Goodbye Socials

It is two weeks today since I deactivated my social media accounts and deleted the apps from my phone. Like most adults, I’ve deactivated them previously for various reasons (study, mental health, grumpiness), but this time has come about after much more thought and with much greater intention of either not returning to them at all, or returning in a much more restricted capacity. This is my first blog post of a few that I plan to write on this. Instead of jumping straight to the why of my boycot, I’ll start with some of the effects I’ve already felt because of my absence.

The worst things so far…

Small businesses often don’t update their opening hours or the fact that they’ll be closed one random day on Google or their websites anymore, so if you don’t have socials to follow them with, you won’t know until you’ve made the annoying 20-minute drive to a locked door. More small businesses are foregoing websites altogether, and so my road-trip plans have become more difficult to research.
The solution: The dreaded phone call! I know it seems insurmountable, but really, the more you make little phone calls to businesses to simply ask, “Hey, what time are you open til today?”, or “Are you guys open on Mondays?”, the easier it gets.

Facebook marketplace 😥 is obviously not accessible if you don’t have Facebook. This has been particularly annoying as I’ve recently moved into a new home interstate, and am hunting for cheap furniture (my beloved indoor plants have been banished to the veranda until I can find them a sideboard home with a window view).
Not having Facebook has also made it difficult to find services that otherwise I would jump onto a community page for. The other day I thought that I would do a bit of a FB search to find a surfing coach on the Sunny Coast that I might be able to travel to every other weekend. Then I remembered I’m not on FB anymore. But you know what? After a few seconds of brainstorming how else I might find a coach, I remembered that at my College orientation night, I met another student travelling down from the Sunny coast. I figured, why don’t I just ask him if he knows anyone and go from there? That’s the way people would’ve gone about that a couple of decades ago – human connection and interaction.

Toilet time… Don’t pretend you don’t simultaneously enjoy a doomscroll and a bowel movement. We’ve all done it. And without being able to scroll, my toilet time has become pretty boring. It’s a very, very, very, first-world problem.
The solution: I’ve started bringing in an entertaining book while I let nature take its course. But I’ve experimented… you don’t want to read anything emotionally charged, because it’s genuinely harder to poop when you’re stressed. Another good reason not to doomscroll. Crosswords or sudoku are also fun, depending on how much time you need (no judgies).

General scrolling has also not been available. I didn’t realise just how often I instinctively pulled out my phone as soon as I had to wait for anything. During the first week particularly, as soon as I’d placed a coffee order, or a friend left the room to do something, or I just found a car park, or sat down for a well deserved unpacking-break, the phone would magically appear in my hand and, on autopilot, my thumb would start looking for an app to open and scroll through. And honestly, it was annoying when I remembered there wasn’t anything on my phone to scratch that itch anymore. But annoying in a slight and very brief way. Eventually the coffee is ready, the friend returns, you need to get out of the car, and the next box is ready to be unpacked. By the second week, the instinct was mostly already overcome. Instead of reaching for my phone, I would start looking around at my surroundings, or make small talk with a stranger, or just get out of the car and get on with whatever I had to do.

The best things so far…

Being present in life. I’ve been going on more walks, learning how to talk to strangers again, spending more time outside, and getting small things done that I otherwise might put off for weeks or months. I take rubbish out when it needs to be taken out, do dishes when they need doing (most of the time), make orange juice (my housemate has a really satisfying juicer), and write more.

Connecting with others in-person has become easier simply by way of it becoming necessary. I touched on this above, but not being able to search the socials for information has made it necessary to ask others for information. Unless it’s questions like, “What beetle is this?”, “Will this beetle bite me?”, “Can beetles even bite?”, “Is this beetle a pest and so should be disposed of, or is this a neutral beetle and therefore allowed to live, or is this beetle a friend, and so allowed to live with a sprinkling of good-will and set free on a native flower?” Sometimes, when there are no beetle experts around, google is still a great resource. (It was a non-pest beetle and even good for pollination… also it turns out it could fly the whole time anyway, which would have been nice to know)

Much less anxiety and doom-spiralling. I’m someone who cares a whole awful lot… about truffula trees but even more about the world and the people in it. Getting a constant influx of the terrible injustices happening in America and Northern Europe, and the destruction of Indigenous cultural sites and the environment… It was all getting too much for my poor little heart. It was making me angry, resentful, and incredibly impatient and hostile towards the people around me who held different political views.
Politics is important, and knowing what’s going on in the world is too. Discussions and helpful debates are necessary (something I didn’t think was true when I was younger). But no one is helping to build bridges and unite people when they enter a discussion or debate from a place of unchecked grief in the form of hatred.
Without constant access to social media, I’m a lot less aware of all the things happening in the world, but I am a lot better for it. A LOT better for it.

Saving money. Without social media, it’s a lot harder for [evil corporations that destroy the environment and use slave labour] to fill my eyes and mind with targeted advertisements for things that look like things I really need but, it turns out, I don’t actually. Despite having ADHD, I’m not an impulsive online shopper usually (window shopping, on the other hand, is a different story). I see something, I consider it, I wait a few days or weeks to see if I forget about it or can really justify it. The problem is, the more ads you see for the same or similar products, the more you mind can justify it, even if you wait the days or weeks. I might not have actually saved money, but I’ve definitely been a lot less tempted to part with it for things that ultimately don’t matter.

Disclaimers

A few things to touch on. I’ve just moved to a new city in a new state, so I’ve been pretty preoccupied anyway. Has that had an effect on how easy being off social media has been? Maybe.
My housemate also asked me how it will be trying to make new friends in a new city without social media. I guess that’ll be something to monitor and report back on in a few months. It might be harder… but it might also be easier. Or at least, I might not make as many connections, but the connections that I do make might be of more substance. Time will tell.

I haven’t deleted everything. Things that haven’t posed problems for me, like Snapchat (ironic, because it is one of the most destructive apps for young people), I’ve kept to make it easier to stay in touch with people. I genuinely only use Snap to document funny moments from my life and send them to friends. It’s just a messaging platform for me, so it got to stay.

In terms of keeping in touch with friends from home or around the country, I haven’t yet felt the difficulty. Most friends that I’ve made a deep connection with will send me a message or voice note (I still have WhatsApp and messenger). But, I definitely will miss being able to send and receive hilarious animal videos.

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I know it’s only two weeks down, but so far being off socials has been pretty easy and I’ve really enjoyed the benefits of not having them available to me. And I’m continuing my advocating for others to, if not ditch them altogether, at least keep them at a greater distance.