Sarah is abstaining from social media (assuming she has continued!).
Kae is taking a social media break.
Cal has recommended unplugging post-election (but also in general)
I am thrilled that more people are talking about this and taking the option of quitting social media entirely seriously.
Quitting was honestly the best thing I have done for my mental health (and overall life). I left Facebook for good in 2016. I took a “break” from Instagram in 2021 that has turned out to be permanent. I had some difficulties with Reddit for a few months this year (for the record, Reddit ended up being helpful for our problems in Aug/Sep but I should have gotten OFF of it immediately after obtaining the info I needed; staying longer was very detrimental for my mental health for a number of reasons, and I’m glad I finally escaped). Sometimes I still do struggle with Reddit but usually I am able to stop myself, and each time I stop I hope it’s for good.
(For the past couple of weeks, I have had a deal with the kids where I have to pay them $10 from my personal allowance if I use it. I have paid up once. I do find this particular pact to be surprisingly effective. Sorry, kids.)
There is literally nothing I feel I miss out on from being off of social media. It is true, I do not know what my high school classmates are doing. Turns out that I don’t actually need that information. In fact, it’s probably mostly a negative. The friends I want to stay in touch with are reachable in other ways!
The only argument I’ve heard some people make is that certain teams/sports/etc put their notifications on social media. I am grateful that thus far, that has not been the communication modality used with my kids: it’s all on WhatsApp, Stack TeamApp, GotSports, GroupMe. Thankfully, none of these apps have that addicting quality (for me, anyway); they are just there to connect and provide necessary information.
(I have no problems with digital forms of connection like texting, WhatsApp, reading blogs on Feedly! All of those things I find generally enjoyable and not life sucking. If a particular source starts to feel that way, I try to move away from it. I don’t feel like I need to do it with fanfare, I’ll just take a break and then can always decide to go back if/when it serves me.)
What do you have to GAIN by leaving social media? In my case, it was a lot.
If nothing else, I encourage you to take a break and explore your feelings within said break. By the way, this post is not specific to not reading politics. Yes, reading inflammatory posts was possibly what inspired me to take my first break, but for me the problems of social media go so far beyond that. It’s comparison and consumerism and judgment and just so much . . . stuff.
The scroll is endless and our lives are not.
31 Comments
Thank you for this post. I just deleted instagram and Facebook off my phone. Even if for the next few weeks I think I need this! If only to control spending and feelings or comparison!
You inspired me to leave social media in December of 2021 and I have not missed it one bit. I will sometimes get snarky comments from family about how I miss out on our private family FB page updates but my husband is in that group and will keep me informed if need be. Social media has a very net negative impact on my mental health for a variety of reasons and IMO it fosters a false sense of connection. Before leaving SM, I limited myself to 20 min/day between FB and IG. 20 minutes doesn’t sound like much but that is over 2 hours/week I could use fostering actual connections with people. Or reading. Etc etc. So far our kids extracurriculars aren’t on social media. If that changes, my moderator husband can be part of those groups. He seems immune from the negative impacts of SM but he’s also barely on those sites and if he is, he’s probably watching cat videos. Ha. He already manages the kids sports anyways since he tends to be around to take them to practices games since I travel so that vertical ownership precludes me from ever feeling like I need a social media account ever again. Thanks again for inspiring me to step away, SHU!! ❤️
I am currently on day 6 of no social media and so far I don’t miss it. I have thought about giving it up numerous times before especially when I’ve found myself scrolling for an hour and then I get upset with myself for wasting time. I never considered myself having FOMO but I think that is partly what kept me on social media. I do enjoy most of the people I following on IG for book and local travel recommendations but a lot of these people have websites/blogs I can read to find similar information. My goal is to go on a 21 day streak and see how I feel.
I’ve been giving thought to other ways I can get some of the information I typically get from social media too. Examples for me are: local city events (e.g. a community theater play, local 5K, high school sporting results, etc.). My boys’ schools also post actively, as well as their sports teams.
I recently subscribed to our local (paper) newspaper, so that may help with some local events. I also have considered maybe just “hiding” all my “friends” (lol) and just keeping access to travel groups, schools, sports, etc. However, I also feel like I could probably do fine with keeping all as is, but only logging on 1-2x/ week. If I delete it from my phone, I don’t seem to be tempted to constantly reinstall it. For me it’s the constant, constant checking (plus the negative content!) that I want to avoid. Maybe just logging in, going directly to the swim team page, the school page, etc and making the rounds would be sufficient while not having to completely give it up.
I bet you could bookmark the teams pages and just go directly there. Maybe use a different browser so it seems like a totally different activity?
I recently totally disconnected from FB. I removed it from my Home Screen but could still easily get to it because I have several groups I belong to that use it. I kept telling myself I would only use it for the groups but found I still checked a personal post here and there and ended up spending way too much time scrolling. The day after the election I totally deleted it from my phone. I decided I already have enough personal drama in my life, I don’t need to add everyone else’s. That may sound like I don’t care about anyone but myself but I have to take care of me first, then my family. I have IG on my phone but never use it as well as Twitter and to be honest, they aren’t tempting to visit anyway. My mental health has already improved so much. I am looking forward to enjoying my life again!
