I Quit Social Media 6 Years Ago, I Wasn’t Ready for What Came Next

I’ve been told I’m a unicorn: a 27-year-old with no social media accounts. I feel more like a horse that people put a horn on and say, “What? This is impossible!” Not using social media is, sadly, countercultural. But it isn’t impossible. It’s been about six years, and there’s no amount of money you could pay me to log back on.

The Initial Detox

It all began one fateful Lent in my senior year of college. Being Catholic, I follow the 40-day season of penance preceding Easter during which one chooses good habits to increase and bad ones to decrease. That year, I decided to give up social media. Now, I considered myself a low to moderate user; nonetheless, I was a regular. I checked Instagram and Facebook daily: scrolling, liking, and commenting. I had linked them to post simultaneously and would do so occasionally—neither frequently nor rarely. I figured abstaining from social media would be an annoyance but not a difficulty, and I removed the apps from my phone.

I was so clueless about the addictive hooks that were already latched onto me.

I was a few days into my penance, sitting in my dorm room, my bed covered with handouts and books as I worked on one of the many papers with an approaching deadline. I was in a productive mood when suddenly my hand picked up my phone and unlocked the screen and I found myself staring at the empty folder where my Instagram app had been. It was frightening: I hadn’t consciously registered a moment of boredom in my brain, but my body had already grabbed the app.

It was at that moment that I realized the hold social media had on me, even though I had considered myself pretty detached from it. Truly, having the accounts off my phone was the only way to avoid checking my profiles; not because the temptation would’ve been so great, but because the reflexes to pull out the apps were too quick.

Lent came and went, as did Easter, and at the end of it all, I found myself with fewer problems, fewer annoyances, and more happiness without social media. Rejoining the virtual world made me realize even more that I would rather be out of it, so I decided to wash my hands of it completely and indefinitely. From there, it was just a matter of downloading photos I wanted to save and deactivating the accounts.

If anyone is skeptical of the manipulation behind social media platforms, just try getting rid of them: It’s nearly impossible to figure out. None of the account deletion steps were intuitive or user-friendly. I searched through sidebars and scoured settings before finally seeking help from Google to find step-by-step instructions. After deactivation, Instagram and Facebook assure you that the accounts are just closed for 30 days in case you want to reactivate. During that time, you get routine emails reminding you that you can always come back.

Running From Boredom

People say they’re on social media for many reasons. What they rarely say, but what I mostly see, is its use to escape boredom. American author Walker Percy once connected our word “boredom” to the French word “bourrer,” meaning “to stuff.” Since reading that, I’ve changed how I view what I do when I’m bored. Now I see it as trying to stuff my consciousness or fill it with something.

Just as eating is a lifestyle, so is our down time. Watching absurd, stupid entertainment when we relax is like eating junk food: Is it good for you? No. But every once in a while, it can be enjoyed. Social media is like having a McDonald’s franchise in your home at your beck and call. Why go through the hassle of making a fresh meal when that’s all free and ready for the taking? Really, I don’t knock people for it; social media is designed to lure and trap you in the abyss of mindless scrolling.

Without social media, if I want to watch something pointless and inane, I need to go online and search for it. That in and of itself is usually a deterrent to choosing junk-food entertainment over the equivalent of a home-cooked meal. What I use my down time for is infinitely better than how it was when I was on social media. I read, call old friends, or spend time on hobbies.

If you’re reading this thinking that you don’t have free time to waste, that’s what I used to think too. But, since being off these platforms, I actually have more free time. Having an addictive distraction at my fingertips broke my focus and made my work duties take all the longer. Without it, I not only am more productive but also have more leisure time. Rather than parceling off any free moment to scrolling, I save it up for a bigger chunk of time.

Boredom is where ideas are born. The longer I’m off social media, the more I become an evangelist for lulls: those brief moments of quiet, of space between the tasks of daily life that are so easily snatched up by the scrolling of a phone. They’re the unsung heroes of human nature. We run from them, fight them, and fear them, but we never just accept them. In a day and age when we’re constantly pulled out of the real world and into a virtual one, lulls are moments in which you can be truly present.

A Creative Block

One of my holdups for deleting Instagram was my fear of losing all of the DIY and how-to posts I had saved. I followed art accounts and saved creative techniques and cool ideas to an Instagram folder, tucking them away for the day I would have some free time to dust off my sketch pad and pull out my pencils from beneath their cobwebs. But I never actually used those posts to make something. All that “inspo” existed only in the folder.

