I Ignored Social Media For 3 Days

Jonathan W
5 min readDec 17, 2020

This was hard.

The conditions were simple. All social media platforms are illegal for 3 days. That includes Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, & any others. While I do not have personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, I do maintain a Twitter account for work. Twitter has a feature to schedule your posts, so I was able to plan ahead during this blackout period. Other than that, no social media!

I wrote about How Social Media Affects Our Health, and I wanted to remember what it felt like when I grew up without social media. I wanted to understand how my mood and habits change, and if that’s a change for the better or for the worse.

Photo by dole777.

I Drank More Water

I have a habit of taking a break for a couple of minutes throughout the day and popping into some social media platforms. It is akin to checking the refrigerator multiple times at night thinking something new and yummy will have appeared between now and 30 minutes ago when you last checked. Within an hour of this social media blackout, I knew this was a habit that had to be broken.

“The Power Of Habit” by Charles Duhigg is a great read. Duhigg explains that habits follow a three-step loop: cue, routine, and reward. The cue is a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and decide which habit to use. The routine can be physical, mental, or emotional; it can also be simple or complex. The reward tells your brain if this loop is worth remembering, and it can be of any substance from food to drugs to emotional payoffs.

The cue was to take a break from whatever I was doing. The routine was to pop into a social media platform. The reward was I felt like I’ve taken a break and ready to go back to whatever I was doing. Duhigg theorizes that to break any habit, we should not remove all three steps from our lives. That’s too hard and ineffective. Instead, just change the routine part of the habit.

Instead of popping into a social media platform every hour, I left my desk and drank water. Getting up and walking to the kitchen is exercise. Short, but exercise nonetheless. Drinking water is just plain good for you. It felt refreshing and made me more ready to go back to whatever I was doing.

Photo by Drew Beamer.

I Was More Productive

Social media is full of rabbit holes. Even though my intention was to take a break for a couple of minutes, I would spend more time than that because we read things that lead us to other things. I broke the habit by walking to the kitchen and drinking water which is a very focused task that doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes. I saved a lot of time, finished my to-do list faster, and actually found myself wondering what else I can accomplish that day.

It felt like I had more time in the day, so I found myself reading more books and dusting off my guitar. I took more walks with my partner and corgi. I researched a couple of projects that had been in the back of my mind. It was a very productive & fruitful 3 days.

This is Shoyu, our fluffy corgi and mascot of Hapinews.

I Miss Keeping Up With The World

Being productive and drinking more water are great, but I missed keeping up with the world. It felt like at the end of the 3-day social media blackout, I would come back to news of flying cars, humanoid discovery on a nearby Earth-like planet, and the next season of The Mandalorian would have been released. None of those things happened, but I did miss reading people’s commentary on the hot news for that day. I enjoy reading different perspectives and it’s difficult to get that without social media.

I Ate & Slept Better

Typically, I would be browsing social media with a bag of chips. Instead, I found myself preoccupied with other tasks so there was no need for junk foods. Not consuming social media at night also felt more stress-free. It’s necessary to read different perspectives on hot topics, but sometimes social media can be rage-inducing, which is not helpful when you’re about to sleep. When we’re younger, we used to think sleep is a punishment, but it is actually a gift. We sleep better when we’re not angry or worried.

So, What’s Next?

We are social creatures and we can benefit from social media, but moderation should be key here. Our entire day, or our lives for that matter, should not be defined by how many likes & shares we can get/give on various social media platforms. We use those platforms to keep up with news and understand different perspectives, and that only needs a small percentage of our time. Time is a finite resource that is better spent with those close to us.

This is definitely easier said than done, especially during a pandemic where we have to maintain social distancing. It is so much easier to open Twitter, scroll through your feed, post a few comments, and move on. It will take time to adjust to less social media and more genuine human interactions, so here are a few suggestions:

  1. “The Power Of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. Too much social media is a habit, so understanding the science behind habits may be helpful.
  2. Set a short time for browsing social media. The rest of your day is for more important matters.
  3. Online board games at https://tabletopia.com/. Physical board games with friends are more genuine, but this will suffice while we wait out the pandemic.
  4. When the pandemic is over, explore your local community. I used to live in San Francisco and I loved https://sf.funcheap.com/. Meeting people doesn’t have to be expensive. If there isn’t a similar service for your metro area, consider starting one!
  5. Balance your intake of news with uplifting stories. News is by-design depressing & an effective survival strategy because you want to know if there’s something bad coming your way. However, there are plenty of uplifting stories from around the world in all categories of news. Check out https://hapinews.app.

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Jonathan W
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Founder of Hapinews. Always a student