We’ve spent years designing our digital lives for the algorithm, but what happens when you stop? What happens when we make social media a home—not a stage?
I read a note recently that said, simply, you don't have to respond to every single comment on social media. And my initial thought was, well, yeah, duh, obviously. But as I spent the next couple of weeks observing comments on social media—on my posts and notes and on other people's—I noticed something subtle but unsettling: the comments I most wanted to reply to, the comments that stuck in my craw and had me mentally composing scathing, biting, always winning responses in my head were often the ones that were also the most stressful. Not kind words from longtime readers, but tense, passive-aggressive challenges. People whose very first interaction with me came out swinging—aggressive or critical right out of the gate, making it clear that they didn’t approve of what I was saying.
And that, of course, is anxiety-inducing, but also strangely animating. It’s those comments that move us from apathy to anger. "Let’s go," the animal part of our brain responds—we are wired to be right, and so when someone challenges us, we are wired to fight.
Underneath the anxiety there’s a dopamine hit that comes from any interaction. First, from just getting comments at all—someone out there saw me! And second, from getting pulled into conversation, especially when I could feel myself winning. Correcting someone. Making a point. Turning the tone. There’s a little rush that comes with each of those moments, and the algorithm is counting on it.
But what if we change the perspective, change the source of our dopamine?
Another new trend I have seen recently is the idea of “dopamine decorating”—buying things that spark joy, not just fit a vibe or an aesthetic. This is how we decorate as children, filling our spaces with trinkets that make us happy. A shell picked up from the beach, a pink wicker basket that we see at the thrift store and must spend our last dollar on. No cohesive theme, no care for who else will see it and approve of it, just "I like it and I want to keep looking at it."
What if we applied that kind of thinking to all of our lives, not creating spaces for others to approve of, but creating spaces that bring us joy?
As I thought about the ways I’ve used social media over the years—and the ways I’ve seen some of the people I admire the most use it—what started to occur to me was this: I’ve been viewing social media wrong. I’ve been letting the responses of strangers shape not just what I share but how I feel about myself. I needed to change my perspective, not just so I could keep using social media effectively to build an audience for my ideas and writing, but so I could reclaim my sanity. I needed to pull my sense of identity back out of the comment section.
Because here’s the thing: this is the side of social media that keeps us coming back again and again. That has us hitting refresh to see if there’s a little red or orange dot—proof that someone out there thinks we’re interesting, or insightful, or wise, or even wrong. We know that children will act out for attention, but we do it as adults too, and social media has rewarded us for all the wrong things.
We no longer craft our thoughts for ourselves; we craft them for response. For the maximum volume of engagement and comments—we don’t judge the validity of our thoughts on agreement, but drama. We’re all toddlers breaking our toys so that all the adults pay attention to us because they ignore us when we’re good and boring and don’t feed the algorithm. We’re searching for proof that we matter. Each notification becomes a tiny little tap on the brain: You’re seen. You’re loved. You’re smart.
It’s a whole slew of positive emotion driven by likes and comments—and it feels good. For a moment.
But it’s also exhausting. Because the algorithm doesn’t just reward our delight; it trains us to crave response. It teaches us to shape our output for applause. And that’s where the emotional volatility comes in—that exhausting loop between validation and criticism. It doesn’t just impact your productivity; it starts to tangle with your identity. Social media stops being a tool and becomes a funhouse mirror, distorted by strangers. The more time you spend looking into it, the less clearly you see yourself.
But what if we changed the game entirely?
What if we stopped designing our posts like showroom displays and started treating them like joyful rooms in a house we love?
So what does that look like?
Well, first, I think we need to look at how most people view social media. We view it as a stage—not a journal, not a practice room, not even a conversation, but a performance space. A place to be seen and applauded. We come at it from a place of: “Do you like me?” “Do I matter?” “Am I okay?”
That means when we create a post, we're not creating it from a place of interior satisfaction. We're not saying, I’m happy with that post. We're waiting to see how others react before we let ourselves feel proud. We're creating not from peace but from need. From hunger. From scarcity. From a craving for applause, accolades, and approval.
And when we create like that, we’re not building something for ourselves—we’re building something to be judged. Not a home, but a storefront. Something outside of ourselves that we display and hope passes inspection. Every comment becomes a vote, every like a tiny round of applause, every silence a kind of rejection.
We begin to treat every word and image not as personal expression, but as public offering. As something that only has value if it is validated by others.
We are no longer curating a space that reflects our life or our voice. We are auditioning. Again and again and again.
In doing this, we abdicate the role of curator to a crowd that doesn’t live with the consequences. It becomes a performance, not a presence. And worst of all, it feels like we're being refined by feedback—but really, we’re being worn down by it. Diluted.
