The Social Media Detox!
How and why I survived 30 days with no social media apps or games on my phone.
I am the most anxious person I know. I can never sit in a place doing nothing for a continuous period of 15 minutes! Also, I have an attention span of a child who’s about to enter kindergarten. So, I need to be doing something or the other when I’m free. And what’s a better content provider than a smartphone? With apps like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, you can never feel short of things you’d want to explore — be it the roasting replies to one of Trump’s tweets, a cute doggo video or Dan Bilzerian’s posts on Instagram, or DMs in WhatsApp, there’s always something or the other in cart. And when you’re bored, you can always open one of those many gaming apps you have on your phone. All in all, I was spending almost 6 hours of screen on-time. You know things are bad when your phone gets switched off while you’re using it.
So, one day, out of the blue, I decided to uninstall all of them from my phone and take up the 30-day-Digital-Detox challenge. And this was not impulsive. This was well thought out, in advance.
Let me share, what used to be my daily routine, 2 months back. I used to come home by 7 or 8 pm from work. Since the office is nearby from my apartment, I used to walk home and to entertain myself on my way back, I used to scroll through some Instagram posts from friends and people I followed. Once back, I changed my clothes and opened my then-favorite game — Brawl Stars on my phone. Yes, I used to play PUBG too, and I uninstalled it way earlier when I realized that took way too much time from me. Since Brawl Stars had rounds not more than 10 minutes, I convinced myself that it was the better alternative. Since the rounds were shorter, I ended up playing more, almost about 2 to 3 hours every day. And during that time, no one was to disturb me — I could miss one kill! Anyways, once that was over, it was dinner time and I had Netflix to entertain me while I ate. Then some WhatsApp, calls and a good amount of Instagram scrolls, until my eyes felt heavy with sleep. Speaking of Instagram scrolls, have you ever wondered why these content apps have this “Infinite Scroll” feature? You can’t really get to the bottom of it without getting fresh content — at least not on twitter, where there are tweets and a long long thread of replies to each tweet. Good Job, developer! Also, the first action on waking up was definitely checking out my phone. “How many likes did I get on my IG post?”, “Did anyone comment?”, “Did my team lead reply on the mail thread?”, “Where’s my order?” or “Did he see my WhatsApp message/story?”
The Infinite Scroll
With so much content — tweets, gifs, videos, photos, etc around you, you are bound to feel the anxiety, the FOMO(fear of missing out) on seemingly important things which is, almost always, nothing. Our brains are wired to get as much information as possible — it’s one of the survival instincts that has been passed onto us since evolution. And we end up becoming a part of the infinite scroll. There’s this constant urge to compare our lives to others. And when I come to think of it, it has, at least to me, affected both my health and relationships. I believe, with time, we disintegrated from a joint family to a nuclear family, and now to, what I would describe, a single-celled “bacterial” family, where each one is unique with minimal relation with the other. When I compare the childhood I spent to the childhood my younger cousins are spending, there’s so much difference! I remember, as soon as the clock stroke 4 in the evening, I would rush downstairs, with my bat in my hand to play with my friends, or go cycling. But, nowadays, cricket is on PC too! Why make the effort and sweat out? Video games, I feel, has created this illusion of life beyond reality, but much similar to it! You can make friends on-the-go, move about and explore the dangerous wilderness and fight your own battles, achieve milestones, earn trophies and defeat real-time players. How can it be not cool? Yeah, all these things revolved around my head, and I decided to take a break from it. From social media and games — be it on the PC or on mobile.
Day 1
Since I was going cold turkey, I deleted all social media and gaming apps — Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Brawl Stars, Clash Royale. I also deleted apps which I thought could take up my time — BookMyShow, Flipkart, Amazon, Pixlr. Only a few apps like Gmail, Slack, and LinkedIn remained. Anyone who wished to message would have to text me. If it’s an image he wanted to share, he would have to email me. I also told my parents about this challenge, and they waved it off as it were nothing. So yeah, my incognito mode was on. With the 1st day being a Saturday, I was literally out of things to do! So I started reading. And that day, I read a lot — I had nothing to distract me. Yes, I did have those moments where I wanted to check my feed. But, it soon disappeared.
The Birthday Month
Coincidently, my birthday fell on the month I took the challenge. That was the toughest day of the entire challenge. As usual, I woke up that day and just as a reflex would be, opened up my phone to check for messages on WhatsApp and Instagram — only to find them deleted from the phone. All the days can be considered fine, but that was the day when I actually maxed my FOMO-ness. I woke up in a good mood, expecting to get some wishes from my friends — birthdays actually feel special and you get to talk to so many people you know! But, there I was, sitting disappointed and sad on the bed.
But, as the day progressed, I did get a lot of calls from some of my friends! That really made my day. I did not expect a lot of people to actually call, but when they did, it felt really good! I told everyone who called, about my challenge and apologized on not replying to their messages on Instagram or WhatsApp. That was the day I decided to at least call, and not text anyone on their birthday — just to add that personal touch to the birthday wish. And soon, that feeling of FOMO-ness subsided, and my day went well!
But apart from that one day, the challenge went on smoothly. Yes, there were days where I badly wanted to check out other people’s activity, especially that one day when my friends uploaded the pictures of our weekend getaway trip. But they understood and emailed those to me. A few days into the challenge, I realized I was using LinkedIn way too much than I should be. I feel that LinkedIn is on its way to becoming a social media app like Facebook or Instagram. That’s sad. Anyways, I deleted it. I, however, did not stop watching Netflix and Prime Video, those became my source of entertainment along with the books. Although, I did disable the youtube app and accessed Netflix and Prime Video only from my laptop.
You Got To Disconnect To Connect.
I was able to finish the challenge successfully. And were there any significant impact? I’d say, yes. I took out time to do things I really wanted, things I’d normally say that I don’t have the time to do. I increased my reading and read about 4 books that month. I started hitting the gym and began with my running. I realized I’d become more productive in my work since I was able to complete my sprint tasks on time. Somedays, I worked on office tasks in the after-office hours. I became less anxious over time and could, at least sit for a while, collecting my thoughts. And more importantly, I learned that connecting with people over the phone or meeting them face-to-face is much different than sending them a text on WhatsApp. That feeling of personal touch feels so good! I guess I started valuing relationships in a better way. And I made less impulsive decisions that I’d normally make.
Also, with the challenge gotten over, I re-installed some of those apps. I realized I really don’t need all of them. However, I did not re-install those gaming apps. Also, I noticed that I did not open my social media apps as frequently as I did earlier. In fact, that number reduced a lot and is now down to 2–3 hours on-screen on time. I stopped my habit of impulsively checking my phone for notifications. So, all in all, the challenge did me good. I got to understand a lot of things about myself.
This is blog post 4/30 in my 30-day one-blog-a-day challenge. If you haven’t read the last one, you can find it here! Or you can follow since the beginning from here! Thank for all the support and appreciation you all showed on my previous blog! If you liked it, do show your love with some claps and comments! Until then, have a great time exploring!
