What Happened When I Left Social Media For 117 Days

On May 28th, I started an experiment to leave social media for 100 days.

I’ve been off of social media for 117 days now.

I started this experiment to see how being off of social media would impact me.

​Here’s what I posted as my goodbye post on IG, my former platform of choice. (Not a link to IG, just the post and image)

Before the pause, I was on Instagram, both sharing and consuming, less than an average of an hour a day.

Given that my use was so limited, I’m kind of surprised how big the impact of leaving has been.

The most common question I get is “Can you stay off social media and still grow your business?”

My answer is YES. Social media was never a big part of how I grew my business.

In my work life, I LOVE no longer having the expectation to post. Sometimes I posted very little, but the task sat there as something I felt guilty about when I didn't do it.

I also used to run ads on Facebook and Instagram.

I never got a lot of ROI from that, and it was a huge relief take it off my plate.

As I had sensed, the other stuff I do to market my business does not mess with my attention span or suck on my soul the way posting and running ads on social media did.

What do I do to market my business?: I Write this newsletter, create my podcast, guest on other podcasts, and talk to my colleagues.

All of those things feel human paced. None of it is rushed. None of it triggers my nervous system into obsessive checking of metrics.

I’ve had more zoom chats with colleagues, and even a few in-person meetings, usually walks. That’s been meaningful and lovely.

When I ran my last estranged workshop, I emailed my colleagues and many of them helped me spread the word.

Now that I’m not flooded with input from social media, I have the energy to make more meaningful recommendations to you. I’ve started sharing recommendations and resources at the end of just about every email.

Most important, my attention span has increased. This matters to me. I'm not giving it back.

I used to keep my IG app on the 4th page of apps on my screen. I did that on purpose so that it would take an extra step to get over there.

Before the pause, whenever I had a few minutes I found my right thumb traveling over to that 4th page and then clicking on the IG app to check what reels my friends had shared with me, and to see how many likes or comments my most recent post or story had received.

Sometimes It kind of felt like my right thumb took me there without me deciding to go there.

I suppose my nervous system was expecting a little dopamine hit.

For a while after the pause began, I found myself sometimes playing the game 2048 on my phone instead. It’s a number game involving simple math and sliding numbers. It’s boring enough that I didn’t get obsessed, and I stopped wanting to play. It kind of functioned as a nicotine patch during the first month or so. It was a way to zone out now that the IG app was gone.

Then I began to zone out or just sit quietly without the impulse to grab my phone.

Now I find myself staring out the window or at one of my plants. I’m doing app-free zoning out. Like I did in the 90’s.

My nervous system is getting used to subtler rewards.

As my nervous system finds a softer, slower equilibrium, I am becoming fiercely protective of my attention span.

My ability to slow down and move through my moments and my days at a human pace is sacred to me. My capacity to feel my feelings and think my thoughts without constant input and stimulation is something I will fight for from now on.

As someone with Complex trauma, I am committed to being in choice about how I use my attention. This choice feels necessary for my healing.

I am willing to be bored and uncomfortable sometimes. I am willing to give up some of the ease and even some of the connections I lose when I stay away from social media. I’m willing to be a bit out of sync.

When someone puts their phone in my face to show me a reel or a youtube short or a tiktok now, I feel overstimulated and I want to look away. I used to be ready for another one…and another one…and just one more.

Sometimes a friend or my spouse will say “You have to see this reel!”

And I say “I’d rather not, but act it out for me! Or tell me about it.”

It’s so satisfying to watch them try to get it across to me.

Another outcome is that I’m reading a bit more.

I resonate with the author Clementine Morrigan who says “I consider reading a political act. It is an insistence on protecting our attention spans and capacity for deep, slow thought in a time when these things are under attack by capitalism.”

And let me be clear. I am no purist.

I’m still on my phone quite a lot.

I listen to about 7 hours of podcasts every week, usually while I’m cooking, driving or doing chores.

I watch Youtube sometimes. Last week I watched an hour-long video of kitchen garden tours in the U.K.

I also watched several videos about how to grow spinach in containers in San Francisco.

I use the app Marco Polo for about 6 hours every week with my best friends.

I’ve got one Marco Polo thread with 2 friends in which we show each other our gardens and indoor plants almost every day.

“Look at this new leaf!” “How do you stop bugs from eating your kale?” "Maybe try moving that plant."

And I call my spouse just about every day while we’re both at work.

I haven’t tracked it, but my guess is that I’m connecting directly with people using my phone MORE now that I don’t connect with people passively over social media.

The rewards I get from my phone are more human paced. It’s more like: Did a new episode of one of my favorite podcasts come out? Did my garden friends leave me a new Marco Polo?

These rewards leave me feeling way more chill. They happen on the scale of one-at-a-time.

And yes, perhaps that’s still a lot of phone use.

And yet just getting off of social media has given me this shift.

Do I miss social media? No.

It’s been similar to quitting smoking in my 20's or giving up alcohol 6 years ago. I crave it LESS over time.

There was a moment when I ALMOST missed Instagram: when the poet Andrea Gibson died. I heard that many people were reposting some of their most powerful work on IG. I had watched them read many of their poems there over the years.

I had a moment of wanting to be connected to that grieving with their mass of fans.

But having conversations with friends about Andrea and listening to Tig Notaro talk about being at their death bed in this episode of Handsome podcast gave me what I wanted to experience.

No. I don’t miss social media.

I feel tired when I think about the 100 hours or more of reels I would have watched over the last 117 days.

In case it wasn’t clear, I don’t have an opinion on whether you should be on social media. I’m sharing my very specific story because I value our specific lived experiences, and this is mine.

Thanks for listening to my specific experience.