How I Learned to Stop Escaping — Curing My Social Media Addiction For Good
I was a complete junkie
It’s the start of 2024, I am sitting in my bed reading my old journals.
I feel so grateful, that I documented all my thoughts over the past 5 years and can now look back on them with lots of nostalgia.
However it was not all sunshine and rainbows back then.
In my oldest journal from 2019, I read something that gave me one of the worst feelings I had ever felt.
Since I started journaling, I have always had a practice of daily self-reflection. In the evening I would ask myself 2 questions:
“What did I do well today?”
“What can I work on?”
I was reading the first page of my first ever journal:
“Was too much on the phone today”.
Seeing this filled me with so much disappointment and sadness, that I felt like crying. My face started to frown up and I lost faith in myself.
I felt like I had failed my life.
Why?
Because I was still dealing with the same damn issue, 5 years later.
I had not progressed a single bit.
My screentime was still at 8 hours a day.
YouTube and Instagram were still my biggest enemies. (So glad I never had TikTok tho…)
I was still distracting myself every opportunity I could.
I was still unable to go to the toilet without using my phone.
And I still felt like a junkie.
So I knew I needed to change.
However, up to this point all I really knew was beating myself up. If I wanted to change, the only real tool in my repertoire was my inner drill sergeant telling me that I should “get my fucking act together”.
Not very effective as you’ll see.
I thought I was productively reflecting when in reality, I was just overthinking and treating myself like shit.
And then I wouldn’t even improve from that.
Because the next day, when I had the opportunity to “be on my phone less”, I was still beating myself up for “being on my phone too much” yesterday.
So I wasn’t present.
So I did what? Went on my phone again.
Which reinforced my belief that I was a junkie.
Which made me distract myself even more.
A vicious cycle that went on for years.
Until I finally noticed it and made a change.
It got better. Way better, in fact.
I was able to control my screentime and be completely present as I was using my phone, or as I got the urge to.
For about two weeks…
And then I lost control again, because the habit slowly crept back into my life.
It started with “Hey, being on IG for 5 minutes isn’t gonna hurt me”, and then turned into “Come on, 1 more hour of IG isn’t that bad either” in a matter of a week.
I was back at the exact same point as before. Or maybe even at a worse point, since the pain of knowing I failed made me want to distract myself even more.
At the end of July, it became too much for me. So I decided to do a 1 week challenge of not using YT or IG at all, thinking that would give me space away from my phone.
I did it, and felt amazing. My focus was better than ever and I felt what complete mental clarity was like.
But I had done this before. I used to do challenges like this every couple of weeks, and I always felt amazing being without my phone for so long.
But there was an issue.
In the past, I was never able to sustain it. After the challenge was over, I would always go back to my phone and ruin my mental health again.
So I asked myself: What can I do differently this time? How can I make sure that this change is sustainable?
And that was when I remembered how I got rid of the last “addiction” I had.
In 2019 I was extremely addicted to snacking and eating shit food and candy.
After trying to get rid of it for a long time, by only “eating in moderation”, I finally had enough.
After a long talk with my brother, I decided I was not going to eat candy at all anymore. Cold Turkey. For a whole year.
And for the next full year, I succeeded. Not a single sweet.
Since then, I have reintroduced a bit of snacking into my life.
But now with a completely different relationship to it.
I am in complete control and need no discipline in order to say no to a cookie or a cake.
I could eat a bunch of candy one day, and then stop whenever I want to.
I got rid of the addiction. I feel like I control the habit, instead of the habit controlling me.
This is the kind of relationship I want to have with social media.
And for the past two months, I have been on a great path to achieving that.
- I sometimes forget that YouTube and Instagram even exist anymore.
- I can go outside with no headphones, without being afraid of my own thoughts
- I can focus on one task for an hour straight, which used to be impossible for me.
And all that has only been possible because I did these three things.
- Set a clear boundary.
- Healing my body.
- A better relationship to my emotions.
First point:
I started setting a clear boundary around my usage of YouTube and Instagram and all the other things I had issues with. I did the same thing that I did with snacks and candy. I deliberately set myself the challenge, to not use IG and YouTube for one whole year, setting very strict rules:
- YouTube not allowed at all
- I can check if someone messaged me on Instagram once a day, after having finished every single task that was on my to do list.
And many more rules like these.
This was so effective, because it made it very easy to say no.
The moments where we fall back into bad habits most often are the moments when we are debating with ourselves.
”Should I eat that cake now or not?”
”Should I go on my phone now or not?”
By setting clear boundaries, I did not have to debate with myself anymore, because the answer was already clear.
I do want to say, though, that setting a harsh boundary like this might not be a long term solution.
I plan on getting back to using YouTube sometime in the future, just like I did with snacking. But I know myself well enough to realize, that I first need this time off YouTube completely, so that I can rewire my brain to not constantly crave it anymore.
And after that year, I can come back to YouTube with a different energy.
Second point:
Healing my body. Around the same time I did my 1 week challenge, I was sick. I had had asthma for almost two decades and at it was reaching it’s lowest point.
But I did not want to take medicine. I wanted to cure it naturally.
So I learned to breathe better, resulting in me being less stressed, resulting in me being able to focus better and be more present.
I put this point in the middle and kept it short, because I was in a very unique situation.
I had tried all the different methods of fixing my addiction, but only when I fixed my breathing did they all work.
Just work on your breathing. It won’t hurt you :)
Third point:
Learning how to better deal with my emotions.
I had developed the pattern of constantly…
- beating myself up for mistakes,
- Avoiding setting boundaries,
- Neglecting my own needs,
- Not doing what needed to be done.
Because of all this, I was building up a lot of negative emotion in me. This buildup caused me to seek distraction.
This distraction was easily found in social media usage.
And so that is what I gravitated towards.
But when I learned how to talk to myself in a better way, have more understanding for myself, I barely ever felt the urge to distract myself anymore.
Because there is nothing for me to distract myself from. My life is good. My relationship with myself is good.
Conclusion:
And the best part is, these 3 things create a cycle of constant positive reinforcement.
Being on your phone less will make you do more good things for yourself, which will improve your relationship with yourself, which will make you want to be on your phone even less.
If you also want a healthy relationship to social media (and yourself), I would recommend you take these 3 principles and integrate them into your own life.
Try not using Social Media for an extended period of time. Learn to better regulate your emotions, both with your breath and how you talk to yourself. Stop beating yourself up. Talk to yourself as if you were your bestfriend.
Since implementing these things, my life has changed completely.
I finally feel in control again.
I am able to feel my emotions properly instead of running away from them.
I don’t always feel good. But I feel alive.
I am able to sit with a negative feeling, and enjoy it.
Because it’s real.
Life feels more real. I feel more real.
And that’s what I want for you, too.
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