The first time I evaluated my relationship with social media was sometime around 2013, when I first discovered the doom of the infinite scroll on Tumblr.
I realized that it was taking up too much of my time and I eventually cut down my use and eventually stopped checking it altogether sometime in the summer of that same year – just in time for my final year of high school.
But around that time, I also signed up for a Facebook account and an Instagram account. I don’t remember using them very much until sometime during my undergrad. I will fast-forward a few years to my final year of undergrad to the next stage in my social media awareness journey.
In my final semester of undergrad, I felt like my social media use was getting in the way of my academic success. I felt like the compulsion to check Instagram every 15 minutes kept me from doing my best work and was a defense mechanism to keep me from getting too stressed about what I had to do. When I read this book, I think it served the purpose I needed at the time, even if it’s not what I imagined I would get out of the book. I think it helped me at least recognize the problem.
The introduction and main text of the book are helpful. There are some really important arguments about phone usage and a lot of questions and exercises to help. The problem was, I just skipped the second half of the book, which is a 30-day social media “break-up.” The thought of going whole days without my phone or deleting apps was even too much at the time (and that’s a big warning sign!).
Then I ignored this problem for another few years. At the very end of 2020, I decided to read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I found his book to be kind of the next step up. The book is a lot longer, than the previous one I had read, so the arguments are a bit more fleshed out. I think the way he expressed some stuff struck a chord with me.
In the book, he also proposed a 30-day challenge. This time, I decided to go for it. So at 10pm on New Years Eve, I quite impulsively decided not to go on social media until the end of January. The book actually encourages you to cut out any electronic or digital content, even podcasts or audiobooks. I didn’t go super extreme. I still used Facebook Messenger, but not Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. I cut down on some of my podcasts and unfollowed the ones that I never listened to anyway.
The month went pretty well. It was a weird thing at first, especially since we were in full lockdown here in California. After the initial boredom period, I got in a bit of a groove with scheduling video calls with friends and texting people. It actually turned out to be such a good thing for work. I found that it really increased my focus at work, so I was better able to manage the insane workload this quarter so far. I was also really grateful that I was off social media, especially Twitter, during the Capitol insurrection. I was glued to the TV watching live coverage, but not having the bombardment of everyone on Twitter’s thoughts and feelings really helped.
I was pretty successful overall during this month challenge. I didn’t really “cheat” and I didn’t find it that hard to do it after the first week. The problem came when I got social media back. I tried to have strict ground rules like no more than 15 minutes on Instagram per day and I got an app to block the news and other sites and apps on my phone during certain hours. After less than a week, I just felt like I was slipping back into my old patterns. I was just ignoring the 15 minute limit and I would often turn off the blocker so I could check the news or whatever I wanted to do during the day.
So this lasted a couple weeks before I realized what was going on. I thought getting back into the “literature” would help. I watched the Social Dilemma on Netflix, I listened to Cal Newport’s TEDx Talk, I also read another book called “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” by Jaron Lanier, who is interviewed in the Social Dilemma.
I basically came to the conclusion that moderation was not the answer. I was now ready to delete my accounts. It didn’t seem possible or ideal to keep fighting with myself about what was the right amount to spend on Instagram every day. I was doing so much better when I wasn’t checking any of the accounts at all, so that seems like the best way forward.
At the time of writing this, I have just deleted my Twitter account permanently (I never even checked it after my initial 30 day challenge, because I didn’t miss it at all). I also deactivated my Instagram and Facebook accounts. This lets me retain my Messenger account, but now my profiles aren’t visible to anyone else. I feel a little bit scared, but also liberated.
During the month of January, I found that I was better able to cope with stresses from work or whatever crazy world event was happening that day. I was happier with the way I was using my free time. In January alone, I read 10 books! If you want a shortcut to doubling your productivity and free time, the secret is to just delete your social media. It honestly is that easy.
I think one thing that holds people back from doing this – and especially during a pandemic where we’re online all the time – is that they worry about feeling even more isolated without it, or feeling out of the loop. I, personally, have felt less isolated because I no longer count watching my friend’s Instagram stories as catching up with them, so I text them or call them. I don’t feel out of the news because I’m just reading the actual news and I have decided I don’t really care what other people are doing on an hour-by-hour basis.
I think one of the main things I can feel a difference from is not opening Instagram or Twitter and not having random things come up that I was not expecting. If you scroll on any social media thinking you’re going to see pictures of your friends or memes or something, but then all of a sudden you see a video of some horrific incident or you hear news that something terrible has happened (which may not even be something that is worth you knowing about), your emotional state is being controlled by the algorithm. I think we can all agree on is that our emotional states are in flux enough as things are. I don’t need to go on an emotional roller coaster every time I open my phone. I overall feel a lot more level and stable. I think it has also helped my feelings of anxiety.
Basically, I can’t rave enough about the positive effects that this has had on me. I implore anyone and everyone to start re-evaluating the relationship you have with your phone and with social media.
