Deleting All of My Social Media For a Month

If you told me three months ago that I was going to delete all of my social media for a month, I would’ve laughed and said, “Absolutely not. Never.” I love scrolling through Tik Tok for hours in my bed, posting every thought that comes into my mind on my private story, and liking every post on my Instagram feed. 

I’m not going to say that deleting everything for a month drastically changed my life, but it did improve it in many ways. I still love doing the things I once did, but I find myself less tied down to my once set daily routine of hours of scrolling. 

I know what you’re thinking: I could NEVER delete social media. All of the posts I would miss and the FOMO would be unimaginable, but here are the things I learned, and maybe you would learn some new things as well if you gave it a try. 

Snapchat is the easiest form of communication. 

My best friend told me this before I even deleted the app, but I never understood what she meant until I didn’t have it for a month. It was crazy to me how so many people that I used to consider my close friends didn’t reach out when I wasn’t on Snapchat. It goes both ways, too. I learned to be a better friend because I was forced to text or call to stay in touch. It’s easy to send a picture of your face; it’s not easy, however, to remember to ask about their day when their private story doesn’t tell you that they’re struggling. I found myself having more meaningful conversations with people I cared about because you can’t rely on just a picture to keep the conversation going. Now that I’ve re-downloaded Snapchat, it’s not the main way I talk to my friends anymore. These relationships feel so much more worthwhile to me when I’m not relying on an app to keep them going. 

I like to…read? 

Deleting social media forced me to actually get up in the morning and do something. I’m a girl who is used to an hour of scrolling, but I didn’t have that luxury anymore. I also wasn’t spending my free time on social media. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to do at first. I had lost my love for a lot of my hobbies a long time ago, and even when I did do something out of the ordinary, most of the time it was just to post it on my Snapchat story (which kills me to admit). I had to figure out what I liked doing when I wasn’t motivated by the idea of posting about it. I started by going back to things I used to like doing and started reading again. I found myself in Barnes & Noble for HOURS and even then, I would have to settle on three books because I just couldn’t decide on one. This was during break of course, but still, I never would’ve spent that much time in a bookstore before. I tried hiking. I even tried running. Deleting social media pushed me out of my comfort zone of normalcy, and even though I’m a person who hates discomfort, I’m so grateful for that time. I figured out that I actually COULD do life without social media. I could still find hobbies, and I do have things I care about when I’m not posting. 

My hometown isn’t so bad. 

You know those people who ABSOLUTELY love their hometown? They get homesick. They miss that one sushi restaurant. They miss their hometown friends. That has never been me. Unlike others, I dread going back to my hometown for every single break. For this past break especially, I wasn’t ready to face the boring time that was ahead of me. Something I realized though, when I was home without social media, was that it wasn’t so bad when I wasn’t comparing my break to everyone else. I started to embrace the slow paced lifestyle of my hometown. Waking up, going to the gym, and getting Starbucks was the most exciting part of my day, and that started to be perfectly okay for me. Life didn’t have to be so fast or exhilarating. It could just be simple, and I was finally satisfied with that. 

Although I re-downloaded all of my social media last month, it didn’t erase what I learned when I didn’t have it. I’m so grateful for all of the lessons I learned from doing something that took a lot of debate. Maybe it’s not deleting social media, but what’s something you could do that would help you learn and grow? We at The Edge suggest giving it a try.