What Happened After I Deleted Social Media Apps

On my birthday this year, I had one of those path-altering thoughts that tends to pop into your mind at random.

It was something I had been circling a bit, but it wasn't dramatic and definitely wasn't part of some organized, thought-out productivity experiment. It simply floated to the surface one morning while I was thinking about my life, my attention, and where all of my energy had been going.

What if I just deleted the apps off my phone?

Not my accounts. I wasn’t trying to disappear from the internet or make some grand statement about social media. I just wanted to make it slightly less convenient to reach for my phone and doomscroll every time there was a quiet moment.

So on my birthday, I felt the sentimental urge to go for it and I did it.

Instagram, TikTok and Reddit (and later Facebook) disappeared from my phone. I didn’t give myself a timeline, and I didn’t have much of a plan beyond being curious about what might happen.

At first, I assumed I would miss them. I imagined I might feel disconnected, left out of conversations or suddenly unaware of everything happening online. Instead, what surprised me most was how quickly I noticed just how automatic the habit had become.

Every small pocket of waiting had turned into scrolling.

Standing in line. Waiting for the kettle to boil. Sitting in the car for a minute before going inside. Nursing one of my littles in the middle of the night.

If there were even thirty seconds of stillness, my hand would instinctively reach for my phone before I had consciously decided to pick it up. It had become such a normal part of my day that I don’t think I realized how often I was doing it until it was no longer an easy option.

I also don’t remember and of my scroll sessions with those apps leaving me feeling particularly good.

Of course, sometimes I found something funny, interesting or inspiring, or would connect with long distance friends. Sometimes I stumbled across someone whose work genuinely inspired me. More often than not, though, I would close my phone feeling slightly noisier and more overstimulated than I had before opening it.

It felt as though I had invited hundreds of different thoughts, opinions, lives, worries and desires into my mind before I had even taken a proper moment to check in with my own.

It made me wonder whether our brains were ever really meant to carry that much information about that many people all at once.

Becoming a parent has changed the way I think about my own brain. If I learned that one of my boys’ brains worked a certain way, I wouldn’t judge him for it or expect him to simply push through an environment that constantly overwhelmed him. I would try to support him. I would pay attention to what helped him feel calm, regulated and more like himself.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I could probably offer myself some of that same grace.

The more I learn about my own nervous system, the more I understand that constant input simply doesn’t feel good for me. After a certain point, it doesn’t make me feel informed or connected. It makes me feel scattered.

One thing I’ve noticed since stepping away is how different short-form content feels compared to long-form content.

Scrolling can feel a little like pulling the lever on a slot machine. Most posts pass by without leaving much of an impression, but every so often one makes you laugh, another makes you angry, one makes you compare your life to someone else’s, and the next suddenly inspires you to change everything.

Before you know it, your brain has travelled through a dozen different emotions in the span of five minutes.

It isn’t that any individual post is necessarily bad. It was the pace of it all that had started to feel overwhelming; the constant switching, and the never knowing what feeling, opinion, tragedy, advertisement or perfectly filtered face or curated kitchen was going to appear next.

I also realized that, somewhere along the way, I had become very good at filling every uncomfortable or uneventful moment.

Bored? Scroll.

Waiting? Scroll.

Feeling uncertain, lonely, restless or awkward? Scroll.

There was hardly any space left for my own thoughts because every quiet moment was immediately occupied by someone else’s.

Instagram, in particular, had started making me feel like I wasn’t enough.

Not because anyone on the app was necessarily doing anything wrong, but because of what happened inside of me when I opened it. I would see beautiful homes, beautiful wardrobes, beautiful routines, beautiful women and beautiful lives.

Even though I knew, logically, that I was looking at carefully selected snapshots, there was still a quiet voice somewhere inside of me wondering why I couldn’t seem to make everything look that put together. Why I couldn't be that polished and on it.

It wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility to fix that feeling for me. But I also realized I didn’t have to keep placing myself in an environment that consistently brought it out.

There was another layer to it as a creator too.

Instagram often felt as though it wanted the prettiest, most condensed version of everything: a perfect image, a clever caption, a moment packaged neatly enough to hold someone’s attention for a few seconds.

YouTube and writing have always felt different to me.

It feels more like sitting down with a coffee and having an actual conversation. There is room to wander, explain, change your mind and leave in the imperfect parts. It feels slower and more human. It has always felt the most like home.

I began noticing that I was pouring so much energy into trying to exist everywhere that I wasn’t giving enough of myself to the place where I actually wanted to be. Instead of expanding my creativity, I was scattering it across too many platforms, formats and expectations.

The biggest surprise in all of this is that I don’t really miss the apps.

I thought I would constantly wonder what everyone was doing. I thought I might feel left out or worry that I was falling behind. Instead, my days have simply felt quieter.

I’ve started watching more long-form YouTube again. I’ve started leaving my phone upstairs while I’m with my kids. Sometimes when I’m feeding one of them, I simply sit there and look at him instead of looking down at a screen.

Those moments feel so ordinary and small, but they add up to a life.

I don’t think social media is evil, and I definitely don’t think everyone needs to delete it. I still love the internet. I love storytelling, learning from people and discovering creators whose work helps me see the world differently.

But this season has made me ask an important question in today's age...

What deserves access to my attention?

Attention feels like one of the most valuable things we have, and for a long time I was handing mine away without even noticing.

Deleting the apps didn’t magically fix my life or turn me into a perfectly present person. I still pick up my phone. I still get distracted. I still avoid things sometimes.

But it removed one very constant source of noise.

It reminded me what boredom feels like. It reminded me what it feels like to allow a thought to finish before replacing it with someone else’s. It reminded me that inspiration can come from actually living my life instead of endlessly watching other people live theirs. More than anything, it reminded me that presence is something we sometimes have to protect.

Maybe I’ll download the apps again one day. Maybe I won’t. I honestly don’t know, and I’m not particularly interested in making forever decisions anymore.

I’m simply paying attention to what helps me feel more like myself in this season.

Right now, having fewer portals open has made me feel more present; as a creator, as a mother and simply as a person trying to move through her life a little more intentionally.