Pulling the Plug on Your Social Media Addiction

Social media is the most transformative technology in the past 100 years.

With social media, we have the ability to hear the intimate thoughts from someone halfway across the globe, turn ourselves into mini-celebrities, and do “social spying” on frenemies.

Social media is great. I think it is a good tool.

But with technology this powerful, there are inevitably drawbacks.

Over the past couple of years, various thinkers and thought leaders have turned an inquisitive eye towards social media and what it is doing to people on both a macro and micro scale.

Now, many people are asking the question(s) whether out loud or to themselves:

Do I have a problem with social media?

Even further, many people think about quitting social media.

For most people, taking a good social media detox and time away would do them a world of good.

I’ve come up with various reasons why you should think about quitting social media or drastically reduce your time on it.

Some of these will be rooted in fact-based research while others take a more philosophical slant.

As a disclosure, I will admit that I personally am biased because I understand the tangible effects prolonged social media use has on a person’s personality and outlook on life.

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Social Media vs. “Social Media”: Same Difference?

Social media has existed since the Internet was first created.

This is because humans have an innate desire to connect.

Chatrooms, message boards, and various profiles were the earliest forms of “social media”.

As a teen, I frequented message boards and forums for my interests and used AOL instant messenger to connect with friends.

I never got into MySpace and I was late on the Facebook wave.

Shortly after using Facebook, I knew it was very different than anything I used before. It was very…”sticky”.

In 2012, I discovered Instagram – a platform that was great because I’m a photographer and I found it superior to Flickr (and easier to use).

Soon thereafter, that got transformed radically, especially after Facebook bought Instagram. It’s no longer just a photo sharing app, I’ll tell you that.

Turning back to the main point of this section, I’ll say that a lot of social media platforms as of current day take more than they give due to our attention economy.

I’ll define social media like this:

Any platform that takes advantage of human psychology with the intent to keep the user on as long as possible.

Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest are the usual culprits. Even YouTube can be included in this definition. I also include dating apps like Tinder or Bumble as well.

I don’t consider Reddit or traditional forums eligible for this definition.

6 Unintended Side Effects that Arise From A Social Media Addiction

If you use social media to a large degree, you will inevitably develop some sort of addiction to it. It is almost guaranteed.

This happens because of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for wanting, craving, and anticipation. It is responsible for motivation.

Social media releases a good amount of dopamine because dopamine is released in response to novelty. Likes, comments, etc. create an endless loop of novelty.

Over time, high stimulus creates lower dopamine receptor availability which is linked to depression, anxiety, worsened cognitive function, among other psychological problems.

The average time spent on social media is over 2 hours a day, which can easily and inevitably escalate as time progresses.

1. You will become a consumer

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In the past, if you wanted to have access to “the lifestyles of rich and famous”, you needed to watch TV or open a tabloid.

Now, all you have to do is open Instagram and scroll through the “explore” tab.

People will only show their wins on social media.

They’ll only show the vacations. The nice car. The awesome house. The stunning girlfriend.

You will then feel like you also have to have these things. So what do you do unconsciously?

Buy a bigger house, a bigger car, find a better girlfriend. All of these things turn the wheel of consumerism even further.

It is a never-ending game of “status acquisition”, one in which everyone loses (except the advertisers).

Could this status-based gluttonous consumption ever-present on social media be part of the reason why Americans are in record levels of debt?

2. You will get exposed to unwanted influences

It’s no surprise that there’s some pretty shady stuff on the Internet.

For the majority of human civilization, it was very easy to avoid “triggering material”. Now, this material is brought right to your front doorstep.

The more time you spend browsing social media, the higher chance you have coming across this type of material. It’s just a process of elimination.

Put enough monkeys in a room on a typewriter, one day they’ll come up with English poetry. Except, these aren’t Shakespearean sonnets you’ll be coming across.

Instead, you’ll come across clickbait gossip.

Half-truths and outright lies regarding politics posted by anyone who has a Twitter or Instagram account.

