How I quit Social media for two years and learned "5" valuable lessons.

I did make a good decision when I quit Facebook two years ago.
At that time I wasn’t even on WhatsApp and Instagram. 
It was quite irresistible at the beginning but as a habit, I got used to it slowly.

Why I quit social media?

 I don’t like getting dependent on things and when I realized that Facebook has made me an addict, it was the only decision I wanted to make. 

But there a few more reasons that not only I but many of you can relate.

1. Wasting a lot of my valuable time on screen. 
2. Ruining my productivity. 
3. Having distracted attention all day long.

Why I didn’t control it? 

In the beginning, I also tried to control my usage over social media like many others but it didn’t work. 

And the reason behind it is, a little fascinating;
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp are designed to be addictive. 

You may not know but the Owners of these platforms spend millions of dollars researching what humans find addictive.

 
They make every possible change from time to time so that people stay on them as long as possible. 

What makes social media addictive?

There’s not 1 but many reasons that make social media so addicting.

 

- Firstly, we install these applications to use as a time pass but eventually, they get ending up as our habit. And then it becomes extremely difficult to get rid of this habit.

But how this habit is formed! 
According to Charles Duhigg, the author of “The habit”, every habit is a result of a loop.

The loop consists of cue - the trigger, routine- repetition, and the reward. 

Here, the cue is any pop-up notifications you or I get through these. Routine is a repetition of this process. And the reward is the gush of dopamine or you can say pleasure after spending time on these. 

- Secondly, when you switch to YouTube or Facebook you see a number of suggestions or recommendations of posts and videos that attract your attention. Then you end up watching more videos than you thought to.

- As dopamine is a pleasure hormone, any likes, comments or any kind of attention received by us gives a huge gush of dopamine. Which makes it even more resisting. 

 

Things I learned after quitting it

I soon realized what I was missing out after getting rid of these apps.

 
“You get to know things better when you are without them.” 

I soon felt that my decision was way too necessary at that point in time than I thought it to be. 

There’s a lot I learned during the period of my break. 

1. Social media really shrinks your thinking capacity. 
I say so because I think that nowadays people concern more about what others think of their lifestyle, background. Due to which they end up faking it 90% of the time.

 
2. There’s nothing you are missing in the absence of social media. People think that if they quit this they’ll be left behind. 
Believe me, you are only missing gossips, useless messages, fake news. 

3. To fight the urge I ended up using my time more on reading books, listening podcasts, and observing relations. I gained so much idea of the world and people through books. 

Those Facebook friends aren’t going to be there for you. So stop worrying about your followers on Instagram and start building up strong real connections. 

4. Due to no beeps of notifications, I had no distractions at all. This helped me in becoming a more focused and confident person. I did my work with full efficiency and in less time. 

5. I learned the real meaning of happiness. What we see on these platforms is faked by others. We compare ourselves with others which makes us more and more insecure. 

During my break, I made strong relations with the only people I care about through meetups and phone calls.

 

How I manage now? 

 After 2 years of break, I now feel no need for social media yet I returned to Facebook only for blogging.

 
I had learned the correct use of it so that it doesn’t affect my productivity anymore. 

Here are a few things I do that help me stay on track;

 
-Put off any notifications while doing my work. Or keeping my phone in another room. 
  
- Take out a specific time of the day for these. 

- I have even set screen time on my phone so that my app automatically shuts off after specific hours of use. 

- I even sometimes uninstall apps from my phone and use them on Pc which makes the process of using it a little bit unusual and time taking. Mobile phones are a way to easy to reach to these applications. That’s why we end up using it on repetition.

 
Though I quit social media, it’s not always necessary for you to do so. But I will always recommend to try it once if you haven’t yet and feel the change.

 
You can try it for a few days or weeks. 
I never thought to continue this for 2 years, it’s just so happened that I didn’t want to return. I felt so good. 

Still, my Instagram is uninstalled. I don’t feel the urge of using it anymore. 
I only use Facebook and WhatsApp to stay in contact with people that are important to me.