I quit FB after grad school 12 years ago, then IG a few years after that when I accepted that it made me feel dissatisfied with my objectively great life. I remember complaining to a grad school friend about my house, which is not fancy or expensive and in a very middle class area of DC. It was outdated in many ways but still cozy and livable. We didn’t need to do any work on the house but sure had a long list of things we wanted to do, which I was sharing with my friend. She thought I was bonkers and then proceeded to rave about all the wonderful things about my house. At the time, she was a legal aid lawyer in the Bay Area where she worked in eviction defense, helping clients in appalling living conditions with horrid landlords while also making so little money that she literally couldn’t afford housing herself. Her org’s job descriptions literally said that they only hired people who were independently wealthy, had well employed spouses, or people who could live with family because they paid so little that employees had to have some other way to afford housing. Otherwise, employees were so low-income for the region that they literally qualified for the affordable housing programs their clients were struggling to access. Just listening to my friend lavish compliments on my house left me feeling so disgusted with myself for feeling dissatisfied given all of the privileges I had that I went home and deleted IG.
Having been off social media for so long, it’s so obvious to me when I talk to friends how much social media stokes anxiety, fear, and stress in times like this. Emotions are so contagious and easily transmissible. It’s challenging enough to maintain a semblance of emotional equanimity during trying times like these that I truly can’t imagine being on social media, where anyone and everyone is posting anything and everything, and having my emotions highjacked left and right. More than ever, now is a great time to keep your distance from social media.
I AM SO WEAK– Ben and I went to a ball last weekend, and I HAD TO POST because we looked **chef’s kiss** BUT. That’s been it 🙂 EXCEPT.I post a pic every day on IG because I am doing a 100 day project. I am not otherwise engaging on IG, though…
I also went in and posted a cute pic of E at his soccer banquet. LOL! We’re equally weak. ha. But I don’t actually have a problem with using it in that way… all our family in Mexico likes to see those pics, etc. So I don’t think it’s terrible to do that. I just want to get away from the CONSTANT scrolling negative stuff and seeing everyone and their brother’s opinion posts and arguing and fighting and negative stuff blowing up my feed making me want to cry. Popping in and posting a pic of my son and then maybe just looking 1-2x that week to see if I got any comments on it doesn’t bother me/ is actually pleasant to me.
Thank you so much for sharing! I’m taking a quick break too and trying to get all the things that get pushed to the backburner done while I have some free time. Instead of scrolling on Facebook this morning, I booked a <a href=“https://www.elmerschemdry.com/carpet-cleaning-rogers-ar/”carpet cleaning in Rogers, AR and I’m so excited!
“The scroll is endless and our lives are not.” AMEN! This ties in completely with your word of the year. I have been reflecting that the past few months I have been spending way more time on Instagram than I ever did before. I would pride myself on “not being a social media person,” but I think there algorithm finally got to me! I am going to be taking a pause as well. (The election does create a lovely opportunity to do so!)
I took an unofficial SM break right after my birthday (June) after noticing some patterns I didn’t love with my kids around. While it hadn’t been perfect – I’m definitely on reddit a bit for “useful” things that turn into scrolling- it’s definitely helped my mental health. A few things of note:
– my screen time is still not super low, but it’s NOT compelling while the kids are around.
– I definitely still look for some stimuli, and if you’re not careful, anything can become that. I recently scrolled LinkedIn, which I had downloaded for a conference.
– one benefit is knowing where your time went. I used to have no idea what I scrolled for hours. I can now tell you I spent 1 hour yesterday at 10 pm unproductively looking for new PTs.
I think my brain is less foggy. I don’t know if there’s any science to that…
I have a Facebook account but I haven’t used the site regularly since 2016. I only keep the account because every once in a while one of my family members will contact me on there.
Instagram is not a problem for me. I follow a small number of accounts (<100) and I check it once every morning for less than 5 minutes.
Reddit can be a time suck but I have it pretty controlled. I visit a few groups once per day and that's it. I usually do this in the morning on my personal laptop. I feel okay about it as long as I'm not mindlessly scrolling on the app on my phone.
Strava is the one I pretty much went cold turkey on. It really triggers my anxiety and the comparison trap. I had to take some time off from running earlier this year due to injury and I found it immensely helpful to just focus on me and what I needed to do to get better. Sometimes I'll give kudos to people after a group run but otherwise I don't open the app. I may delete it entirely eventually.
That makes total sense about strava! Good to know when it stopped serving you. It doesn’t currently bother me but I can totally see how it could. A good reminder to reassess!!
I deleted strava (and all my account info) a few years ago for similar reasons. I then reinstalled it about a year ago and I’ve loved that I’m no longer comparing 40 year old me on Strava to 25 year old me on Strava. I thought I would miss knowing how good/fast/many miles I did before, but I definitely don’t. And I don’t miss seeing what people from my past are doing either.