This is where the metaphor of “dopamine decorating” becomes so helpful. Because just like in our homes, there’s a real difference between curating a space because it brings you joy, and arranging one to impress imaginary guests. You know the difference when you walk into a home where everything is designed to be Instagrammable—versus one where every weird little shelf and cozy chair says, A real, multi-faceted person actually lives here.
Social media has trained us to decorate our feeds like Airbnbs: clean, aesthetic, appealing to the widest audience possible. What we need is the courage to treat it like a lived-in home. Something that delights us. Something that reflects our thoughts, our style, our calling—not just what might “do well.”
Because when you post for applause, you’re always performing.
When you post for delight, you’re finally at home.
This requires a change of perspective, because what we have done in the past is treat our social media spaces like a town square. We behave as if we are stepping onto a public stage, megaphone in hand, delivering proclamations to whoever might be passing by. It’s loud, chaotic, and everyone feels they have a right to weigh in—because, well, it’s a public space, isn’t it?
What I am proposing is a shift.
My social media—my Substack page where I write—is not the town square. It is not a gallery curated for mass appeal or a billboard on the side of the road. It is my private residence. It is my home on the internet, for me to decorate however I want, with whatever ideas appeal to me, however imperfect or incomplete or deeply personal they may be.
I no longer think of my online spaces as places that require external validation. I think of them as rooms. Rooms that I open up from time to time and allow others to walk through. Sometimes they might be warmly invited. Sometimes they might just peek in. But this is my home.
I think of it like Elizabeth Bennet turning up at Mr. Darcy’s estate. The visitors are tolerated, yes—even welcomed. But they are guests. They are not the owners. They may admire the artwork, comment on the décor, even marvel at the view—but they do not dictate how the rooms are arranged. They do not get to decide whether the dining room table should be longer, or the curtains shorter. And if they find it displeasing? They are free to leave and build their own homes.
And that’s the point: they can build their own homes. If they don’t like a comment I’ve made, or think I should’ve said something differently—they are free to create their own spaces, with their own values, and speak in their own voices.
This metaphor isn’t about rejection—it’s about sovereignty. About reclaiming ownership of the space I inhabit. Hospitality does not mean self-erasure. Boundaries are not barriers to connection; they are the structures that make connection meaningful. Without boundaries, there is no intimacy—only exposure.
This is all very personal to me as I work on putting my actual home on the market, opening it up for viewing and judgment—holding that space that says: "I still live here, so if you want to change it, well, put your money where your mouth is and it can become yours for you to do whatever you want with."
Because I didn’t decorate my living room for Yelp reviews. I put up the art that makes me feel alive. I light candles in scents I love. I fill our bookshelves with words that formed me. My home is sacred not because it’s perfect, but because it’s mine—full of my thoughts and emotions and memories.
And so too is my social media space—a reflection of my inner world.
Your online presence should be a home—not a product. A place that feels like you, even if that means it’s sometimes messy, sometimes contradictory, sometimes quiet.
You don’t have to chase aesthetics or applause.
You can post for delight.
You can decorate for joy.
And you can set the boundary at the front door.
As I sat over the last couple of weeks, quietly observing the comments I wanted to reply to—and, for the first time, choosing which ones I actually did—I realized I was bringing a new type of peace to my social media world.
It wasn’t just about silence. It was about sovereignty.
Because when I started choosing who I interacted with, everything shifted. I didn’t have to brace myself before opening my inbox. I didn’t have to worry about reshaping my posts mid-draft to pre-empt backlash or perform neutrality. I didn’t have to spend hours editing myself to fit every possible reader’s expectations, or ask GPT “what’s the nastiest thing someone will say about this post?” And I certainly didn’t have to validate every opinion tossed into my comment section like a grenade.
I didn’t have to respond.
I didn’t have to listen.
I didn’t have to carry it.
There was freedom in that. There was power.
And yes—I can even go so far as to block every single person who makes me uncomfortable in my own space. Not out of spite, but out of stewardship. I can make sure I never see another comment from that idiot ever again.
And that’s not a tantrum. That’s not a meltdown. That’s boundaries.
We have been conditioned to believe that good creators are endlessly available. That being open to feedback, criticism, and debate is noble. But sometimes, discernment is the noblest move of all.
Because discernment isn’t weakness—it is how we steward our attention, our time, our energy.
Attention is a currency. Spend it like it matters.
Because it does matter. What you choose to read, to respond to, to think about at 11 p.m. when you should be asleep—all of it adds up. It shapes not just your work, but your self-perception, your stress levels, your joy.
You would never invite someone into your actual home, let them insult your taste, criticize your furniture, and question your values—and then invite them to stay for dinner.
So why do we do it online?
This is about reclaiming your digital house key. It’s about saying: This space doesn’t run on outrage. It runs on peace. And peace is not something you wait for—it’s something you curate, room by room, comment by comment, boundary by boundary.
