I Stopped Using Social Media For Six Weeks

A few months ago I had a bad experience that turned me off to social media. I have always adopted social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Twitter, etc. Posting pictures of my dog, videos of life in Japan, tweets about a restaurant I recommend, and so on, I have tried to keep my social media life positive and non-toxic.

However, despite this, I was involved in a conflict where a “hater” accused me of posting things “just to look cool” and despite the 99.5% of positive reactions to my social media posts, 0.5% of people starting arguments, initiating conspiracies or controversy where there was none, or just being mean in general was too much.

So I decided to quit. I deleted my Twitter account to start. This was easy as I hardly ever used it anyway. I deactivated Facebook and Instagram as well. I wanted to delete both permanently but since I have tons of pictures from the last decade of vacations and travel, I wanted to be able to get back to those.

Youtube was a bit different. Since I make Youtube videos as a hobby, I decided to just make videos and upload them. But not watch Youtube videos, read comments, or interact with any other channels.

For six weeks I used the Internet only for writing, emailing for work, communicating with colleagues, family, and friends via WhatsApp, and searching Google for information. I didn’t tweet, post, like, share, or swipe on any social media.

Here are the good things and bad things I noticed while being off of social media.

Good Things

More Productive in Life

The first thing I noticed, was that I had so much time to write and make videos. For the last year, I have written an average of 6 to 8 articles a month which is about writing once or twice a week. However, in a month I wrote 13 articles!

With Youtube, I usually upload about 2 or 3 videos a month but once again I was able to do six. I had more free time to go out, film, as well as edit and upload videos.

It seems that with all the free time I saved from consuming others’ content, I used it to create my own. In fact, with all the extra time, I was also able to look into finding other ways to create income and also was able to finish my tasks at my current job much before the deadline.

More Time With Friend/Family

Along with being more productive, I was able to be more present in real life. Living with my girlfriend, dog, and cat, life is pretty hectic. Cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, etc takes up a lot of time. The remaining time would be spent usually flipping through TikTok or watching Netflix.

But without social media taking up time, all the housework was done earlier and while talking and listening to music, my girlfriend and I had more stuff to talk about. She didn’t quit social media so sometimes it was me talking to her while she flipped through Instagram stories.

My dog Maple was happier as rather than him just lying next to me as I watched Youtube videos about the Covid-19 protests, I was able to sit with him and give more attention to him. Which he deserves for being the cutest dog in the world(as voted by me).

Enjoy Other Forms of Entertainment

The world is full of music, movies, books, tv shows, and other forms of entertainment. Of course, they are all available online or from shops. But for some reason when there was a book on my table or the chance to read mean tweets, I always chose Twitter. But with the option off the table, I had to pick up a book.

I had bought the entire eight-volume Dexter series and was able to finish two books in the six weeks that I stopped using social media. And while cooking and cleaning up at home, rather than watch a stand-up comedy set on YouTube, I listened to Spotify music. I wanted to avoid looking at screens as much as possible and the music was good background for my chores.

Got contacted only by my immediate family and a couple of friends

I was surprised at the few amount of people that contacted me while I was off the grid. That doesn’t mean people online are not true friends but instead, it showed me that everyone is in their own world so I was not a big loss.

Instead, only the people like my parents, sister, some cousins, and friends I have known in real life reached out when they couldn’t find my profile online. I reassured them I was alive, not blocking them, and would be back soon. But it was nice to talk to them via email and phone and keep in touch.

Avoided drama and negativity

We all know most of the social media is for people to hate on each other, share clips of violence, racism, hate, and pranks. Everyone is angry at someone else and everyone is angry at the government. Despite there being some nice things online, most of the posts on social media are protesting about something, selling something, or trying to cancel something.

Not being part of that drama for the last six weeks was a welcome break. I didn’t feel outraged at anyone or any group and could take a break from seeing videos of cops harassing people of color. My life revolved around my local neighborhood and the drama was all about my coworkers and who was dating who.

Bad Things

Boredom

Surprisingly, there weren’t too many negative things I found with quitting social media. Possibly just the empty space that was left when social media was gone. The boredom comes from no instant gratification.

My go-to while in the bathroom, on the bus, waiting at the doctor’s office, or just lying in bed, was to pull out my phone and scroll through Instagram. Or when I was at home and wanted to take a break from my work, I would check out some short videos on TikTok.

With no social media, I ended up holding on to my phone and not having anything to do. Sometimes I didn’t feel like picking up a book and there was no one around to have a conversation with, so I ended up just sitting around doing nothing.

Felt out of the loop with politics, news, friends, etc.

Not being able to watch YouTube videos from comedy and news channels, I felt like I wasn’t up to date on all the latest Hollywood gossip, political drama, and major events in the world. Of course, I could just turn on a television or radio and get the news, but social media not only shares the news but how people are reacting to it. Without this reaction, I felt like I was not part of the conversation.

Also, not being able to see how my friends and family were doing via their Instagram pictures of their trips made me feel quite out of the loop. Pictures of trivial things like my cousin’s family at the beach, my Dad’s coffee date, and my friend’s latest home remodeling, were unseen and unliked. I felt guilty for not taking part in their life events because I never knew they happened.

Wasn’t able to show people in real life my past(memories)

Something that I realized was a side effect to not having social media, was the fact that the loss also meant I had no pictures, audio, or video from my account and others. This meant that in real life when I wanted to talk about something like my visit to Australia in 2016, I had no pictures as a visual.

I was talking to a colleague at work who wanted to know how the hotel at our Thailand beach adventure looked like. But because I didn’t have my Facebook picture album with detailed pictures and a video tour of the room, I could only show the generic picture from the hotel website.

Memories of the last 15 years that I had on Facebook were gone and I felt like I lost a part of my past.

Felt lonely and isolated

On media like television, video games, and other entertainment, once you switch off and go back to real life, the experience is over. Or it should be. You finish the game or movie and move on to brushing your teeth or eating dinner.

But for some reason, social media is part of the daily functions of life. So having to eat cereal in silence or watch a movie without reading Twitter reviews on it seems a bit isolating. Being off of social media actually sometimes caused some anxiety and panic because I felt so alone.

Without voices of the world updating me on the daily activities of the world, I felt like I was useless and had nothing to contribute to society. I felt isolated and distant from society and almost like I had gone back in time. It was a strange and surreal feeling.

Takeaway

Most likely, these feelings and their negative vibes were part of the withdrawal and would eventually fade if I continued on my social media hiatus. So overall, I think the biggest lesson I learned(which I already kind of knew), was that everything in moderation is necessary. I didn’t need to quit something cold turkey and completely to better my life. I just had to limit the amount and balance it with other things in my life.

I think that is one of the reasons people think social media is bad. It takes over your life and identity and we tend to ignore other parts of life which are just as important. The time we spend online starts increasing until eventually, the scale tips and we are online more than off. And that is when the problems begin.

Taking a six-week step away from social media helped me understand how social media makes me feel and what parts I need to curb and which parts are good for me. I learned to manage time, make room for others around me, and was able to find a way to keep social media in check.

This article also appears here: https://medium.com/fml-or-bust/i-stopped-using-social-media-for-six-weeks-f82a40cfc44c