Quitting Social Media changed my life and it would probably change yours too
Over the years I’ve always periodically “unplugged”. I’ve been notorious for deleting my social media apps for weeks at a time much to the frustration of a lot of my friends and for a long time I’ve known that the constant exposure to a barrage of images and opinions was not healthy for me.
The first time I “unplugged” was as far back as 2011. I had just graduated from University, was moving to France and had that “fresh start” feeling. One of the things I knew I had to do was change my phone and number (ditching the Blackberry), and start afresh.
I always look back on my first week in Nice with such warm nostalgia because it was blissful. Literally no one could reach me other than my mother and perhaps one other person and I spent my days walking around the city and enjoying sorbets on the beach while listening to Bez’s Super Sun album which still gives me the chills and absolutely transports me back there whenever I listen to it.
I was alone with my thoughts and each day it felt like a tonne was lifted off my chest until I ended the week absolutely weightless and happy. Only then did I start reconnecting with friends and making new ones and I think this played a massive role in the sort of people that gravitated towards me because those 3 months in Nice ended up being the happiest season of my life until very recently when I found myself again.
I was so excited when I discovered Instagram in 2012 because I was already overwhelmed by the status games and opinions-masquerading-as-fact on Twitter. Here was an app where I could just see and share photographs of cool creative things and be inspired by other photographers and artists!
Thinking back on what Instagram was then versus what it’s become is truly a marvel. It quickly became apparent that this was a powerful marketing tool at next to no cost and promoting my photography and then later my herbal tea business became unavoidable which kept me on the platform even when I was struggling to keep up mentally.
I had always thought of myself as being quite resilient when it came to external pressure. I’m not a “material girl” so the fact that social media wasn’t driving me to plastic surgery or crippling debt from buying designer items made me think I wasn’t being affected by it that much. However, there is always room for comparison where you may not expect it because we all value something, and for me I eventually realised it was the entrepreneurship “porn” on Instagram that did me in.
Constantly seeing these amazingly branded, popular and seemingly thriving businesses and more importantly badass female entrepreneurs that triggered my impostor syndrome and constantly had me feeling like a fraud with my business failing in the background of every new post or announcement I shared. “Sari Teas is now NAFDAC certified!” with great graphic design and many exclamation marks, behind which I was millions in the hole from trying to get that certification with no clear direction as to where the revenue to replace that money would come from 🙃
On the other hand Twitter was shaping my opinions and worldview diminishing my ability for independent thought. I second-guessed my first reactions to world events and topical issues and edited and re-edited my tweets navigating the minefield of offence and outrage the world has become.
Leading up to the presidential elections in Nigeria, the discourse turned a bit mad online and I had this crystallising moment where I realised I did not know my own mind. I had no firm opinion on what was going on — at least not based on any deep individual research or introspection about what would actually be best for our country — because only one opinion was acceptable and asking questions was an admission of “guilt” (of the offence of straying from the crowd).
I knew I had to take a step back and allow myself to learn and think independently again which I couldn’t honestly say I had done with confidence in many years. I eventually realised that I needed to regain control of my mind and my emotions. I don’t necessarily blame the platforms because of course there was also a lot of benefit along the way, but my use of them had to change.
When I came to the realisation that I was totally out of alignment in my career last year, one of the few silver linings for me was being able to unplug once again but this time for extended, undefined periods of time. I felt such relief at the thought of an Insta-free, Twitter-free life. That has since turned into 10 months offline which has been indescribably impactful for my mental health and personal development.
Without the compulsion to market my business online, I could disconnect from the alternate reality of online community and content consumption and really hear myself think and learn new things again.
Here’s how this decision has changed my life. I didn’t put this in the title to be hyperbolic or clickbait-y, I genuinely mean that my life has been significantly altered for the better and I absolutely do credit a large part of this to my reduced social media use.
- Much less anxiety
Despite the fact that I am typically feeling significantly overwhelmed whenever I’ve made the decision to unplug, surprisingly every time I’ve done it it’s been difficult the first few days. I would find my lizard brain picking up my phone and instinctively looking for these apps every few minutes — indicator number 1 that this was a force to reckon with that genuinely had a hold on my subconscious and my habits. I would feel this anxiety that something was missing or that there was something I needed to know that was going to be lost if I didn’t stay plugged in. I would also feel this irrational pressure not to let people down. Someone could have sent me a message and they’ll think I’m a b!tch because I haven’t responded!
However, after about a week or so the brain begins to adjust and I realise that there are no fires to put out and the Universe has not caved in on itself because I wasn’t checking my DMs on Instagram. Not being exposed to the constant horror in the news; women and children being harmed, police brutality, war, injustice as well as my personal struggles with what I call “success content”, meant that I remained present in everyday life and got to focus on the reality of my life and support network, experiencing genuine gratitude, hope and clarity on my true values and how I want to design my life.
In the past I would only experience this for a couple of weeks or a month at best before having to hop back online and sell, sell, sell! However, since permanently quitting the social media rat race, this has meant that information that comes to me is typically filtered through people I already have shared values with or that is genuinely significant to my life. I no longer have this underlying desire to prove my worth through my career milestones which has allowed me to progress with much more calm and ironically, much more tangible leaps and strides that positively impact my real life.