Don’t mistake my hospitality for something that bends to your will.
My home—my online space—will be decorated the way I want it. My feed, my writing, my voice—it all comes from a deliberate place. I am not just throwing paint at the walls. My words are the words I chose for a reason.
And I sometimes think we’ve missed something in the constant swirl of social media feedback, where we convince ourselves we’re being refined. We imagine the comments section as a kind of collective editor’s room, trimming and tightening us into better versions of ourselves.
But what if we’re not being refined? What if we’re being watered down? What if our voices are slowly being diluted by our own willingness to take every comment to heart?
There’s a difference between receptivity and codependence. One makes you stronger. The other makes you shapeless.
I’ve long admired people like Cal Newport—people who can use social media as a tool to share their work without getting pulled into the undertow of commentary culture. What I’m learning as I take this new approach to my own digital spaces is that that kind of freedom comes from something deeper than strategy. It comes from confidence in your own authority.
I don’t need you to approve my concept, because I approve my concept. I don’t need you to comment, or to tell me I’m right, or to help refine me—because this is my space. This is my expertise. These are my ideas.
And I’m not writing code or filing legal briefs. I’m writing about religion. About philosophy. About things that can’t be proven or disproven with a formula. This isn’t math. This is meaning-making. This is soul work. This is art. And art doesn’t need to be universally liked to be worthy.
I’ve thought of this a lot as I read older authors—people whose work was never seen until it was published, whose books were the first taste of them their readers would ever have had. It seems like freedom to be able to write 50, 70, 100,000 words without hearing any feedback at all, to pursue an idea doggedly, alone, until it is formed and life breathed into it.
To achieve that kind of purity requires that we are careful about the opinions we listen to. Tolkien and Lewis sharpened each other’s thinking in rooms filled with respect and imagination—not in the comment sections of anonymous cynics yelling from behind usernames like BigBoi736.
Frankly, I have to get to a place where I have enough confidence in my writing that I don’t care about your opinion—not because your opinion has no value, but because it has no authority over the voice God gave me.
There is a holiness to conviction. Not arrogance. Not certainty. But a sacred boldness that says: This is worth saying, even if it isn’t well received.
When you’re decorating your home for yourself, you don’t need the neighbors to agree on your rug. You just need to love it when you walk into the room.
That’s the kind of confidence I’m cultivating—not a shield against disagreement, but a deep, quiet rootedness in the knowledge that I’m not decorating for the algorithm anymore. I’m decorating for joy. For truth. For me.
If we don’t learn to do this, we risk losing ourselves. We end up designing our digital lives like staged open houses: bland, neutral, palatable. We become afraid to show the loud rug we love, or the weird painting we bought at the flea market, or the faith that doesn’t fit in anyone else’s denomination. We make things beige so no one can be offended. But in doing so, we make them lifeless.
This isn’t a call to be reckless. It’s a call to be real. And realness in public takes guts. You don’t have to burn it all down. But you do have to own it. That voice. That post. That strange and sacred calling. That rug in the middle of your living room that doesn’t match the couch—but makes you smile every single time you see it.
That’s the hardest—and most holy—kind of dopamine there is.
It’s about a mental shift.
It’s about saying: I am putting this out there because my life is important enough for you to want to view, not, I am putting it out there because you are important enough that you have to approve of me.
This shift didn’t happen overnight. It happened slowly, post by post, moment by moment, until I realized that somewhere along the way, I had stopped asking, “Did they like it?” and started asking, “Did this feel true?”
And that has changed everything.
Because I no longer see my online presence as something I owe to the public. It’s not a storefront. It’s not a product. It’s a home. And like any home, it has boundaries.
I won’t be replying to comments just because the algorithm likes it.
I won’t be responding to anything that makes me feel defensive.
I won’t be engaging with people who approach with mockery, disdain, or certainty disguised as curiosity.
I will no longer confuse accessibility with obligation.
Because while I still invite conversation, I now understand something vital: true conversation requires mutuality.
I’m not here to perform wisdom for the uninterested or to defend my humanity to the unkind. I’m not here to argue with people who aren’t holding grace in one hand and curiosity in the other. That’s not a conversation—that’s a trap.
I will not keep my door open to those who trample the threshold.
This isn’t about arrogance. It’s about peace. It’s about dignity. It’s about presence.
I’m still showing up. Still sharing. Still letting my thoughts and faith and creative life unfold in public spaces. But I no longer do it to earn your affirmation. I do it because this is the life I am building, and this is the room I am decorating, and this is the chair I have pulled up to the fire in case someone wants to sit beside me and truly talk.
You are welcome here.
But you are not entitled to rearrange the furniture.
This is my digital home.
It is built for joy.
It is maintained in peace.
It is open by invitation—not obligation.
So come in, if you like.
But come gently.
And bring a question, not a gavel.
