"The paradox of staying online"

Talking screen time, digital detoxes and New Years resolutions with author and art therapist Amelia Knott

TikTok-famous therapist Amelia Knott reminds me, in the best way, of a high school art teacher. Outfitted in chunky knits and an astounding assortment of oversized, patterned glasses, the Canadian art therapist exudes cheerful reassurance as she narrates quirky crafts and projects designed to tackle the vagaries of modern existence.

A knit sweater to resist hustle culture and remind wearers to “rest.”

A hand-drawn map of one’s neighborhood, to counteract time on the internet.

Over the past three years, Knott has built an entire practice around this type of content: creative, grounding and mildly eccentric art aimed at a generation of very online adults who associate much of their personal self-worth with their job and their internet presence. Knott, ironically, knows aspects of that struggle firsthand: Her TikTok following has grown to 142,000 people since September 2021, when she began posting videos with titles like “social media mental health check-in” and “art for when social media is making you feel bad.”

Today, Knott manages a career as a therapy content creator alongside her clinical practice, where she sees individual patients and runs online workshops that seek to democratize art therapy. Across those mediums, she specializes in working with clients who are, er … me. “It’s often people who are trying to figure out their relationship with technology, work and where their sense of worthiness is coming from,” Knott said. “Maybe they’re untangling where there’s been a lot of pressure to show up online or to make work the central organizing system in their lives. We explore where creativity can alleviate some of that pressure.”

In October, Knott published her first book — an unusually self-aware and approachable workbook called The Art of Thriving Online. We connected in December to chat about the book and the lessons it contains for New Year’s resolution time.

Naturally, just before I talked to Knott, I realized that “resolutions” kind of embody the whole hustle/productivity/self-optimization schtick that she’s trying to change. Let us therefore say that we chatted generally about social media, screen time and TikTok therapy … including some first steps for folks looking to tune their current relationship with the feeds. You can read more from Knott in her book, which is available on Bookshop.org and lots of other places; she’s also just self-published a workbook called “Reimagining Resolutions, which Links readers can access for 25% off. (Follow this link and use the code GCHAT25 to register with the discount!)

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Tell me a little bit about how social media and hustle culture became the focus of your practice. That seems like an interesting specialty.

Amelia: I feel really grateful, in my job, that I get to build resources and shift my focus depending on what I’m thinking about or what I might be struggling with or working through. Initially, my focus was going to be grief and loss — that’s what I came out of grad school thinking was really going to be the core of my work. Then I moved into the pandemic, and like a lot of people, my entire life went online. I live in a really small community, so most of my social life and my entire professional life all existed in the realm of screens for a while.

My own personal process of grappling with that made me realize there weren’t a lot of resources or helpful conversations in the self-help world about social media. A lot of the common advice is: “do a digital detox or follow this 10-step plan, and your relationship with social media will be fixed.” There wasn’t really a lot of conversation about the value that we also find in these contentious relationships with social media. Most of us don’t have the social or financial leverage to step away from the free tools that offer us meaning and usefulness. And at the same time, these tools are not designed with our psychological well-being in mind. They’re designed to addict us.

I’d love to hear more about how your personal relationship with social media evolved during the pandemic. There’s this funny anecdote in the introduction to the workbook — you actually put a line of tape down the floor of your studio apartment to mark “phone” and “no phone” zones. What was going on for you at that moment?

Amelia: I had that “new year, new me” energy — kind of like the start of a school year—and I thought, “okay, I’m recognizing that something isn’t working in my relationship with my phone.” I just wanted to find a way to set some boundaries. But it didn’t work. I’ve never found a boundary I can stick to because I can always override it. Like many people, I’ve spent the last 15 years — wow, that’s horrifying to think about — trying to figure out how to navigate these platforms. They’re important for my social and professional life, but I don’t feel like I have the discipline or willpower to manage them in a healthy way. For me, it’s become particularly challenging to try to figure out which parts of my life are just for me, and which parts are part of a professional personality.

That’s a struggle, especially because there’s no end to the workday. It’s easy to drift into thinking about how I’m being perceived or editing myself in anticipation of the digital audience’s gaze. So, my boundaries feel more like a moving frontier. Interestingly, my relationship with social media has changed while writing the book, but it’s hard to say if it’s gotten better or worse: My screen time has gone up, which some might see as a bad thing. But I feel less shame about it now, which, for me, is a sign of improvement.

