>Would love to hear from others who’ve tried to strike this balance
I think it's exactly that - balance.
In my experience the most important aspect is avoiding recommendation feeds. They are hyper optimized to be dopamine driven feedback loops. In a parallel universe these feeds would be customizable (sort for great discussions, thoughtful or uplifting content as the user sees fit, but most feeds are black boxes that are explicitly designed to maximize engagement, which means of course to maximize addiction.
The second most important aspect is turning off the notifications.
Another angle to attack is the hardware itself. It isn't for everyone, but there is a little corner of the tech universe with minimal phones like, well, Minimal Phone, and Light Phone. Unihertz is also coming out with a BlackBerry Passport keyboard phone soon (Kickstarter campaign coming later this month) that looks quite promising. Again the hardware is just badly suited for feed doom scrolling.
Then carefully choose the services you interact with. HN rather than Reddit home feeds, etc. Tildes is another good small one, as is Discuit.
Now if you're seeking visibility, perhaps there is a devil's bargain that you have to submit to to some degree. That said, one half of the equation is the presence that you are providing, and you can control that. For example choose to host a minimalist blog rather than a swarm of social media engagement. I like Blot.im, although there are many like it that can make simple markup style pages.
Also instead of freeform constant engagement with social media, try and use formats to your advantage. In a world with endless noise on social media a great weekly newsletter can actually get quite a following (I've noticed that I love simple weekly newsletters that curate thoughts and content for me). I would imagine that if you were trying to pursue an online following, it's probably healthier to cultivate a following through something like this rather than brute forcing engagement metrics.
Lastly, be creative! The social media space is bounded in a tight box, where black box recommendation engines optimized for engagement are considered the norm, despite there being a world of possibility out there. Don't be afraid to be a bit silly either. Sometimes that can help with taking a stand against what can otherwise look like a bit of a dystopian nightmare at times in the digital space. Those minimal phones are silly. Twitter's 160 character limit was silly. Hosting a blog that looks like it's from 1999 is silly. But it's also a bit rebellious which can actually bring more value to the table, even when it comes to things like building a following, then you lose by refusing to engage with the hyper dopamine hacking landscape.
I think it's exactly that - balance.
In my experience the most important aspect is avoiding recommendation feeds. They are hyper optimized to be dopamine driven feedback loops. In a parallel universe these feeds would be customizable (sort for great discussions, thoughtful or uplifting content as the user sees fit, but most feeds are black boxes that are explicitly designed to maximize engagement, which means of course to maximize addiction.
The second most important aspect is turning off the notifications.
Another angle to attack is the hardware itself. It isn't for everyone, but there is a little corner of the tech universe with minimal phones like, well, Minimal Phone, and Light Phone. Unihertz is also coming out with a BlackBerry Passport keyboard phone soon (Kickstarter campaign coming later this month) that looks quite promising. Again the hardware is just badly suited for feed doom scrolling.
Then carefully choose the services you interact with. HN rather than Reddit home feeds, etc. Tildes is another good small one, as is Discuit.
Now if you're seeking visibility, perhaps there is a devil's bargain that you have to submit to to some degree. That said, one half of the equation is the presence that you are providing, and you can control that. For example choose to host a minimalist blog rather than a swarm of social media engagement. I like Blot.im, although there are many like it that can make simple markup style pages.
Also instead of freeform constant engagement with social media, try and use formats to your advantage. In a world with endless noise on social media a great weekly newsletter can actually get quite a following (I've noticed that I love simple weekly newsletters that curate thoughts and content for me). I would imagine that if you were trying to pursue an online following, it's probably healthier to cultivate a following through something like this rather than brute forcing engagement metrics.
Lastly, be creative! The social media space is bounded in a tight box, where black box recommendation engines optimized for engagement are considered the norm, despite there being a world of possibility out there. Don't be afraid to be a bit silly either. Sometimes that can help with taking a stand against what can otherwise look like a bit of a dystopian nightmare at times in the digital space. Those minimal phones are silly. Twitter's 160 character limit was silly. Hosting a blog that looks like it's from 1999 is silly. But it's also a bit rebellious which can actually bring more value to the table, even when it comes to things like building a following, then you lose by refusing to engage with the hyper dopamine hacking landscape.