2 Years Without Social Media

I procrastinated so hard to write "a year without social media" that another year has passed 🤪

Quitting social media isn't a unique experience or even uncommon at this point. Several posts and videos document the experience, and I don't know if any of what I say will be new. However, my account isn't documented yet and hence it is different enough. Nothing is unique and everything is unique, after all.

After a long time of collecting random thoughts in my notes app, I'm finally here to talk about it. So, grab a cup of your favourite drink, and join me on the (virtual) couch. This is going to be a huge life update chat ☕️

before i quit social media

I was quite active on it. Since I started using social media (at least a decade ago), there have been ups and downs in my usage but the few years before I quit were the heaviest. I had a bookstagram account, I briefly had a bullet journal feature account that reached 180k followers, and I was super active on Twitter.

In the year or two before I quit, my usage started going down because it wasn't fun anymore. I abandoned my bullet journal account, I stopped posting as much on bookstagram, and my Twitter account slowed down as well. I was still there, posting random updates and things on my mind, but I wasn't "creating content". I was just posting random things.

I mainly used social media to promote my blog. Since blog readers are rare, not many read or follow blogs. Everyone's on the short-form content trend. However, whenever I share my blog posts on social media, I notice a few people coming through to read the long post. The number is so small that it'll barely register in any scale but it makes a difference to me.

My personal account was pretty much dead for a year or so. I stopped posting on it completely. I was annoyed by random people who messaged on there for no reason so I stopped being active. I wouldn't even log in often, logging in only once in a few weeks. If I went out with friends who posted photos or videos of us would I log in to quickly reshare to my stories, so that it's saved in my archive, and log out.

Although I hated ads, I can't deny that Instagram's ads were on-point. It introduced me to things that have become staples in my wardrobe and seemingly knew me comprehensively. Many small brands flourish because of Instagram and I benefited from niche products that suited my needs.

I was quite reliant on social media for news. Although there's a lot of noise and misinformation, it's also much quicker to find information on those platforms simply because everyone's on it often. I was especially reliant on Twitter for this. I'd specifically look for posts by people on the ground if it wasn't already shown to me.

when & why did i quit social media

Firstly, I'm not a stranger to quitting apps. The first social app that I quit was WhatsApp in 12th grade. I've had a phone since 8th grade but didn't have much on it and was blissfully enjoying life. I had managed to not install WhatsApp for a good while even thought most people around me were using it. I finally had to install it because I was part of a chemitry tuition class and the teacher used to send notes and updates on a WhatsApp group.

WhatsApp was new and interesting but I hated it because it made me so available to people, even those I didn't like or wasn't close to. I couldn't avoid it, though, because it quickly took over as THE form of communication in daily life. My classes in college has a group chat through which we exchanged a lot of information, all of my friends made group chats, and soon all important conversation was going through it.

I still had times of peace because I uninstalled WhatsApp during the holidays between semesters but it was only for a couple of weeks or so. Unfortunately, WhatsApp was how I'd find out when college would begin, when I had to pay the fees, and so on.

I quit Instagram and Twitter a couple of times—one of them, I deleted my accounts entirely—but came back mainly to have blogging accounts. It seemed like social media was necessary to connect with people beyond comment sections. I made many friends and hosted many social events.

After college ended, the pandemic hit and my reliance on social media grew. Instead of gradually learning to not be around friends 6 days a week, I was suddenly not around anyone. My college group is fairly large and talkative so I wasn't alone in feeling the need for connection. We spent a lot of time on Discord, I arranged evening tea time video calls, and we texted a lot. That texting habit is still there, happening in flurries whenever something happens.

I thought that I couldn't quit social media because it contained so many of my friendships. I am fortunate that I have a lot of friends. From school, college, work, and random interests. Social media is the way I keep up with blogger friends too. My main contention point with quitting social media was the loss of online friendships. I thought social media was required for them.

The one thing I did to preserve peace was turn off notifications. My WhatsApp notifications have been off since 12th grade or so. My Instagram notifications were off since my 1st year of college. I don't enable notifications in any social app since then. In theory, I could forget about the apps if I wanted to, but it became a habit to reach for the app in any pause during the day.

Cut to 2023, I was becoming increasingly frustrated by everything online. I was annoyed by how available I was to people. I hated that people whom I haven't spoken to in years message me on Instagram, as if having an Instagram is an open invitation for conversation. I hated how there didn't seem to be enough of a barrier because everyone's so accessible online. I didn't like that people I didn't talk to knew what I was doing or where I went.

Yes, I had the power to ignore and not respond. It didn't feel enough. I was barely logging into my personal account and still people were messaging there often. There was this one dude who messaged often and I'd log into Instagram to find a dozen messages. He did not get the hint when I said that I'm not available to talk and did not want to. I got texts on WhatsApp from random people whom I've actually never spoken to personally. I hated how people could stalk me so easily.

You might be wondering: this blog has random deep thoughts, how is it not the same? It isn't because, even when people know about my blog, they seldom have the patience to read thousands of words. Most of my friends don't read the blog, even though I keep talking about it. I haven't ever faced an issue where someone started looking me up on social media and actually read the blog. Rarely, a new friend does but only once and not enough. Plus, I don't post photos of myself on here and most of my life updates aren't detailed enough. They aren't real time. I feel like I have a lot of control here.