Love the last sentence! I quit SM back in 2018 and felt so much better. I still have a very boring Facebook with library updates and that’s pretty much it.
Hi from a retired Canadian! I did not quit social media but I did a complete cleanse. Now when I have some free time (which is not a lot!) I enjoy looking at posts and stories that bring me joy, entertain me and help me learn new things. It is so refreshing:-)
I struggle with this so much. I went almost completely off of social media in 2021 and had one of the best years of my life (no coincidence I think). I do feel like I get some positives mainly from Instagram and Reddit- information and inspiration and entertainment.
But overall the negatives outweigh the positives and I seem to struggle to moderate. I wish I could just check them once a week but it seems to abstaining is the only thing that breaks the habit for me.
I’m reflecting on this as I think I need to do something g drastic here again.
Amen sister! I’ve never had a Facebook profile (I use a pseudo account for Facebook marketplace transactions that has no friends) and I had instragram for a little over 2 years and it was just too addicting to me. The costs FAR outweighed the benefits and when I realized that, I got off and never looked back and I have only positive thoughts about that decision. I think the biggest pro is: I have more time and energy to devote to real life relationships and pursuits and I believe I’m more content and spend far less money on crap I don’t need. AND my emotional health I believe benefits as well. Less anxiety, less comparison, less time spent “relaxing” but not really feeling relaxed.
I have similar Facebook and Instagram timelines, and have been off Twitter for a year, and I feel so much better. I was noticing the substack app is having a similar annoying quality (stupid notes, why does it default to that when I just want the newsletters?) so I hide a bunch of stuff to train the algorithm and now barely anything shows up there,
My WhatsApp (which has basically replaced texting in the UK) hack is to archive groups, people, etc I don’t need to hear from immediately so I don’t get alerts. If my son is at a playdate, I’ll un archive the parent group chat, or if I am meeting someone, my parents are visiting, etc but otherwise, everything stays archived. It sometimes feels fun to get on the train and have a bunch of chats to catch-up on.
WhatsApp (UK too ) is my major issue. Have tried everything – archiving , favouriting , screen time limits , phone in another room. But it has a mix of work family social some of which is urgent . Unlike IG or social media you can’t just uninstall and reinstall when you’re on too much!
Really interesting way of doing WhatsApp Coree. I think WhatsApp may be a bigger thing in the UK than the US… especially with class groups, mums groups, work groups… and then of course for organizing social events in groups. Do archived chats not show up when you get new messages?
3 year ago I took a “WhatsApp Detox” and deleted the app for Analogue August. I told everyone it was for a month and used texting instead. It did mean that I missed all my groups for a month (my NCT mums, work groups) but at the end of the month I just didn’t want to get back on it.
I haven’t reinstalled it since. I’m sure I miss out on info but it felt like it was becoming a para-facebook for me – a continual stream of other people’s lives into my phone. I’m quite happy not having it as it still gives me anxiety to see all the messages bleeping on other people’s phones, but I have to be a lot more intentional about keeping up with my friends via text and in person. And make sure my NCT lot text me when they’re arranging things so I can come. But as an accidental plus, I never have to be part of the group planning anymore – I just get to join the fun.
A social media break sounds like a crucial move right now. I rarely use any social media- strangely, it’s not addicting for me (I say “strangely” because I’m addicted to plenty other things.) I just don’t enjoy it, and I think right now it would put me over the edge.
On another note- I love the latest BOBW podcast episode! Some REALLY great thoughts on parenting there.
Yes Gabrielle Blair was great!!!
The only social media I use at all regularly right now is TikTok – and I post dog agility videos. But post election is has gotten really bad with maga, trad wife, and Christian nationalist videos being pushed into my feed. It makes me want to barf and I think it’s time for a break.
Is substack social media? I love Substack, but don’t use much else.
I don’t think so, unless you’re spending hours scrolling argumentative comments or something like that? (I’ve never used the app I subscribe to a few newsletters via substack but they just come to my email)
[…] then I got this post in my inbox and it kind of just confirmed it. Sarah talks a lot about the affects of social media […]
I know the comments are going to be as helpful as this post was. I have been thinking on this heavily. Just wrote a blog post myself to cement the decision to step away. For now, for a short amount of time, but let’s see where it leads. This line—“The scroll is endless and our lives are not”—hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was off Instagram for over a year and a half and then when I started my blog I created an Instagram for it. I have to say I really hate the whole self-promotion/ social media part of trying to get a website off the ground.
I’m hoping I can continue down the (mostly) Instagram free path. I still don’t have a personal Instagram account and really don’t feel like I am missing out either.
Good for you for quitting social media. I am not quite ready to do that but I am also using it purposefully (or at least I try). I almost never post much on Facebook, I only visit specific groups that connect me with runners/Peloton people) and I’ve never jumped on the TikTok train. I also still prefer photos on IG and often skip the stories. But I can see how a break or a detox can be helpful to really figure out what is serving you.