I tried leaving social media (and failed )

I believe that everyone at one point in their life will try and leave social media. I mean, there are so many pros to doing so. Social media can be a huge detriment to mental health! It can take up a lot of storage on your phone! And if you’re like me and have spent a whopping 6+ hours on your phone DAILY (or more), then you know that social media can be a huge time waster. That was my main issue with it.


I wanted to utilize my time better in the new year and with mindlessly scrolling through social media taking up the majority of it, it seemed like a no brainer!


To start, I posted a message on my Snapchat story on December 31st saying that I would be leaving social media for 2021. I then gathered the phone numbers of close friends who I previously only communicated with through social media, just to be sure we could still keep in touch. And with that, I was ready to leave Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok by January 1st. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I am waaaaay more dependent on social media than I thought I was.


On January 4th (only four days later!!), I re-downloaded Snapchat and Instagram.


Something I hadn’t taken into consideration was my school work. I was in the middle of filming a documentary project for class and I had to schedule interviews with my subjects. And the main way I was communicating with them was through Instagram and Snapchat, and I didn’t have any of their phone numbers.


I knew I would have to keep Instagram and Snapchat installed until after I was done with the interviews, so I decided I would only use them to communicate with my subjects. No posting on either of them or mindlessly scrolling through feeds or stories… and oh boy did that last a whole two seconds.


While I continued not posting anything myself, I found myself scrolling through Instagram more and more. While TikTok and Twitter stayed uninstalled, I made up for the time I’d wasted on them with scrolling through Instagram’s new “Reels” feature. It wasn’t the same, but at least it filled the time.


For the three days I was off social media, I was very productive. I finally put away all my Christmas decorations and cleaned my room up from the aftermath of The Week Between Christmas Day and New Years’. But after re-downloading the apps, everything went back to being the same.


This entire experience, all four days of it, taught me that I depend on social media to connect with people. I don’t regularly check-in with old friends or classmates, I enjoy seeing what they post and knowing what they’re up to! Usually, social media is dropped because the user is using it in an unhealthy way. I don’t see myself as using social media for validation or for comparing myself to others. I use it to stay in touch with the people I care about and keep myself updated on what’s happening in their lives.


I eventually re-downloaded TikTok. Twitter will probably stay gone forever, but the other three are here to stay. I still have to work on managing my time better and not getting sucked into the time-wasting vacuum that is the Instagram explore page… but maybe that’s a problem of next New Year!


I think I’ll probably try leaving social media again another day, hopefully with better results, but until then…


Follow at @addisonleigh.l on Instagram!

Author: Addison Laird

Just a Media trying her best