I am phone-free for at least the first half an hour when I wake up and sometimes just lie in bed allowing the day’s thoughts flood in uninterrupted and undiluted. This means my days no longer kick off with an anxious need to check what’s happened online overnight or instantly processing 10 different types of information from the second I open my eyes. The same applies before I fall asleep too.
2. Closer connections
Not filling the gaps in my day with content consumption has created so much more opportunity for introspection and reflection on the things that genuinely fill my cup and bring my heart joy.
One of those things is of course my relationships with the people that truly know and accept me, warts and all. This has allowed me to think of these people more intentionally and show up for them more deliberately. It’s encouraged me to be more vulnerable with them, taking advantage of the sincere support system I have, and also has made me way more present in the life experiences I share with them.
Be it a casual brunch or the birth of their first child, the moments I share with my friends now are so sacred because there’s no pressure to share them with the world. I continue to capture these moments in photographs but more intentionally for the memories and not trying to find the best angle to generate the most appeal on Instagram.
3. Independent thought
This has to be my absolute favourite and arguably the strongest impact this decision has had on me. I rescued my brain! I’ve always been an avid reader and neither partial to fiction nor non-fiction books. However the more apps I joined, the less I could focus on more than half a page of a book at a time!
It was actually surreal to think how much I struggled to make it through articles not to mention entire books after a while! This is because my brain had become accustomed to consuming content in short bursts of mere seconds and being the muscle that it is, had lost the strength and resilience it once had to process long streams of information at a time.
I also came to realise that all my opinions were being formed by strings of tweets, written with confidence by people who themselves may or may not have been drawing conclusions from other people’s opinions as well!
A crystallising moment for me was a trend of tweets circulating regarding the comedian and content creator Amelia Dimoldenberg, the creator of the YouTube show Chicken Shop Date. The general consensus on black British Twitter was that she was making a mockery of black people by “inviting them to eat chicken on her show” because she had interviewed a number of Grime and Afrobeats artists, as well as complaints that other black creators / interviewers had not been as strongly platformed as she’s been. I remember reading these comments and thinking right, we really have lost the plot and I tweeted something to the effect of :
“I think we need to start asking ourselves if we hate racism, or if we now just hate white people altogether.”
Looking through Amelia’s YouTube history it was clear that she had interviewed artists of basically every race you could imagine and had also been running her channel for close to a decade at this point before the show really gained traction. If Amelia had only interviewed artists that looked like her it would’ve been a problem. Now that she’d interviewed artists across a wide racial spectrum there was also a problem. If a white person works hard and is rewarded with success, does that mean there’s less room for black people to succeed?
The comment I made would’ve been classified as me playing to the gallery, trying to be contrarian or failing to recognise my own oppression as a black woman because any perspective outside the Twitter wave was unacceptable. However I sincerely did not agree with the general sentiment and it raised questions for me that I absolutely should be free to ask.
I was glad that despite how restricted I felt in expressing contrary views on the platform, I could at least still draw the line somewhere and have an original thought. However, I knew there were many other instances where I was allowing myself to get carried away by popular opinion and I needed more of this independent and critical thought, backed by enquiry and curiosity, and really I think we all do too.
Something that’s highly underrated about reading is the way it exercises your brain muscles and the unexpected cross references you encounter the more you engage in it. I find that it’s in these cross references that questions are raised for the curious mind, and in raising those questions and pursuing more answers independent thoughts begin to form along the way. Consuming this information and asking these questions freely in your mind without soliciting input from keyboard warriors is invaluable. Being able to then engage in conversation that is not devoid of — but also not taken over by — emotion is also super enlightening and makes for a more reasonable and balanced society over all.
Now don’t get me wrong, there is value in learning snippets of new information from social media content — I’ve learned a lot of useful and otherwise out-of-reach information on TikTok for example — but if those snippets don’t lead you to a deeper dive and down a path of further learning, then in my opinion their value is up for debate.
There are many other subtle changes in my habits and how I engage with the world that I simply don’t want to bore you with by making this post too long so I’ll wrap things up here.
In my next post I’ll share with you different ways I’ve tried to manage my social media use in all my years of unplugging, and what seems to have finally worked for me. Of course the way you do this must be tailored to your individual needs and values but I reckon in the options I’ll be sharing, you can find something that would work for you.
For this week, I’d simply like to invite you to reflect on the impact of social media on your everyday life. Here are some questions to prompt your thinking:
- When you think of quitting cold turkey, what immediately comes to your mind and how do you feel?
- What would your days look like and what concerns do you have? What would replace the time you’d usually spend scrolling endlessly on your phone?
- When you’re out with friends or at an event, are you present and observing the goings-on around you or are you capturing highlights to share with everyone who’s not there?
- When you reflect on your goals and aspirations, are they truly yours and in line with your values, or are they based on what would be applauded when you achieve them and share online?
- Are you able to read through entire articles or books? If not does social media play a role in this?
There are many other impacts this could have on you so as usual I welcome you to reflect personally on your individual experience which may differ significantly from mine.
I can’t wait to share my hacks with you next week and hope to see you back here then!
F
