3 Reasons Poker Players Take a Break From Social Media
Every now and again, a famous poker player announces taking a break from social media. Often the motivation is to have more quality time with friends and family or to just cool off after a harsh discussion. Still, some reasons are more interesting than others and can even give other players food for thought.
In this article we combine a few of the most fascinating examples we found on well-known poker players' and streamer's social media.
Vanessa Kade: People’s Tendency to Twist Words
On April 10th, 2024 the winner of the largest Sunday Million Vanessa Kade shared her intention to decrease her social media activity during the year. The reason is complicated in itself and could maybe be best described by writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sarter’s words: “Hell is other people”.
From Vanessa’s tweets we can conclude, that a lot of discussions on Twitter show her how malicious some people’s minds can be — and you can do nothing about it:
Twitter's a tough space to engage with, especially if there's any topic that is nuanced.
— Vanessa Kade (@VanessaKade) April 9, 2024
Literally always some people searching to misinterpret what you say and look for the worst possible interpretation so they can call you bad/wrong/dumb.
I decided this year to restrict my…
Questje: Distorted Pictures of Other’s Lives
The poker streamer Questje has his own unique reason for taking a break from social media.
As he described in abarone68’s Movember video, he doesn’t like negative effects of constantly comparing himself to others:
“I think social media has definitely contributed a huge amount to us as a society in comparing ourselves more to other people and their lives. And it's obviously cliche but just don't sweat that stuff too much. The things you see of people's lives on social media are generally not what's actually happening all the time in that person's life. You're just seeing highlights of their lives.”
Ben Rolle: Consuming Mindless Discussions and Scrolling
As Benjamin “bencb789” Rolle stated in his January, 2024 video on YouTube, social media can be very consuming and stressful for a poker player’s mind. Taking into account that one of the main goals of every poker player is to play stress free and having as little pressure as possible, detaching from social media drama or meaningless scrolling is essential for success.
That's why Ben has always been heavily criticizeing overusing of social media and abstaining from it as much as possible:
“Social media, especially in poker, is becoming more of a drama show: more content creators, more influencers, more drama on Twitter, more cheating scandals. Yes, it's important that people expose them, but you don't need to be sitting there and consuming every little tweet and piece of drama that does not contribute to your success.
I never really cared about social media. Of course, for us also it is business to a certain degree, but this requires even more responsibility. So I started unmuting almost every account that does not add any value. Even though if it's good accounts or accounts from friends — I don't want to see what they're having for lunch, it just drives you mad.
This mindless scrolling makes you a slave to the technology, it makes you freaking nervous and anxious. Yes, it has been scientifically proven — it will negatively impact, it will be deteriorating your level or your ability to concentrate and to focus. It will correlate with your happiness.”
By the way, if you want to take time off your social media, Ben Rolle has a little guide for you how to do so:
- Bring the accounts you follow — even if you are active on social media or you're content creator or you really like to consume social media — at least down to 100;
- Mute every remaining account except around 10 accounts with the most valuable info for you.
As Ben stated, this “will clean up your feed and make life so much more bearable in general”. For the most radical of readers, Benn also recommends completely deleting social media apps from your phone or desktop.