I really appreciated that idea in the book—that screen time, in itself, isn’t inherently bad. It’s more about how it leaves you feeling. Are you engaged? Do you feel more or less empowered after using it?

Amelia: Yeah — I used to feel so much guilt about not being able to “resist” the impulse to swipe, click, or doomscroll. I’ve found it important to untangle that guilt and recognize that this isn’t just a “me” problem or a failure of willpower. These are addictive tools, designed to trap us. Struggling with that isn’t a personal failing — it’s a reflection of the way these platforms are built.

And for many of us, opting out isn’t really an option, right? You referenced this idea that many people don’t have the social or financial privilege to step away from social media. Tell me more about that.

Amelia: If I could step away from social media, I would. If I had a job that could be completely disentangled from it, I’d do it. I know I could build that kind of life for myself eventually, but right now, my needs just couldn’t be met offline. I live in a town of 400 people, and I couldn’t sustain myself as an art therapist here.

But it goes beyond work. Digital spaces are incredible sources of connection and community. They’re invaluable for activism, for sharing art, for research, and for finding others who’ve been through similar experiences. If we don’t encounter those people in our everyday lives, online communities can be a lifeline. For those who can do a digital detox, feel refreshed, and change their habits easily, I’m jealous. I really am. But what I hear over and over again, both in my clinical practice and online, is that so many of us are trying to figure out how to hold the paradox of staying online while also protecting our peace and caring for our well-being while we do that.

This is slightly off-topic — but hearing you talk about the duality of social media and mental health, I’m curious what you make of the discourse around teen mental health and screens. Specifically the idea that schools should ban phones or that teenagers should be restricted from accessing these platforms as a matter of policy.

Amelia: Oh, this is such an interesting question, and I’m really split on it. On one hand, I think it’s the job of parents and policymakers to create dynamics and policies that give teens their best chance to thrive. It’s so hard to regulate your own decision-making while your brain is still developing—that’s the same reason we don’t sell vapes to middle-schoolers. And honestly, it’s challenging enough as an adult to navigate a healthy relationship with social media, let alone as a teenager. So I support more intentional rules, like making classrooms screen-free or implementing thoughtful strategies for how screen time is used as a tool in schools.

But I’m also going to contradict myself here. Teens are the next generation of tech users. Completely shying away from tools like AI in classrooms might be a mistake, especially since those tools are likely to shape the future of work. I aslso think about the unique sense of community and stigma reduction that can happen online. For example, if you’re a trans teenager living in a place where you don’t have access to a supportive queer community, digital spaces might be the safest and most affirming places you can find. Having that kind of community is life-saving. They can be a lifeline.

So it’s complicated—really complicated. I think it’s possible to hold both sides of the issue.

That might be the theme of this whole conversation: Many things can be true at once! For adults who want to interrogate and redefine their relationship with social media, what’s the first step you would recommend? Maybe besides buying your book.

Amelia: I think the first step is to notice who profits from you being told that your willpower is the problem. There’s a lot of money to be made from fostering the belief that if you were just more disciplined, or if you bought the right tool, app, or self-help book, you could “fix” yourself. But upstream, the real source of our suffering is the existence of these giant tech corporations that are allowed to create tools designed for unlimited growth — by any psychological means necessary.

As Michael Hobbs and Aubrey Gordon from the Maintenance Phase podcast put it, “It’s not your fault for falling into a trap that was set for you.” If you struggle with social media, it’s because the system is working as designed — not because you’re doing something wrong. I think lifting that layer of shame and starting to see the forest for the trees is a useful first step. Otherwise, we can stay bogged down in the self-centered work of self-improvement or habit optimization, which keeps us stuck in a distracted, fragmented state.

That’s interesting—I hadn’t quite thought about this issue in those terms. Even a digital detox or a screen time app kind of centers technology and puts the solution in technological terms. You’re still operating within that ecosystem and playing by its rules.

Amelia: Yeah, absolutely. The most effective tool I have for shutting my phone off at 9 p.m. is an app. But there’s something that makes me kind of grumpy about paying a tech bro even more money to stop me from using the tools he invented in the first place. It feels like the same problem and solution.