A disturbing amount of Instagram is some version of softcore pornography.

You may start taking in unwanted viewpoints (or “talking points”) that you see people parrot on social media. As a result, you will have thoughts that aren’t even your own and start believing things that deep down you know you don’t believe in!

Social media can expose you to a lot of good things but it very quickly can expose you to a lot of bad things, many of which you weren’t even looking for.

3. Social media addiction will shatter your focus

“The urge to check Twitter or refresh Reddit becomes a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence necessary for an intentional life.” – Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

The modern era is the only time in history where it is possible to spend your entire life in a state of some sort of distraction.

Before smartphones and the Internet, many people had vast periods of uninterrupted silence. This created time to think, plan, and contemplate.

You don’t train yourself to go DEEP on things and as a result – you have a whole bunch of half-done things but nothing really of value.

In his book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport explains how human beings need long periods of uninterrupted time to produce valuable things and create a good backdrop for a meaningful life. He calls the absence of this “solitude deprivation” which he views as mainly responsible for the skyrocketing amount of mental health disorders in modern society.

He also has an excellent book called Deep Work explaining this concept in further detail.

4. Social media takes up a lot of (free) time

It is no secret that if you are doing one thing, you cannot be doing something else.

Due to the inherently addictive nature of many social media, many people are spending an average of 2 hours a day on various social media platforms.

The average (healthy) human is awake for 16 hours. At least 8 of those hours are consumed by work (for the majority of people) at least 5 days a week. Some of those are spent in commutes, at the store, at the gym, eating, or doing various other functions that help a human being live.

All combined, let’s say that’s 3 hours a day.

Five hours are then left to do other things, 2 of which are consumed by social media. That then leaves 3. Well, you’ve gotta watch that TV show or catch up on this or that.

You can see how your already limited time is capitalized by various things…and using social media for long periods of time is not a good use of that time.

When I think about the amount of time that I personally spent on social media just screwing around, it disheartens me to know that time is lost to the abyss and will never come back.

5. Social media addiction atrophies real-life social skills

social media addiction, social media and social skills, quitting social media

A majority of the millennial generation entered puberty at time when the Internet was still ramping up and the smartphone was a daydream.

There is an entire generation that has had their teenage experience sculpted by smartphones, 24/7 Internet access, and social media. They’re called “iGen” or most commonly, Gen Z. These are people born after 1996 (though the definition is changing).

This generation is experiencing the “safety” of connecting with other people behind screens at a time when their brain development is at it’s most sensitive. This is meant for connecting with other people in real life, especially those of the opposite sex or various romantic interests.

Many teens are not learning basic life skills such as learning to how to overcome rejection, how to focus intently, and how to navigate the layers of verbal and nonverbal dynamics inherent in human life.

Since you become what you practice, many teenagers are practicing becoming people who cannot handle adversity.

There’s a whole world out there to explore and that exploration won’t happen on social media or behind a screen.

6. Social media addiction turns you into a spectator

This is related to the previous point, but it deserves a point of its own.

Life is a series of activity and passivity. The latter is used to gather information while the former is used to apply it.

This comes from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who would spend time scanning the horizon for threats and opportunities (passive) and act appropriately from that information (activity). Without this ability, the human race would have gone extinct many years ago.

Today, we live in a time with limited threats and low-hanging opportunity everywhere, so it is very easy to remain in a state of passivity.

Since you become what you practice over time, what do you think you’re practicing when you’re just scrooollllllllling down the news feed of Facebook and Instagram, swiping right on Tinder, or just endlessly browsing the Internet? You’re training yourself to observe and become passive.

You are literally becoming a voyeur. Just watching people live their lives. It’s always other people doing things and not you.

It’s always other people going to the parties, not you. It’s always other people doing the traveling, not you. It’s always other people having the sex, not you.

What does this do to someone’s mental state over the long run?

How to Break and Reduce Your Addiction to Social Media

I don’t expect everyone reading this to go out and quit social media. I myself use social media, although very sparingly and only for business purposes (hello, Twitter).

