Your Attention is Sacred: How Social Media Makes You Shop for Flaws with Amelia Hruby

by | Oct 10, 2025 | Podcast: The Baggage Reclaim Sessions

Amelia Hruby in a short-sleeved black and white dress and Natalie Lue in big-collar white shirt and gold chain for The Baggage Reclaim Sessions episode 302: Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media
Tags: Amelia Hruby, attention economy, breaking up with Instagram, comparing yourself to others, comparison, digital wellbeing, emotional bandwidth, fear of missing out FOMO, Leaving social media, personal bandwidth, social media, social media anxiety, Social media detox, surveillance capitalism

In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I chat with Amelia Hruby, host of the Off the Grid podcast and author of Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media, about our relationship with social media and why it creates so much angst in our lives. Amelia shares her journey from micro-influencer to leaving all platforms in 2021, and we dig into how social media has become entangled with our self-worth, relationships, and work.

Amelia introduces the concept of our subconscious “shopping for flaws and failures” on these platforms, and explains why treating our attention as a sacred resource rather than currency can transform how we engage with technology. Whether you’re wrestling with social media personally or professionally, feeling FOMO, hate-following people, or exhausted by the pressure to perform online, this conversation offers both validation and practical wisdom for reclaiming your attention and living more intentionally.

IN THIS EPISODE…

  • Social media makes our subconscious “shop for flaws and failures”. When scrolling, we constantly encounter achievements, appearances, and lifestyles we didn’t even know existed moments before, yet suddenly feel inadequate for not having. This creates a cycle where we give our subconscious hundreds of opportunities daily to decide we’re ‘not good enough’.
  • When you find yourself writing elaborate rules for how to engage with an app (downloading only on specific days, limiting what you share, deleting between sessions), recognise this pattern. The only other time many of us need such rigid boundaries is with toxic, codependent relationships. And most of us wouldn’t willingly stay in those situations.
  • Our attention is not an economic resource. Social media companies treat attention as currency in the attention economy, but attention is actually a creative, relational, and sacred resource. When you give attention to things you love, it regenerates rather than depletes. Treating attention as something to ‘spend’ rather than intentionally direct leads to feeling drained and disconnected from what matters.
  • We constantly surveil ourselves and others, watching lives without participating in them, then creating stories about what we see. This passive observation replaces genuine connection and feeds insecurity, FOMO, and belonging wounds from earlier life stages, making us feel perpetually excluded or inadequate.
  • Despite what friends, colleagues, or the internet tells you, being on social media isn’t mandatory for business success, friendships, or living a full life.

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