Social Media Quitter
I have quit social media. I am working through Jaron Lanier’s book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. I need to dive back in, but yeah. What prompted me to quit initially was his talk How the Internet Failed and How to Recreate It. This was enough to get me moving in a different direction. I wish I could remember exactly when I quit, but I believe it has been a few months or so. Jaron suggests quitting and staying off these platforms for 6 months at least. Don’t let yourself off the hook or go easy on yourself by quitting one or two. Aim for all or nothing here.
📺 YouTube
I am going strong and it was a lot easier to do than I thought. There are some things I need to work on though but for the majority, I am doing a good job. The biggest hurdle for me was quitting YouTube. Depending on your definition of social media, YouTube may not even fall under the umbrella. For me, it falls under the larger umbrella of addiction — specifically video addiction. This is the thing I need to work on because when I quit YouTube, I started to watch Amazon Prime Video…not the best replacement. But at the very least, at least I am a bit more aware of this video addiction in general. I knew this with YouTube, but now it’s a bit more prominent.
The thing that I don’t like about YouTube and social media in general is the randomness of it all. I feel like that alone can’t be good for your mind. Especially for me because I would just bounce from one thing to the next with no end in sight. I would spend days doing this. Looking back, it is because I didn’t have anything positive to fill that time with. I wasn’t valuing my time. I still am working on this and want to form good habits and have quality things in my life that fill my cup.
There are some things to consider with YouTube too. For instance, is it okay to watch YT videos that are embedded on another site? For me, this feels more okay because I can make a more conscious decision to click play. I could also make a more conscious decision like when I want to educate myself or do some research on a topic.
➕ Positive Things to Replace It With
When thinking of positive things to replace YouTube with, the first thing that comes to mind is reading. This alone would make me feel better and more whole. What I like about reading is that it is a singular topic. This allows your mind to slow and chew on it and process the information in a much more natural way. This would also help with communication and writing which is a win-win in my 📘.
With social media in general, you’ll see how much time you have. This is of course a blessing too. Just think to yourself, “Is this really how I want to be spending my time? my life?”.
It may be difficult at first to come up with positive replacements (at least at first). But once you have that time and energy back, you’ll be able to navigate and lean into things that truly matter to you. Focus on what makes you happy. And if you’re not sure, feel free to experiment and play around.
Don’t let social media become your default cure for boredom state.
⚖️ Do the Pros Outweigh The Cons?
With anything, there are of course pros and cons. There are undoubtedly pros to social media. These include things like connection and networking.
To me, social media feels like giving yourself schizophrenia. After a while, you’re tired of hearing the differing opinions all the time. It’s difficult to hear your thoughts. It may even become difficult to remember what they are.
🙉 Cutting Out The Noise
One of the best things about quitting social media is cutting out the noise and bs. You gain your time back and you can choose how you wish to spend it. Social media is just another distraction in my book. If you can cut out the noise, you will be better off. You may think to yourself “Won’t I be missing out on something?” That is true to some extent, but at the same, it feels hollow. There isn’t much substance much of the time. It is better to turn your attention towards things that are more meaningful in the long run. For example, you could replace keeping in touch with people on social media with keeping in touch with them over the phone or better yet in person. It’s true though, some people you won’t be able to keep up with in person due to logistical or other reasons. And another thing is you may not meet people in quite the same way as you would online. That is true, so that part may be a bit trickier to come up with a solid solution.
Off the top of my head though, even if you don’t meet said person on social media, you could meet them in other places online like forums or message boards. Even better than online is offline. You can join meetups, and clubs, attend classes, see shows, etc. Anywhere where there are people involved 😅.
☔ What Falls Under the Social Media Umbrella?
It can also be tricky to determine what is and what isn’t social media. For example, we discussed YouTube — it isn’t a feed but there are comments. Is Reddit social media? Facebook, IG, X/Twitter, and TikTok are. What about the messengers within these apps? As Jaron says, you can be like a 😼. You can experience and experiment to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. Be kind to yourself when going through this phase.
🫴🏻 Sharing is Caring
Even after quitting social media, there is still the want to share — just in a different way. Rather than sharing things I see on social media, I’ll share a link to an article or product I like or share a photo I took with a person or group. I’ll share memes and gifs. Sharing is just another form of communication.
On the flip side, something I am determining is what to do when someone shares something with me like a link to a video or post. Or if they show me IG on their phone in person.
These are minor hiccups though. I can’t control everything and don’t want to.
🐀 Compulsive Lab Rats
In Lanier’s book, he mentions how these algorithms are treating us more like compulsive lab rats. When you do something the algorithm likes, you get rewarded — 👍🏻,❤️, 💬, etc. and get punished when you don’t interact or get negative feedback. You may even feel like you’re being ignored or feel inadequate in some way.
After a while, you may begin to feel more anxious or ornery and not know why until you take a step back.
You also just feel compulsive in general with all the checking and doomscrolling. I can tell you from the outside looking in, I don’t miss it. It comes down to what you value — specifically time. And we all know time is the most valuable resource of all.
Don’t use social media and the like as a way to fill your time
Don’t use social media as a crutch
I don’t mean to come down on people who use these platforms, I am just highlighting an alternative.
🙀 FOMO
A lot of people talk about FOMO with social media. Well, what I mean is by looking at the photos, status updates, etc. You may think that you’ll be giving up something if you decide to quit too. That may be true to some extent, but I believe that you will be gaining back things that are much more important in the long run when you jump 🚢. You will come back to yourself. At least that was what I experienced. Even if it’s in subtle ways. I do recall within 24–48 hours already feeling better after cutting it out completely from my life. And how I did it was completely 🥶🦃.
🥶🦃 Cold Turkey
If I can do this, then so can you. I just quit 🥶🦃. I uninstalled all of the social media apps from my phone. If you have an Android phone, you can’t uninstall YouTube which sucks but you can sort of hide it (which is what I did). When you’re on deskop, you can get apps or extensions like Freedom to block these sites. For some reason, I didn’t need to do this — I just mustered enough discipline to stop. I just focus on how it feels good to resist the urge to give in. But if this is too difficult, these apps and extensions will help.
🔧 Don’t Be A Tool
Another way you can think of this is being a tool. You can use your devices as tools or let them use you as a tool. Don’t be the latter.
It feels really good to reclaim your power this way. To intentionally use your time wisely in the things and projjies that are meaningful to you. Once you have gained your time back so-to-speak you will be able to sink your teeth into things again. O what a glorious feeling that is!
Good luck! 🍀🐇