That said, I’m really grateful for the app that makes me take a deep breath before opening TikTok, and the one that blocks me at 9 p.m. They’re helpful, but they’re only half the story. The other, even more important piece, is cultivating a lively, reciprocal community. It’s about having a relationship with the land you live on, the body you exist in, and the people around you. The in-person, psychological and community-building work — the real self-care and community-care work — is an essential way of addressing our complicated relationships with technology. That’s what helps create a more balanced, meaningful sense of wellness.

When I think about the times I’ve been in a really bad place with technology, I have downloaded apps to help. But another, equally helpful thing is putting on my shoes, taking my dog to the river, and meeting up with a friend.

I really liked the exercise early in the book where you have people walk around their house and map things they see or feel or smell. That’s kind of a common anti-trauma technique, right? But the idea of using it in this context — “here’s how to remember to exist in your body when so much of your existence is happening on your phone” — struck me as really useful.

Amelia: Our sensory preferences tell us so much about what we want to be surrounded by. There’s so much information in the clothing we choose to wear, the foods we eat, or the colors we paint our walls. But I think sometimes we abandon those preferences online — either because we have less control over the space or because we don’t think to prioritize them. In an effort to better notice what doesn’t feel good online, it can be helpful to have a baseline from the physical world: What feels good in my body and my tangible life? Starting there gives us a sense of what we want to carry into our digital spaces.

As you know, I wanted to talk to you now because we’re coming up on New Year’s resolution season … and I imagine lots of people will have resolutions tied to their screen time and social media use. But as I was preparing for this conversation and reading some of the materials on your website, I started wondering if I hadn’t missed the point. Like, maybe the very practice of making resolutions is also the outgrowth of an unhealthy productivity culture. Should we bother talking about resolutions??

Amelia: I don’t want to be down on ambition or goal-setting. So many of us have had positive experiences dreaming of something, aiming for it, and working to accomplish it — that’s beautiful. But I think where we often get stuck is feeling like we have to be on this constant escalator of self-optimization, always working toward some extrinsic goal. I think it’s helpful to get curious about how you hope achieving a certain goal will make you feel. And if you’re going to set ambitious goals for yourself, it’s just as important to pair them with ambitious plans for self-compassion — for those moments when things don’t go or don’t go as planned. That can make all the difference.

It’s also completely okay to set goals that are easy. It’s okay to feel a sense of self-mastery or to reach for the low-hanging joy in life. We’re already pushed to be more productive, ambitious and impressive in so many other areas. Sometimes it’s enough to just let ourselves enjoy something simple.

I really appreciate the care you take when talking about this stuff — it’s something that shows up in your TikToks and in your book, too. There’s been quite a lot of criticism of therapy influencers in the last couple years: that their work lacks context or nuance, that it can spread misinformation, that it blurs some boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. I know part of your work also involves training therapists on using social media. How do you begin to prepare them for these potential pitfalls?

Amelia: Regulated health professionals are in such a challenging moment on social media. We have to follow a very specific set of rules for how we talk about our work, our expertise and how we engage with clients and prospective clients. But despite having these rules and ethical guidelines, we often get lumped in with everything else in the wellness sphere. That includes companies and unregulated professionals who don’t have to adhere to the same ethical standards or best practices.

It’s hard to navigate being a therapist online when some of the most successful people in the wellness space are rising to popularity using techniques that, frankly, feel pretty manipulative. If our work is about caring for the well-being of others, that care should extend to being trauma-informed in the way we market ourselves. It should be about aiming to empower people and support their autonomy—not taking advantage of them. It’s such a common tactic, for instance, to see a coach or service provider say something like, “My services will heal your trauma” or “This will fix X specific pain point.” Then they’ll add, “Only two spots left, hurry, doors close tonight!”

This approach often involves establishing a sense of total authority over a topic while making promises that can’t be substantiated. We can never guarantee the outcome of someone’s therapeutic work or how they’ll engage with a concept or methodology. And the language used to sell things online is so often designed to provoke anxiety —to create a sense of urgency or scarcity. That’s completely counter to the foundation of a healthy therapeutic relationship.

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As an unrelated coda: I, an intrepid and hard-hitting reporter, also asked Amelia where she gets her glasses. She recommended Zeelool. You’re welcome for that.