If you are going to reduce your time on it, here are the steps you need to take in order to keep it from crowding out your life.

1. Get On the Dopamine Detox

In the past couple of years, many people in various self-improvement niches have been calling for and pushing for a concept known as the “dopamine detox” or “dopamine fast”. This is a mode and state of being where you limit or completely eliminate sources that stimulate an unnatural dopamine response.

Of course, this is a lot of things that involve the Internet in some way such as social media, gaming, or mindless Internet browsing. The real purpose of this is to get you motivated and get you hooked on things that don’t involve unnecessary stimulation. This is how people in the past lived and how they were motivated to do things in the real world. People today might find it unnecessary (or even torturous) and just will not do it.

But if you want to quit or reduce your social media use, it’s necessary.

I wrote a deep dive on this. Check out Dopamine Detox: An Essential Neural Reset for the Modern World.

2. Uninstall All Apps on Your Phone and/or Block the Internet

The best way to stop a habit is to increase the space between you and the habit. This means removing the apps from your phone.

Given that most adults spend a majority of their waking hours staring at a screen, a little less screen time won’t hurt.

One great way to do that is to invest in an Internet blocker.

If you need help with Internet monitoring, Freedom is a great choice for anyone who seriously wants to increase their productivity and peace of mind. Right now, they’re offering a 25% discount on their yearly and lifetime plans, so now is a great time to join if you haven’t already.

3. Download/Delete All Your Data

Since most social media companies have proven that they are relatively careless with sensitive data, it’s better off in your hands than theirs.

If you are going to quit social media for good, then take the time to delete every shred of your existence on these platforms.

Some platforms like Facebook make it purposefully difficult to do so in order to keep people stuck on social media.

4. Get rid of “FOMO”

The fear of missing out or “FOMO” is what prevents a lot of people from giving up social media. They feel as if they’re going to miss out on some type of activity of event because they’re not on social media. Even worse, they have to know what everyone is doing ALL. THE. TIME.

But guess what? You can only be in one place at one time and and doing one thing at a time. That’s how it’s been since the beginning of human history and that’s how it is today.

People who are wrapped up in social media cannot see this fact and try to do everything, as a result – they do nothing.

5. Rewire and reclaim your brain from social media

Many people have brains that are addicted to social media, Internet, and various other addictions. Because of the pleasurable sensation of being on social media, many people have outsourced their motivation to social media platforms.

What you need to do is overall shift the baseline of stimulation you receive from these platforms. That requires time away from them.

This is the essence of the dopamine detox.

6. Fill the void with something else

The last one and the most important one…focus on filling the space that was left behind when you reduced your time on social media or quit it outright.

You will find that you have massive gaps of free time in your day and that space needs to be filled. There are no vacuums in nature. If you don’t fill it with productive activities, you will find yourself wasting time in another area or just going back to your social media addiction altogether.

What are some activities you can do?

  • Physical activity (running, swimming, hiking)
  • Starting new hobbies
  • Running a business
  • Starting a website (like this one!)
  • Getting a new skill (like coding or playing guitar)
  • Making new friends (try Meetup for a start!)

So many things you can do other than waste your time on social media, the list is endless.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

An addiction to social media will not disappear overnight. It is gradually reduced until you find yourself not needing it anymore. That’s what happened to me. I used to be absolutely addicted to Instagram until I was able to cut myself off from it and I did it cold turkey. That’s how it is with any addiction.

The initial month of quitting social media will be incredibly excruciating. Your brain will revolt and it will punish you and it will want to get that fix, that hit – of dopamine. But you have to resist it and just push through the initial month and gain the clarity that comes with this process of reducing your time on social media.

Try this all out for 30 days and then see if it works for you. If it doesn’t, you may not have been addicted – but at least you saved some time.

Have you quit social media or overcome a social media addiction? If so, how’s it been for you? Let me know in the comments.

One Response to “Pulling the Plug on Your Social Media Addiction

  • Interesting piece. We have been turned into zombies by social media!

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