or baby cows and stuff from, like, this farm that I follow.

JULIE HYMAN: No, It's not. It's the worst.

DAN HOWLEY: I mean, it's the worst.

JULIE HYMAN: The worst thing.

DAN HOWLEY: It's the worst. It's the worst.

JULIE HYMAN: You gotta get off there.

DAN HOWLEY: And that's why I'm cutting down to 20 minutes a day. I feel like this is what smokers must have gone through, I feel like.

BRIAN SOZZI: Dan, I have bad news for you because it sounds like you're going to miss my cow video later overlaid with the latest rolling Limp Bizkit song.

DAN HOWLEY: Oh, my God.

BRIAN SOZZI: So, you know, I feel sorry for you. But look out for that post, nonetheless. Hope you don't get hit by the limiter. Dan Howley, thanks so much, baby.