Social media is a powerful tool to stay connected, and doesn’t have to be avoided. But I believe it should be respected and used wisely.

7 months without social media and what I learnt, tread wiser, personal development, personal development blogs, travel and adventure, mindset and mentality, physical development, blogging, writing, freelancing, blog, climbing, hiking, outdoors, survival, habits, habit forming, fitness, travel, adventure, nature, conservation, wildlife. — Cable suspension bridge in Everest Region, Nepal, 2022.

Foreword

7 months without social media and what I learnt’ is a blog about my time stepping away from social media platforms to analyse if I believed in keeping social media anymore. So, from April 2022 to September 2022 I deleted my social media, no Instagram or Facebook. I already didn’t have Snapchat, Tik-Tok or any other platforms.

If we spend just 1 hour per day, of 16 waking hours we get per day on social media; then social media is 1/16^th of our entire life. 1/16^th of all we do. Put differently if you live to 80 years old, 5 of those years will have been spent on social media. Consider that.

Why did I delete them?

I deleted social media not because of an addiction but because I had the sudden thought that ‘this is not serving me anymore’.

In 2022 I was doing a year sober, had gone back to college and been trying to follow my passions more privately. I was seeking to maximise my personal productivity and I wanted to see things for how they truly are; I wanted to respect the elements of my life. If you quit drinking alcohol (as I did) you come to respect alcohol more, because you can take a step back and observe it from the outside. You see how alcohol was impacting your life with a more neutral and objective lens. Leaving social media is the exact same.

Stop and ask yourself, does social media bring me joy? Does it leave me feeling more educated or more informed when I use it? Does it add value to my life or help me to increase my finances? If you answered no to all those things, then why are you using it?

I didn’t feel like I had anything important to say or share on social media, therefore any time I spent on social media was me just following the lives of others.

Here’s what changed when I deleted social media.

The good things:

1. I got more work done as my focus was not broken.

During my 7 months without social media I learnt to focus more because my focus was not being broken constantly. When I worked I would sit down with my tea, some water, a light snack and get the work done. This greatly affected how much work and study I was able to achieve.

2. I had more time in the mornings and evenings

Without social media I had more time in the morning and evening. I noticed these changes considerably. I you give yourself 45 minutes in the morning to get ready, showered, dressed and lunch packed before work; than just 10 minutes of that time spent on social media will mean you are forced to rush. The exact same happened in the evenings, I had more time for tasks.

3. I read more books

Without social media I had more time, which I used to read more books. I read classics and novels I had been wanting to get-to for a long time. In 7 months I read 8 books. You can find them on this blog by searching “book review” on the homepage.

4. I wasn’t caught up in current social angst or trends

During my 7 months without social media I sometimes felt a little ‘under a rock’ but in a good way. There seemed every week to be a new reason people were angry or upset. “The government did this” or “The news told me that”. When the world becomes connected through social media you now consume the social angst not just of your own country, but you are being exposed to the outrage of people across the world. That can be exhausting. I value staying informed, but if that information is just leaving you with a negative brooding feeling and you’re not acting on it, then it is damaging. Right when you feel like you have grasped a concept or it has been ‘solved’ another negative trend arises in its place. So the negativity cycle continues.

5. No doom-scrolling.

Scrolling social media and seeing only negativity is described as ‘doomscrolling’ by Aussies.

Closely related to the point above, without social media I was not being exposed to the internet gurus, the false prophets, doomsday merchants, get-rich-quick schemes, the political turmoil, the human rights abuses or countless other issues which seemed to bombard my socials. I had NONE of it. Which meant that I could stay longer in periods of deep thought and happy thought as I these moments were not interrupted by opening my phone.

The not so good things:

1. I read more news and finance reports

Without social media I still had an inquisitiveness to know what was happening in the world around me. So, every couple of days I would check the Australian Broadcast Channel (ABC) which is a publicly funded channel and a trusted broadcaster for updates on politics and finance. Like-wise I would use australianbusinessnews.com.au to read about current start-ups and market reports. This meant I had replaced some of my social media use with news consumption, but for me that was OK.

2. I missed important dates

The reason I got back social media was when I realised I had missed a mates engagement. He had posted about it on social media and I had literally no idea. It made me realise in-that-moment that social media is also a tool for connectivity. We can share our greatest moments with friends and family in one small photo, we can share our thoughts and feelings with a post. I like being able to see incredible photos of my friends kicking goals, getting married, buying houses or living-out their dreams. I want to see that. We can laugh and enjoy and cherish moments by capturing them through social media. It’s entirely up to YOU how you choose to use it.

Afterword

Social media use is about conscious use. Set yourself a daily time limit with social media or try and establish your reason for using social media. If your reason to use social media is to grow your audience or to grow your business, then you now have parameters which help you keep focused and not waste time scrolling. As long as social media exists there will be a seemingly endless roll of media to consume, so try and be wise about how you consume it. It can be an amazing tool to keep in touch with friends and family across the world and for that reason I now have it again.

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These blogs are aimed at helping readers through their personal development journey by expanding their comfort zones and positively improve quality of life through a growth mindset. Blog topics may include travel and adventure, mindset and mentality, or physical development.

7 months without social media and what I learnt