I spent 30 days with no social media.

I uninstalled every social media app off my phone for 30 days and this is what happened.

The effect of social media and short form content specifically on so many aspects of my life has been grand, from things as big as my overall productivity to little things like choosing my form of entertainment when I'm taking a break. It's always been at the back of my mind how detrimental it is to me and a fuel to my procrastination but I never did something about it. So now I have. Honestly, I thought I'd be miserable and not actually be more productive however this would turn out to just be me lying to myself and I'll quickly realize that it's quite the opposite.

Week 1

The first 7 days went by smoother than I expected. I began to notice how many times I reached for my phone during the day. I'd pick it up to get away from working, realize there's no short form entertainment to be had from it, and swiftly put it down and continue working. I was on a roll.

Only having access to books and long form content made sure that even when I'm taking a break, I wouldn't be caught in the cycle of meaningless content melting away my attention span. So, I spent the first week reading a lot more however no noticeable change in the attention I usually have for reading. This will change in the coming weeks, though.

Week 2

Beginning week 2 I was still doing great, didn't really care about what I'm missing out because realistically, it wasn't much. I also thought I'd take this challenge as an opportunity to work on new habits as well, which was successful and gave me something that will stay with me even after the challenge. This was crucial as I didn't want to forget this ever happened and go back to being who I was.

Week 3

This was when I started to feel a little bit of FOMO. I just never went off everything for this long before and I felt like I needed to know what's going on. And given that I haven't talked to some of my friends in a while, it was getting hard.

However that only lasted for a day or two when I really thought about it and realized that I really wasn't missing much. And I was actually happy that I had these feelings and fought them off which meant my mindset was changing.

Week 4

Not much to say for Week 4, I had a lot of stuff keeping me busy already so I never really felt the need to check social media in the first place. I was starting to read a lot more on average everyday which I enjoyed. However I never really know whether to attribute this consistency in reading to how good I'm finding the book I'm currently reading or to a growth in attention. Waiting to land on some mediocre books to test out this dilemma.

Conclusion

This was super fun and I recommend anyone do it. The harder you think it is, the stronger the reason is for you to actually do it. I hope to keep my social media usage to an absolute minimum now given its so much easier to control it coming out of this challenge as opposed to before. So I'll make sure I keep it that way.