Instead, what I created was a vicious inner judge who compared me with what I saw online. Far from inspiring me to try new things in my hobbies, social media became a creative block. I compared my own abilities with those of people with a higher skill set and felt discouraged before I even began. Anyone who has ever tried drawing anything knows the frustration or sense of failure when it comes out nothing like you imagined. Or in my case, nothing like the perfected, filtered image I saw on my phone screen.

What I quickly forgot on social media is that I was always witnessing the final product. I didn’t see the 50 times the person attempted and failed and tried again. I didn’t see the years those people spent pursuing and practicing their hobbies. I didn’t see that all the time I spent “saving ideas” for some ambiguous future art project was time I could be spending drawing a really bad picture. Rather than constantly comparing it with somebody else’s piece, I can try again and make a picture that’s not quite as bad. Then, I hope, one day, it’ll be good.

If hard evidence were ever needed, I’ve kept sketchbooks and journals from when I was 5 until now. The only time in my life when there are large gaps in my journals or when sketchbooks were left untouched was the three years I had social media.

 Out of the Loop

Whether I agree with social media or think it’s a bad thing doesn’t change the fact that the rest of the world is on it. I can cut it out of my life, but, in a sense, I’m cutting out everyone—news sites, businesses, social circles—who’s on it. Because of that, I tend to be out of the loop. To stay up to date on news, political or social, is a choice. Short of hearing about these things in conversation, I have to seek them out. Although that has its drawbacks, I still find that the positive outweighs the negative.

Politically speaking, I’m more optimistic than I used to be about the state of the world. It isn’t because I bury my head in the sand; I read the news and listen to political commentators. But it doesn’t dominate my life. Being constantly inundated by the tragedies and horrors of the world isn’t going to change any of it. That sort of awareness only disheartens and embitters. One of Jordan Peterson’s rules for life is “Make your bed.” When I was on social media, I was too busy mourning the world’s unmade beds that I rarely got out of bed to make mine.

In my social circle, I usually hear things last. But for me, that was one of the main reasons I was so done with social media. People don’t need to know every little detail of everyone’s personal life. Social media was originally all about communication, but I found there was no genuine friendship being cultivated online. It’s more about people creating a life they want others to think they have. That sort of inauthenticity always got under my skin, and try as I might have to not be critical, it was too easy to judge on social media.

I found that social media cheapened all my real encounters with people: I already knew updates on their lives, had gotten annoyed with their virtual persona, or both. Now, I see those people at a party, not knowing what’s going on in their lives, and actually enjoy conversing with them.

Unclogging the Drain

We’re always going to have problems. Like plumbing, you can’t avoid the fact that there’s going to be junk. Getting rid of social media was like unclogging the drain for me. Once I did, I wondered how I had functioned in the first place. So many unnecessary, self-inflicted problems had come with it. Everyone has difficult people in their lives, and we all must learn to deal with them. Why on earth do we then open our phones and follow more difficult people? We all have justified concern and fear for the direction our culture is heading. Why do we regularly expose ourselves to the worst of it? Choosing good things doesn’t come naturally. Why do we make it easier to choose bad things?

We do these things because social media is blinding. Life isn’t perfect, but with social media, you can fabricate a picture-perfect life or escape for a little while. You can get your dopamine hit through instant gratification and affirmation. It’s quick, easy, and rigged to give you a sense of accomplishment.

But it isn’t real. None of it is. No matter how many times I told myself that when I used social media, I still got sucked into the virtual vacuum and compared myself and my life with other people and theirs. I carried that heavy baggage of documenting any and every enjoyable moment. Now I watch people witness the beauty of a cathedral, a piece of art, a smiling child—all through the camera lens of a smartphone—and I can’t help but wonder why we do this to ourselves. Social media is a poison of irony. We drink it, fooling ourselves into ignoring the reality we then try to virtually counterfeit.

My photo library contains horribly captured pictures, and I don’t know what’s “trending.” But my attention span is longer than ever, my nose is always in a book, I draw again, I’m so much more clear-headed, and most importantly, I’m practicing being attentive to the world, the people, and the things around me.

Life is a beautiful, wonderful gift. We don’t need to simulate it. We need to live in it.