My Social Media Diet

Two weeks ago, I decided to do something I never thought possible...

Since 2006, I have been what some would consider a power user of social media. I was one of the first 100,000 accounts created on Twitter. I was a super early adopter of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and more recently Threads and BlueSky. To say that I’ve spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of these platforms would be an understatement.

It’s benefitted me in so many ways. I have made lifelong friends, driven new business to our company, and became enough of an expert on social media strategy to be able to provide solid advice to our clients and also teach others.

Social media has changed SO much over time. Back in the day, we were there to hang out with our friends. Soon, we realized the potential for promotion and marketing on social. We rode that wave for a long, long time. We learned how to work with the algorithms. We even paid to play sometimes by boosting our posts and sites. It was all a tonne of fun and boy, did we learn a lot!

These days, many of the things we were doing back in the old days still hold true. The strategies have evolved over time, and ultimately, social media is still a place to connect and share with others.

But social media has also become a more unhealthy place. The proliferation of false information, political content and even hate has made social media into a mishmash of content, and the companies that run the sites have done a lot to ensure that users get sucked into these sites and stay there. The cost of using these mostly “free” platforms? Our attention.

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I noticed that despite my better interests, I had gone from a power user of social media to someone who was drinking from the fire hose of multiple feeds of information daily. The time I was spending flipping from tool to tool on my phone, checking for the latest info was growing, and not in a healthy way. It was making me concerned, anxious and grumpy.

So I decided to put a stop to it.

It took me a while to figure out the best way to do this. Deleting all my accounts wasn’t really feasible, as I do need to be able to access social media for work. I needed to find a way to limit my exposure while still having the option to pop in when I needed to. So I decided to go on a diet, rather than eliminate social altogether.

My solution was to remove social media apps from my phone’s home screen since that’s where I was going most of the time to check socials. I took a big breath, and removed them all in one fell swoop. My new rule is that I only check social media on my laptop…that’s it.

The instant they were no longer on my home screen, it’s like a switch went off in my head. While I’d been concerned that I’d have severe FOMO by not having instant access to my fire hose all day every day, it actually was the opposite!

I felt free, and this freedom has persisted for the past two weeks. Now, I maybe check in on my personal social media once every couple of days. People can still reach me via text and Messenger, and that’s fine by me.

Have I missed out? Maybe on a couple of things, but I am able to catch up pretty quickly if I need to.

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How Things Have Changed Since I Started My Social Media Diet

• I am less anxious. I have been dealing with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) for many years, and in recent years, for personal and pandemic-related reasons, it has become worse. I have the right combo of meds and therapy now and it’s made a huge difference, but I noticed that when I was drinking from the social media firehose my anxiety would creep back in. Since the diet started, I am WAY less anxious on a daily basis.

• I have been reading more. My Kindle app has been getting a real workout lately, and I have been much more mindful of the online sources I’m consuming. I use the Newsify app to subscribe to relevant blogs and news sources, and I feel like I have a lot more control over what I see in my stream. I am no longer beholden to what the algorithm is serving up.

• I am writing more. I have re-launched my blog here on Substack, and I intend to do a lot more writing here. My blog sat dormant for a long time but I’m back, baby!

• I am making meaningful connections. I am still connecting with others, but doing it through messaging instead of social media means I am making deeper connections with the people that really matter to me. This is all good!

• I am not doomscrolling. I’m no longer getting sucked into ridiculous debates with strangers. I am not refreshing my feeds to see the latest news on the Orange Dumbo or anything else for that matter. It is refreshing.

At first, I thought I might just do this for a while, then re-install my apps. But I really don’t think I’m going to. I feel just as connected as before but my mental health, creative health and the amount of time I have, have all improved greatly, in just two weeks.

5 stars. Highly recommend.