My best friend decided to delete his social media first (I did promise you a shoutout, Dom.) After hearing he did it, I went home and watched Youtube videos of people sharing their experiences without social media. Nearly every person I watched went on and on about the positive changes they experienced in their life. After about a week of contemplating, I decided to dive in headfirst. I quit cold turkey.

But I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t go completely off the radar. Instagram and Snapchat were deleted off my phone. I decided to keep Twitter and TikTok. Twitter, I primarily used as a way of keeping up with current events and the news. TikTok, I kept since I often get recommendations on new places to go see or things to do on there. I did, however, add a 30-minute daily time limit to TikTok through my iPhone settings.

Now that the fine print is out of the way,

Here are my takeaways:

Blog Post 04

1. 24 Hours is enough time

Perhaps the most valuable lesson learned in this little experiment was the value of my time. Money can always be earned back. Time wasted can never be recovered. So often on campus I would hear my friends and acquaintances complain that they just don’t have enough time to get what they need done. What they are most likely not considering is how social media slowly chips away at your time until a large chunk of your day suddenly “vanishes.”

Think about it. Let’s say you sit down and scroll through your feed for 10 minutes in between classes. Then another 10 minutes while waiting to meet up with a friend. Finally, another 10 minutes while eating dinner. Suddenly that’s already a half hour gone from your day without you even realizing it. The worst part being this example is on the extremely generous side. How many times have we slipped down the social media rabbit hole and what felt like 5 minutes was actually 20 minutes, 30 minutes, sometimes even an hour!

2. Not so social social media

Shortly after I deleted my apps, I quickly realized I needed to be much more conscious in maintaining the relationships in my life. I no longer knew what my friends were up to simply by checking their stories. Honestly, it was quite refreshing. When I did meet up with friends our conversations and overall interactions were significantly better.

Rather than just watching what my friends posted on their stories, I got to hear about the story from their perspective. They would get so excited and starry-eyed recounting their life experiences to me. I could see their faces light up with eagerness at the chance to tell their story to someone who had never heard it before. I was a blank canvas, and they were artists getting ready to paint me a story with way more in-depth and beautiful details than an Instagram post could ever show.

3. “Respect, dude”

When I first deleted my apps, I was concerned about how people would react when I told them that I don’t have social media. Today, it feels like everybody you meet has social media. Not having social media felt like I was going against grain. Hard. I was worried people would label me weird or honestly even see it as a red flag that I wasn’t on social media.

Funnily enough, the complete opposite ended up happening. When I told people I didn’t have social media, their reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Most people gave me a surprised look but in a pleasant way. Most people would say some sort of variance of “oh, wow, good for you” or simply say “respect” and extend their hand for a fist bump or handshake.

It seemed to me like people realized the negative effects that social media was having on them, but they still couldn’t walk away from it. It feels like today social media has such a grip over people that we tend to forget that life without it existed at one point. People’s reactions to me saying I didn’t have social media seemed to act as a reminder that life can and will continue even if you are not on it.

4. Apples to Oranges

Everybody is running their own race in life. Some people may be running a 400-meter race while others might be doing the two-mile race. If you were to compare two runners in these races strictly based on their finish times, you would be out of your mind. One is a sprinter’s competition while the other is long distance. It’s apples to oranges.

The same applies when we think someone’s life is so much better off than ours because of what we see on social media. No two people will have experienced the same exact life, under the same exact conditions, at exactly the same places. So, comparison is futile. Don’t sulk because you think that your life isn’t where it’s supposed to be because you compared yourself to everybody else. Instead, embrace your life for what it is. An unwritten story that is filled with unexpected twists and turns.

Think of it this way, if our lives played out linearly, exactly how we planned it to be, life would get quite boring, no? Nobody likes spoilers to TV shows and movies. Why would you want spoilers to your life? I’ve found that some of the best memories in life come from the unplanned, unexpected, and spontaneous decisions we make.

Run your race, at your own pace. You’ll cross the finish line at exactly the right moment.

5. Gen Z’s battle

Every generation has a defining challenge that they face. I believe overcoming the negative effects of social media will be Gen Z’s. I predict that social media will be looked back on in history in a similar light that old cigarette ads are. Back then, cigarettes and smoking were promoted in a positive manner. Doctors, celebrities, even dentists were often seen promoting tobacco products on advertisements.

Today of course, we know the dangers of smoking. Prematurely aging skin, an increased risk of developing lung cancer, gum disease, yellowing of teeth etc.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I believe, in due time, the unregulated use of social media that Gen Z experienced, especially at such a young age, will be looked back on with utter disbelief.

The Million Dollar Question

Whenever I open up to anybody about my experience with quitting social media everyone wonders the same question. Am I planning on redownloading it? Yes, in 2023 I plan on redownloading my social media. My focus will be on creating content for various pages rather than just for personal use.

However, I won’t be blindly consuming content like I had been previously. My plan is to turn off push notifications for my social media. This way, I decide when I use it rather than habitually opening the app with every notification. I will also continue to incorporate time limits on the apps through my iPhone’s settings. Social media is certainly a double-edged sword. Now that I have a better understanding of its damaging effects, my aim is to minimize them while maximizing its benefits.

If you’ve been considering quitting social media, this is your sign to do it. Whether for a day, a week, a month, or longer, I believe everyone should get to experience life without it.

Try it. Never in a million years did I think I would be able to design my own website or start a blog. Yet here we are. Imagine what you could accomplish by cutting out distractions in your own life.

- JC