Logging Off

Posted 2025/2/4

Most people reading this are probably painfully familiar with the structure of social media today and the negative effects it has on us. Many people have lost hours of their life just constantly scrolling. A lot of content people see ends up being negative, trying to provoke a reaction out of you to increase engagement. Or maybe this content just makes up an overwhelming percentage of content made nowadays due to the constant strife and danger people face daily.

It's so exhausting. It really is. All of it. Even though I was practically raised on a social media that I can best describe as a mix of Twitter, Discord, and Tumblr (Quotev users rise up!), I've gotten to a point that mainstream social media has made me want to log off. Forever.

I've tried this in the past, around September-October of last year, but in time I came crawling back to my social medias. Despite this, I remember how good I felt when I was offline more. I had time to introspect, work on hobbies that I'd been putting off, and reconnect with some aspects of my spirituality. It was maybe the most stable, fulfilled, and alive I'd felt in my entire life.

In hindsight, I think the reason for my failure to commit was because I'd taken too many steps in too rapid succession. My brain used these things as dopamine crutches, and by taking away all of it all at once, I was unable to cope after a while. I was able to keep some habits I established during this time though, and now I want to try again.

How to Log Off

With how prevalant and even necessary social media is, it will be almost impossible to cut it out entirely. For instance I still use Instagram, but only to message one of my friends. However, in my experience, there are still things that can help you lose the desire to use them beyond what's necessary.

The first thing I would suggest is to keep a journal of some sort. My personal recommendation, and what I use, is a commonplace book. Crystal on YouTube has a lot of really good videos about commonplace books and how to keep them. I like them because aside from any rules you want to use, there really are no rules, and you don't have to stress about keeping it pretty if you don't want to. Aside from journalling, I use mine to draw in, write down thoughts or ideas I had, track my habits, set and keep track of goals, and so many other things. It's truly as versatile as you'll let it be. Crystal mentions this in one of her videos, but I do think it's important to have a physical paper book of some kind. The act of writing as opposed to typing is good for helping you feel less connected to the internet or social media, and more like your in you're own company, which is good.

I would also turn off notifications for any social medias you don't use for communication. For me, they tend to distract me, and once I check on them, I usually end up doomscrolling. I still have notifications on for Instagram and Discord so I can get dms from friends and any important updates in my schools' servers, but that's it. Many people will tell you to delete the apps entirely, but I personally feel like it's a little bit excessive. Just turning off notifications and keeping the apps out of sight works for me.

If you've been cutting your time on social media, or even if you've been trying to and failing, you've probably noticed that you've been really bored. This is good!! Many people may say you have to stay completely away from screens now, but again, I feel like that's excessive. In the beginning, what I will do is watch longform videos on YouTube, or most of the time I'll just play a game. It's helpful in my experience because it helps prevent me from going too far, too fast, but at the same time I'm engaging my mind like I would with other hobbies instead of just mindlessly doomscrolling.

One problem I had at first is, aside from gaming, I didn't really know what else to fill my time with, since I had kind of forgotten what my options were. What I did to combat this was think of all my past hobbies, as well as hobbies I wanted to get into, and put them in a list. That way, I had a list in front of me of anything I would realistically want to do, and pick whatever sounded the most fun to me in that moment.

My last piece of advice is to just sit with your boredom sometimes. Learning how to be comfortable being bored is crucial. It can lead to a lot of introspection which, in turn, can help you learn about yourself and your relationships with others and the world around you, as well as help you improve and better yourself in many aspects. It can also help you process events that you had been repressing, which will be painful at first, but it will cause you learn things from these events and help you to heal stronger than you were before.

Conclusion

I do want to say that my decision to cut social media will have no negative effect on my progress on this website- in fact, I'll probably end up working on it more!

I also apologize for my lack of consciceness and my general clumsiness with words. If anything I said or mentioned was confusing in any way, please feel free to reach out and ask for clarification!

Of course, none of these tips will work for everyone, but I implore you to apply what you know works, change what you know won't work into something that will, and for everything else, it can't hurt to try.