After spending a little over half a year working as a social media manager, I found it significantly harder to put down my phone. I was in Hawaii at the time and the pandemic was still raging on, and posting anything while people were stuck in their houses around the world seemed completely tone deaf to the state of the world. 

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I decided to actively pursue a month without social media, which meant giving up Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. I eventually started using Facebook after 3 months again while keeping my Instagram deactivated (just deleting it wasn't enough to keep me off it).

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The Experience

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Initially the first thing I did was... I started to use LinkedIn. A couple of days in I realized I'm just replacing one addiction with another, and stopped checking it (as hard as that was). For the first couple of days, life felt much more boring. When feeling bored while having social media, I had always had an external quick fix to keep me entertained with colorful and fast paced things. But without it I had to learn how to cope again with boredom. I began noticing my "monkey mind" a lot more and I was jittery and I used that as a motivator to work out. Some friends asked me why I blocked them, and I quickly explained that my account has just been deactivated. I thought it was so surreal that a close friend would question our friendship based on me being digitally invisible on Instagram, rather than assuming I deactivated it. But then again, I don't know any close friends who ever did deactivate it, and it's just 3 clicks on the Instagram web browser.

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What FELT like a social media detox initially, began feeling like regular life again. The fun I suddenly had with all this new found free time, gradually made me forget social media was a thing. Interactions with people felt more connecting, I suddenly noticed when I laughed hard at people's jokes, and that it happened more and more often. I felt as if the previously all consuming boredom was just my brain being like "do something", and the apps made me lazy and paralyzed with dealing with certain emotions. I think being without SM made me more curious to discover things in the world and enjoy my time spent with people more. I also took my time during walking places to really look and appreciate things like trees and leaves, which sounds so "hippy" I know, but whenever I'm happy I notice them more. I even began going on walks more with my boyfriend without our phones, which acted as a great opportunity for us to catch up. I also realized I stopped multitasking so much which made me feel present, and I went to sleep earlier without spending time scrolling through a feed.

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Then a funny thing happened. I didn't see the value in having social media anymore. My FOMO was cured, and I wasn't interested in seeing what other people were doing. I had figured if something was so important for me to know, I'd find out about it through people I know. It sounds bizarre, but it made me remember what life was probably like up until the first social media platform was released... Which wasn't bad at all. I noticed anyone who had to wait in line and experience boredom used social media as an entertainer to avoiding coping with the feeling of boredom. I would go to beaches and see people look at their phones rather than look at the water. Having this extra time to appreciate things like nature, movement and slowness, I tried new hobbies to keep me entertained, like playing with poi and swimming in the ocean. This made me feel so happy and fulfilled by the end of the day, which gave me a lot more satisfaction and an overall feeling of health. I noticed I felt more creative, especially when biking and tried to not listen to music to encourage free thought. Ultimately after a while, doing nothing rather than giving me boredom and anxiety, gave me peace and relaxing. This became much more natural to me than needing to check my phone or getting in some random debate on Facebook. I started feeling very confident in my personal life, fun, aware and free. This realization made me start feeling like Instagram would need to pay me to come back, and for this reason I stayed off it for for a total of 5 months (so far). 

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Although the detox was amazing, when a "mini war" broke our in Israel, I felt the need to participate in on going debates online and help prevent spreading misinformation. I honestly think bringing back my Facebook provided me value only when I was job searching and now seems somewhat redundant. I highly recommend scheduling social media detoxes, even if just for 2 weeks every half year, because I feel like they are so fun and in themselves addictive. Although tricky when doing for a week or two starting out, think about the long game, because that release of tension will ultimately remind you of youthful times as a child before these apps existed. When you really stopped to smell the roses.

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Keep in mind, you will receive a lot of notifications and emails asking you to log back in. This are UX nudges meant to keep you hooked. Remember, you are in control of your phone - the phone doesn't control you. You have the power to form better habits and live in this beautiful world. Enjoy it, and let the world enjoy you!  

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