How Leaving Social Media Affects Your Mind

Does it make you happier? I don’t know.

About four months ago I quit Facebook and Instagram after a big job I was up for didn’t pan out. Two months later, I left Twitter.

The first thing I noticed after I unplugged was that online ads unplugged from me. It was an overnight change. One day I was seeing Amazon book deals and food festivals near me, the next it was 100% women’s clothing. The more I use Chrome, the more ads close back in on my interests, but they’re nowhere near as accurate as they once were.

The other changes happened more slowly. Only now, sixty days later, am I starting to understand how things have changed. It’s a cognitive shift in the way I experience the world, and it’s more subtle than you might expect.

Is my life better without social media? My immediate instinct is to shout “Yes!!” I’m supposed to say that I’m “so much happier now” that I’m free from the shackles of Instagram. Or that I’m “so much more productive!” But I’m not sure if either of those are actually true.

In some ways, my life is better. The itch to record everything is gone—it disappeared after a couple of weeks—and that has been good for my ability to focus on the moment I’m in. I spend more time staring out into space, which I believe is one of the best…