In 2022 I decided to find out what life without social media would look like.
I was so tired of seeing people arguing. I had so much anxiety and I thought a lot of it was coming from social.
Disconnecting from Social Media
So I packed up my Facebook and Instagram, shut them down and decided to try life without social media. You can read this post for more details on how I left and what I’d do different this time:
How to Disconnect from Social Media
This post was written two months into quitting social media…
Here’s my summary of life after leaving Facebook & Instagram:
How Quitting Social Media Affected Family & Friends:
I do feel like I’m missing out on seeing photos of family and friends and that sucks… I don’t like that. It’s the one major con of my leaving.
I will add I DID feel quite disconnected at first but I’ve since put focus on local connections and have been having one heck of a summer so far! Friends, family, fun and lots of activity.
(The above was written July, 2022 when full off social.)
Update August 20th, 2023: After getting BACK on social media a few months I can say that this summer I was MUCH more distracted. This took away from the quality of my connections with my family, my children and myself. Reading this and comparing REALLY shows me I need to remove myself again.
Here is a photo from the summer 2022 at Niagara Falls with my Husband and Daughter:
How Quitting Social Media Affected Mental Health:
I was getting a lot of anxiety from the mindless scroll, the negative comments, the fear of judgement on my opinions, etc. I’m glad to leave that out of my life and I think it’s better for it.
And of course I also played the comparison game on social, how do you not? I would see people looking pretty or having a clean house or on a beautiful vacation and wish I had those things. Can’t do that mess if I’m not on there. 🙂
How Quitting Social Media Affected News:
I guess I was getting all of my news from Facebook because I don’t watch news on TV (we don’t even have cable) and I don’t look up news. This hasn’t affected my life in any significant way. I hear about the big things from family and friends.
How Quitting Social Media Affected Time:
I would spend a ridiculous amount of time on Facebook & Instagram. It was almost all wasted time. I have won that time back.
How Quitting Social Media Affected Productivity:
I’ve still got a phone addiction that I’m working on but while on my phone after quitting social media I would go to my email and clear out my inbox, answer emails, respond, etc. That makes me more productive doing that alone.
How Quitting Social Media Affected Morals:
I make a stand against things I don’t want to support by not supporting them. This is why I’m vegan. So if I were to continue to use Facebook (the main culprit as I see it) and also Instagram, I’d be going against my own morals to not support something I think is pretty detrimental to society. This is NOT a judgement on anyone else. I just feel good standing up for what feels right to me.
Life Without Social Media and Society Norms:
There’s this interesting thing about bucking a social norm. I did it when I became an entrepreneur, again when I became vegan and now with leaving social. People seem so surprised and sometimes their response makes me question my decision. For the most part, though, I feel just fine not doing something even if most other people are doing it.
How Quitting Social Media Affected Business:
Here’s the thing. I maybe have only made $1,000 on social media out of over $1,000,000 in sales online. The bulk of that social income was made when I purchased a site with a Facebook group of 10,000 people that I played around with promoting for a bit.
So when I decided to cut out social I was NOT cutting out an income stream. That made it a pretty easy business decision. It hasn’t affected my business in any negative way that I can tell.
How do I make money? You know it – Email Marketing.
My main method of list-building has been participating in collaboration events – mainly bundle sales & some giveaways (same thing but free). My training on that is right here.
Quitting Social Media Conclusion:
I don’t regret leaving social media AT ALL. I think it might be one of the smartest decision I’ve made in many years.
August 20th, 2023 Update on Life Without Social Media:
I returned to social media – Instagram and Facebook – about five months ago.
And I’m ready to leave, again, honestly.
While I DO greatly appreciate a few relationships I’ve built on there I don’t find that I’m wasting too much time in the feed scrolling and watching random things I don’t need to watch.
So my plan is to leave my accounts, this time, and just leave the platforms.
I’m going to do a 30-Day Social Media Detox for myself so that I can reset my need to go on there multiple times per day! It’s an unhealthy pattern I want to break.
While I didn’t leave social media totally behind, in 2021 I let Facebook go as my ‘Friends Manager’ and dropped 1600 friend connections. It’s been over a year and I have yet to regret my choice.
I didn’t always feel negatively about Facebook as a friend connection, but things slowly went from fun to stinky over the years.
It frustrated me that Facebook’s algorithms controlled my access to people. It would show me someone’s mean-spirited rant but not show me the good news someone else shared. I’d see a distant connections picture of lunch but not the announcement of a close friend’s new baby. All my efforts to manage what I saw failed to work as expected.
A year or so before that I fired Facebook as my community manager too. I dropped a 1000+ member group in favor of returning to a private forum – again because was hiding important conversations from me.. in MY OWN group?? It was crazy making.
I started a new FB group for one of my brands – it feels right for the market. We’ll see though.
I still maintain Facebook pages for my businesses and while I don’t give them a lot of time, I do keep them updated on at least a weekly basis.
Oooh, and I quite Instagram entirely – like I deleted the account and never looked back. It was a dreadful tool for my content marketing goals. (Not being able to link to content!)
I’m not down on social media, I’m just clear that it doesn’t deserve the attention it demands.
It bears noting, my business didn’t suffer for any of these decisions. My website and email list kept connections rolling.
My choices have made me more intentional about contacts and that’s a good thing.
Thanks for sharing your experiences Angela!
Thanks sooo much for sharing your experience with quitting, too, Kelly.
It’s great to hear you weren’t negatively affected business-wise. I think that’s the concern of many people right now when thinking they’d like to leave.
I started going to LinkedIn a bit more but it’s not creating any addictive type habits for me and I’m not posting much of anything at all.
I had the same frustrations as you re: Facebook. And I’ve found I’ve been having much better conversations and connections now that I’m off there, too. I think it’s been almost five months now.