Can we have a holiday from social media?
My 7-year journey without Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter
In 2017, a hacker set me free.
I opened my Mac to delete my Facebook account. I’d been entertaining purging my social media, and the recent election made Facebook the easiest first victim.
When I tried to log in, it said I changed my password a few days ago. That’s weird, I thought. It’d been weeks since I’d last visited Facebook, not days.
The backup email also changed without me knowing.
My roommate found my page. My profile picture was still the same: me laughing and wearing a tiger t-shirt with a camera hanging from my neck. But my name had changed.
Ernesto Valentin.
I spent a couple of months trying to resolve it with Facebook but they were too busy flopping in the metaverse to care about helping one person IRL.
After going through the stages of grief, I came to accept reality: I don’t own my Facebook page.
Over those months wrestling with Facebook, I went from freaked out to freed up.
With no Facebook to turn to, I reduced the noise in my life. I read less rants and wasted less time scrolling through thoughts that made me more frustrated than thankful.
I no longer carried the looming feeling of “keeping up” with hundreds of people I hadn’t talked to in years.
I felt lighter.
The feeling was so rewarding that I deleted Instagram. Well, I first purged my Instagram by unfollowing 400 of the 550 people I followed. Only one person reached out saying he was pissed and he thought we were friends. It wasn’t a big deal. I told him we hadn’t talked in five years and he was one of 400 people I unfollowed. I shortly deleted my entire Instagram.
Then I deleted Twitter. That one hurt. I loved the wit, punchy insights, and laughs on that birdfeed.
I’ve now been seven years without Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. And my only regret is that I wasn’t hacked sooner.
My life has been remarkably better without the most popular forms of social.
Sure, I have other forms of social media, with Strava and Goodreads being my favorites. But now my social apps are hyper-focused on my core passions. And I only follow people I actually know. Since these accounts combined are lower than Dunbar’s Number, I’m only given a short finite scroll of rewarding and meaningful content at a time. There’s only so much my community can run and read in a day. And it’s enough for me to thoughtfully engage with.
The benefits of a life without the most popular forms of social media are so wonderful that I wish everyone could experience them at least once. Here are just a few examples:
Managing a social brand takes up 0% of my mental real estate
I find myself consuming more content that makes me feel hopeful rather than cynical
I worry less about what people think about me
When I consume content, I’m more likely to feel thankful than FOMO
I’m less likely to distract myself when things get hard; I’m more resilient
I’m not suggesting you delete all of your social media right now. But I am saying you could benefit from a social media sabbath.
A new global holiday: Social Media Sabbath
We have holidays that encourage us to rest from work. Looking at you, Labor Day. But in an ever-growing digital economy, we need new holidays that factor in our digital lives. I’d propose the first one to be a social media sabbath.
Many of us feel more exhausted after spending time on social media than rejuvenated. The act of scrolling and “keeping up” with everything from your acquaintances’ vacations to the global news is wearing us down. It’s robbing our sleep and distorting our bodies, like our dopamine reward system.
We signed up for fun but managing our social media becomes a new form of work. A work we need rest from.
Social media only works when people are on it. Kids sign up because their friends use. They build an audience and an algorithm. And by the time they feel the pain it’s causing them, they feel like they’ve come too far to turn back. They’ve built a personal brand they don’t want to bring down in a click.
Turning back is easier when everyone has to turn back with you.
The network effect that leads to the rapid growth of social media can also be used to loosen their power over us. The more of us who step away from the platforms, the more people are incentivized to join us. Social media doesn’t work when people aren’t on it.
It’s time to turn back…at least for a day.
What would a day without social media look like?
Well, first of all, you’d realize you’re addicted.
Addiction to social looks like a strong desire for quick hits of dopamine. Restlessness. An urge to scroll so you can feel something.
It wasn’t easy for me to quit social cold turkey. I found myself scrolling through Venmo at times! (Although that is a good way to see who’s on the precipice of dating 👀)
One of the first things you’ll feel off social is the withdrawal from your addiction.
You’ll want to scroll, looking for entertainment and affirmation. And when you can’t find it on an app, you’ll arrive at stage one of social anonymous: awareness.
With your newfound awareness, you’ll have to answer Mary Oliver’s question:
“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”
You could finally get what you always crave but can’t stop scrolling through: margin. Maybe it’s only minutes. But you would have to find ways to use those minutes.
You could have time and space to return to your first loves: people, hobbies, the outdoors.
For me, it was reading. I stopped reading clickbait and started reading rich literature that left me feeling grateful, inspired, and rested.
What is it for you?
You could meditate. Or walk. Or call friends.
You could think for yourself.
You could feed your soul rather than an algorithm.
Fasting from social media for one day may not change your life. But it can show you it’s possible to say no to your appetites. It can show you that you have better yeses available. Just one day can provide some hope for change.
Your newfound margin would only be minutes here and there, but it could be an opportunity to come up from the bottomless sea of social media — to finally breathe.
Once you can breathe, you’ll find life is lighter above water. The deep sea pressures of performing and persevering would wane. When you’re in the water, it’s impossible to see the water for what it is: a weight drowning you.
There’d be no pressure to craft a digital life. And no need to persevere through another day of life hacks, unsolicited advice, and loud opinions. You could stop persevering through the noise and start resting in peace.
Once you come up for air, you can raise your eyes and see the beautiful intricacies of your life you’ve been scrolling through. The places waiting to be explored. The people waiting to be seen. And the hackers you can thank for forcing you to breathe fresh air.
✌️
— Luke
P.S. Here’s some of my favorite content from the past week
Why it helps to view your life as a surface area
Socratic salons
A comedian sits down with a trauma expert
Why buying a home may not be worth it
And a magical realism book with tiny birds
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