I took a social media break for 30 days and it turned into three months. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Regarding social media, I now know enough about its emotional and psychological effects than I thought I would ever know prior to taking a 30-day break from all social media apps.
Beginning in March (the 28th to be exact), I took a break from Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. That meant no checking the apps, scrolling mindlessly, sending messages, or watching certain videos on YouTube unless it had to do with anything that could aid in my personal development.
Here’s how the break started.
I took it upon myself to start therapy last year for my emotional wellness and as I went through sessions and explained my goals and triggers, my therapist noticed that my explanations of how social media affected me were alarming and weren’t aiding in my overall goals for emotional wellness.
I explained to her that social media, Instagram in particular, really didn’t have a positive effect on me overall. While using this app, I found that everything I did was performative and didn’t feel authentic.
If I had to post a picture, although I don’t use filters on my photos, I felt that every single photo I posted had to look perfect in order to suit my “audience.”
I felt like I couldn’t just post a picture because I wanted to. Everything I did had to be presentable, beautiful, likable, and on-trend. I went over my photos incessantly to check for imperfections and to see if my photos were even worthy of being posted.
Everything I posted felt like it needed to be perfect and this became exhausting.
I also constantly found myself caught up in the comparison trap without even realizing it. There were comparison triggers everywhere, from appearance to my career progress to even the layout of my page.
I noticed that it’s hard not to compare yourself to others on apps, especially image-based one's like Instagram, because it appeals to us visually. There are many pictures and ads thrown at us daily that can cause our minds to spiral with doubt and insecurity.
There’s this performative aspect of social media and there’s also the information overload that comes with it. Because if we really take the time to assess how social media affects our brains, we'll realize that we are constantly being overloaded with information that our brains hold on to and store in their subconscious.
Social media may fool us into believing that we aren’t being affected long-term, but we are.
The effects are just not obvious right away because our emotions are so fleeting. For instance, you may see something on social media that you find triggering and feel some emotions in the present. Maybe you feel annoyed, envious, frustrated, inadequate, or unproductive.
You feel these emotions, even if you aren't able to name them and mask them perhaps by hiding the post, scrolling by, or moving on to the next post, image, or video.
But once you are away from the app, you may notice changes in your mood in ways you can’t pinpoint. You may feel irritable, angry, sad, depressed, or insecure but not know why.
The connection between social media and our emotions is significant because what we consume definitely affects how we feel, how we see ourselves, and the world.
Because the mind is always taking notes.
So whether it’s negative or positive, we store these images and thoughts in our brains as memory and our brains already have what’s known as a negativity bias, so we are constantly retaining information that may be unhelpful.
Now imagine the influx of unhelpful thoughts stored in your brain from using social media on a regular basis.
What I didn’t expect from this social media break, however, was how hard it would be to unplug considering how much my mind became accustomed to impulsively logging on to social media even if I had no reason to be on it.
On day one of this challenge, the feeling of not being on social media felt like I was mildly detoxing from a drug. The side effects were an incessant need to check socials and cravings to be on the app even if I was away for short periods.
The first couple of days and even a week into the challenge, the thought of being on social media was on my mind constantly and stayed in my subconscious. I would journal about my experience in order to keep tabs and to hold myself accountable to the challenge.
But to fill in my time while away, I listened to audiobooks, read, made this Medium account, journaled, wrote articles, and joined Toastmasters. I noticed I felt more productive, more accomplished, and more focused.
Prior to this challenge, reading books became a chore because my attention span was affected. Being away from socials transformed this. I now read more and can focus on books and retain what I’m reading.
I noticed that I not only felt more productive, but my mind was at peace. I no longer got into random moods where I felt sad or inadequate and wasn’t able to understand why. We all struggle with our emotions sometimes but constantly being connected to apps and inundated with images, sometimes daily, is bound to affect how you think and feel.
Overall, being off social media, particularly Instagram, for that extended period, really benefited me because it allowed me to connect with myself and focus on my wellness, my hobbies, dreams, and goals, and connect with people face to face.
The overall feeling was mental clarity and freedom. I no longer had this feeling of fight or flight surrounding social media apps because there was no anticipation of perceived danger surrounding competition or performance.
I learned that my dependence on social media was nothing more than a bad habit because I didn’t need it in order to have a full life.
You'll actually feel a lot better about yourself when you build a life outside of social media that is meaningful, authentic, and validated by you and you alone.
I intended this break to be only for 30 days, but as it pertains to Instagram, I haven’t been back on the app since March 28. As for Twitter and YouTube, I’ll go on occasionally, but I now monitor how I feel and assess what triggers me negatively.
My advice to anyone who thinks social media may affect them in a negative way and wants to start a detox is:
- Start off small
Limit yourself to only a few hours, such as three hours a day (if you are using it for several hours a day), and then go down to only certain days a week.
I needed the full 30-day detox because my habits were becoming excessive and it worked for me.
I also worked alongside a therapist, but you can have a friend or someone you know who can keep you accountable while you do this detox.
Trust me, you’ll realize a detox is worth it once you realize how it’s impacting you.
2. Remove certain apps from your phone completely
In order to commit myself to this, I removed social media apps such as Instagram from my phone. If you are trying to detox from Instagram, you need to train yourself by not having the app so accessible to you.
If you need it for work, use it on a desktop or at least log out of the app so that if you need it on your phone, it takes more work for you to get back in. You can also dedicate certain days or weeks in a month when you use it and then commit to logging out when you are done.
But I truly recommend just removing the app from your phone completely.
3. Unfollow accounts that aren’t serving you
You aren’t under any obligation to follow everyone on social media. If you are following accounts that aren’t feeding you, you can mute or unfollow them. For your wellness, it really isn’t about how others feel about this and it’s not personal.
You need to do what’s best for your well-being.
Also, work on yourself and build your confidence so you can assess why certain accounts are triggering to you. All thoughts and feelings are not facts and social media can definitely play on our emotions and self-esteem. Address the thinking traps that are skewing your mindset around social media.
Once I started unfollowing accounts that don’t serve me, I focused on following pages that uplift me — pages focused on mental health, wellness, and inspiration.
4. Weigh the cost
Being on social media is tempting because it is now so easily accessible to so many of us. It’s also used by so many others, so it can make us believe we need it and that we are at a disadvantage if we aren’t using it.
Some of us may need it for our jobs, careers, networking, and personal interests and there’s nothing wrong with this if we monitor how we use it.
But if you don’t need it for these reasons, weigh the cost of it on your mental health.
If you constantly find that you leave apps feeling inadequate, anxious, unproductive, and even, depressed, it may be time to take a detox from social media for good.
Social media definitely has its benefits, such as networking and personal expression, but your mental health matters above all else.
Put yourself first and watch how everything falls into place.
