How I Use Gemini to Stay Informed Without Social Media

Like most millennials, my teen years were spent on the Internet. I would spend hours on sites like Myspace and Facebook, endlessly scrolling through feeds for those instant dopamine hits. Fast forward about 10 to 15 years and social media has significantly less of a chokehold on me, but I can still lose a solid 1 to 3 hours on Twitter that I could have been using productively. I realized I didn't actually need a social media feed. I needed a briefing. So, instead of trusting the Zuckerbergs and Musks of the world to curate a healthy social media feed for me, I decided to have Gemini via Google Workspace Studio deliver the news I need to see straight into my inbox.

Before we jump into the workflow, here’s what I did to decouple myself from the various social media apps.

1. 1. Uninstall the mobile apps - If you absolutely need to log into Twitter or Instagram to check on mentions for your business or to book an appointment, do so in the browser. Having to open up Chrome, type in the URL, and put in your credentials is just enough of a deterrent to make you think twice about what you're doing.
2. 2. Receive the news in your Gmail - I can't stand Outlook, desktop or web, so I didn't say 'email provider.' Gmail is my preferred email client and whenever I open it up, I'm conducting business. Something about reading information in your inbox puts you in a completely different mindset than if you consumed the same content in a feed.
3. 3. Don't store the logins in your browser - Yes, this is a pain, but it's supposed to be. You know how annoying it is to log into things at work. You have to remember your username and password and then wait on a push notification or one-time password to get authenticated. Put those same barriers in front of Instagram and you're less likely to log in unless you really want to. The goal is to prevent impulse scrolling from turning into a rabbit-hole dive that lasts for hours.

Build the Google Workspace Studio Flow

Google Workspace Studio is available to business users and enables you to run some pretty powerful automations without writing any code. Check out my guide on building a no-code case router with Power Automate and Google Workspace Studio. The social media replacement we're going to build only has a couple of steps:

1. 1. On a set schedule (I set mine for when I return from the gym at 7 AM on weekdays), Gemini will search for up-to-date information about topics that interest you.
2. 2. Once found, it will curate a list of its findings in the format of your choosing. I always ask it to include links so I can visit the sites for more information later.
3. 3. After the list curation is complete, Gemini will package its findings and drop them into a nicely formatted email for you.

Tell Gemini What You Actually Care About

Prompting is important and, though the I in AI stands for intelligence, it's only as smart as the instructions you provide. Here's a prompt I use to find the latest information about browser-based games.

The 3-Step Studio Workflow That Makes It Happen

Once you've settled on a prompt, choose a time of day you want your information delivered and an email address to deliver it to. And that's it. You'll get a daily update of news and events delivered to your inbox without having to sift through mountains of AI-generated nonsense, celebrity gossip and other time-wasting posts.

Don't Blindly Trust the Briefing

Let Gemini Do the Scrolling

I'm not trying to completely eliminate social media from my life. I just don't want Twitter deciding that the best way to keep me informed is to also keep me scrolling for three hours. Now Gemini does the scrolling. I get the briefing.

And, if you're interested in unlocking more cool automations with Workspace Studio, check out my guide on using Gemini to Search For Jobs.