Swap social media hate speech for beach reads

And other 2025 goals, in the Monday Roundup of stuff we loved lately

I’m just back from vacation and nursing some major jet lag. (The first vacation we have taken since my child was born, six years ago.) As a result I have not read a lot of headlines. While I was gone, I mostly unplugged and swapped my media diet for beach reads— and guess, what? I highly recommend doing that.

Photo by Chen Mizrach on Unsplash

While on vacation I did a much better job of managing time on my phone (being on a beach and better yet in the water is really good for limiting screen time.) Bonus: less gazing into a screen means more time for gazing at sunsets, turtles and crabs, and my child’s sun-kissed face.

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This piece from

Jo Piazza

“My New Phone Rules” spoke to me now that I’m back to managing my phone time sans beach. I sense that getting through this year is going to mean being much more careful about my social media use (especially with Meta’s announcement this week that it’s genuflecting to Trump and doing away with fact-checking and opening the doors for hate speech…cool cool).

I tried the first rule from this piece the last few days, and it’s already making a difference for me, honestly!