Part 2: 5 Tips on Leaving Online Life// Greenville, SC // Personal Blog
“Once our basic needs are met, the way that we as humans determine what is enough is relative to the people around us. - Annie Leonard, Executive Director, Greenpeace USA”
As I mentioned in Part 1 (if you haven’t read it, you can find it here), my generation was the first to implement social media into our high school years. Social media’s tentacles became entangled in my life around the time I turned 16, and now at 30, I’m realizing the life-altering effect it has had. More than anything else, I’ve realized that my perception of need has been informed by the things and people I see on social media. I’ve unknowingly allowed this to shape my every life decision, as small as ‘what should I eat for breakfast tomorrow’ to as huge as ‘what is the meaning of my life on this earth?’ This shaping has been subtle. Like a cargo ship where the navigation is set slightly off-course. When crossing an ocean, that tiny number becomes a massive navigational error. When living life, 14 years of consuming content from tiny squares and status bars becomes a dangerously transformational tool.
Deciding to leave my personal social media accounts and redirect most of my business toward my website was a difficult decision, but I’ve found so many helpful resources as I’ve moved toward leaving! Since posting (ironically, on social media…) about leaving social media, I’ve had several people contact me and ask for info on how to do the same for themselves. I decided to keep a short, two-sentence-a-day journal of the first two weeks of social media detox, as well as a list of the things that helped me move toward leaving the socials. Below I’ve listed five of the most basic, ‘start here’ things, but if you’d like the full list of resources as well as the journal entries that documented my detox (maybe my thoughts each day will encourage you that you’re NOT alone as you walk through this journey yourself!), fill out the form at the end of this post to become a part of the Green and Grey insider community! And if you’ve decided to take embark on this journey for yourself, let me know in the comments section so I can be cheering you on!
5 Tips for Leaving Social Media for Good
and regaining time for personal, real connections
Establish your ‘why’.
This step is crucial to the success of your journey. You have to determine for YOURSELF, not for your image or your friends or your followers, why leaving a life online is important enough to take drastic steps. A few questions to consider are: Do you feel overwhelmed with having to text people back? Do you feel like you just don’t have time to read that book you’ve wanted to read or dive into that project you’ve been thinking about? Do you feel mentally tired when you go to bed, and mentally tired when you wake up? Is your phone both the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see in the morning? Do you want to leave social media but find yourself saying “I can’t leave, this is the way I keep in touch with people”?
Turn off ALL notifications outside of texts and calls.
Yes, ALL! This includes email, Facebook, messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, Pinterest, and any other form of social media/ scroll-inducing app you may have downloaded on your phone. Part of my ‘break away’ period was a detox from my phone as entertainment. I realized that my phone was meant to be a tool- one that I picked up when I needed (key word) it and didn’t touch unless I decided being on it was a need (one that helped my life be more productive).
Delete social media apps off your phone.
My biggest mindless-scroll-inducing apps were Facebook and Instagram, and when those were gone, Pinterest. I decided that, in the interest of detoxing, it would best for me to only access those websites through my computer, and only in controlled circumstances (my computer stays off until I’m ready to sit down and work, so the hassle of turning it on to access social media was a helpful deterrent).
Set up time management on your device.
Most smartphones come with a way to track your usage. I found it helpful (and enlightening) to set up boundaries within time management to keep myself from finding new apps to replace the ones I’d deleted (games, shopping apps, etc.).
Watch The Social Dilema.
I know, I know. You’ve probably seen your conservative friends or your relatives talk about this documentary on Netflix. I actually didn’t watch it for a while simply because of the hype. I didn’t have any interest in watching a sensationalized version of “the internet will kill us all”, and while there was some sensationalizing elements, the information given and the research discussed was truly enlightening. It helped me understand more about the thought process of the app developers, the purpose of social media from the creators perspective, and why the apps are still free instead of being a paid service (hint, because it’s not actually a service…but you’ll have to watch the documentary for more info).
These five tips aren’t a magical solution that will cause you to never want social media in your life again. However, taking these five steps will allow you to begin walking toward freedom from the driving need that pulls us to be obsessively involved with social media. The next blog post, launching next Sunday, will be the third and final part of “Leaving Social Media” series. I hope you’ve found these helpful! Feel free to email me at leslie@greenandgreyphoto.com if you have questions about resources or taking this step yourself.
I’ll be sending more tips to the Green and Grey community this week, so if you’d like to access those tips as well as read the 11 Day Detox Journal I wrote while starting out on my own journey, fill out the form below and join our community!