Another reason I was frustrated with social media was the amount of noise. In the few days or weeks before I quit, I noticed how I always closed the app in a bad mood with my mind filled with noise. I opened the apps to see updates from my friends, see what they're doing, but I ended up seeing things that I didn't care about.

My personal account was filled with people celebrating and being superficial, showcasing a carefully arranged mosaic. My bookstagram account was filled with people shouting—about why so-and-so book is life-changing or why the same book is a disaster, about authors being bad and reviewers being bad to authors, and about a hundred social causes. Twitter was full of shouting too. Everything felt like shouting because everyone was trying so hard to be heard above the other noise.

Other than posts from maybe 5 people, I hated everything. My screen time on Instagram and Twitter were maybe 30 minutes a day but even that too much.

One random day in July (I don't know the date), I decided to test my feed. I scrolled for 10 minutes to count how many posts were "worth it". I wanted to see whether I was seeing anything I liked and how much of it was seen. The test was horrible because absolutely nothing was nice.

I didn't find any of the bookish posts interesting—all of them looked the same. No matter how much I admired the people I followed, I didn't care about their morning coffee or outfit or the random thing they saw or the random thing they were annoyed by. Unless what I saw were by my friends with whom I had a good relationship offline, I didn't like anything.

The worst realization was that I was a part of the problem. The content that I hated from people I didn't know? I was posting the same thing and thought it was worth it. I wasn't sharing anything valuable. In my quest to seem interesting without changing who I was or trying to hard, I was posting fluff.

In that frustration, I uninstalled instagram and twitter. I see a lot of posts online that people wanted to reclaim their time and attention so they quit social media. They had some thought about it. I didn't. I just hated what I saw so much that I wanted it off my phone. I wanted it away from me.

I thought I'd stay away only for a few days or a week. I'd done that before, quite a few times. I always came back because I missed posting and the connection that I thought I needed. I missed being in the loop and talking to people. There was also the slight unfounded fear that if I stopped posting on my bookstagram, I would be forgotten.

Since I had done it before, I expected to return in a few days. So I didn't tell anyone about it. It's not unusual for me to not post or interact on social media for a while so my friends didn't notice anything. I still had Snapchat though, which is used often by my college friend group. A week or so later, I became frustrated with random and useless snaps filling up the app, so I uninstalled Snapchat as well.

Long story short: I became frustrated with what I was seeing so I uninstalled the apps for a break. Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat. I didn't have anything else anyway.

I kept WhatsApp because it is equivalent to regular texting at this point, and has other useful day-to-day things. It's become a bit like WeChat in India. I especially needed it to buy my metro ticket or recharge my metro card.

a quick summary of the last 2 years

(I have a LOT to say about what I was actually doing and how my life and emotions changed, but I'll give you a rough timeline first before going into tangents.)

A week passed. I still didn't want to return so I decided to take a longer break, aiming for a month. A month passed, and I still didn't want to return. I didn't have another goal in mind so I decided to just wait until I felt like returning.

I didn't cave into the itch to check the apps, though. Whenever I felt like I just wanted something to occupy my time and mind, I did something else instead. I tried out other things, mainly daydreaming and creating an elaborate fictional story in my mind.

I was still a bit fearful about losing friendships and connections though, so I checked messages once in a while on laptop browser. Not every day or every week because I was not habituated to using them via laptop. I responded if there was anything and left again.

Two months later, I installed Instagram again. Just to see if it was as important as I remembered it being. I immediately hated it, becoming frustrated again. I posted a photo dump with what I'd been doing in the past two months and waited to see responses, thinking that maybe that will make me feel better about the app. However, just hours after posting it, I got too annoyed with the app and uninstalled it again. It didn't seem important or worth it.

Since 2 months was clearly not enough, I decided to wait another 2 months at least. Despite the time feeling long in the beginning, it flew by and it didn't feel like a long enough break.

I ended up waiting another 3 months. I installed Instagram again and was lost. The app's UI had changed quite a bit and I was confused to even post a photo. It felt as if I was relearning the app a bit. I posted another photo dump and uninstalled again.

After 6 months passed, I didn't want to return. At least, not yet. I was content with my life and I was doing so many other things. I didn't feel the need for social media. I had stopped checking for messages too, doing it only rarely. Fairly quickly after I uninstalled, the messages dropped off except for friends sharing reels or memes in group chats. I decided to wait another 6 months at least.

1. Would the last thirty days have been notably better if I had been able to use this service?
2. Did people care that I wasn't using this service?

Cal Newport, Deep Work

The only app I missed was Snapchat so I got it back. Almost everyone in my college friend group uses Snapchat and that's how we keep up with each other. Sure, we text in a flurry on the group chat when big things happen and text 1 on 1 on WhatsApp sometimes, but Snapchat is our main app. We often respond to each other's snaps and have conversations on it. I missed seeing what my friends were up to.

Snapchat was the one platform where people noticed that I was missing quickly and they kept asking me to come back, even 6 months later. (A colleague mentioned that she missed my travel snaps, lol). Given all of that, I installed it again.

To make the app less frustrating, I cleaned up my friends list so that only the people I cared about were friends. In the 6 months since I left, a lot of people had stopped sending me snaps so it was an easy cleanup. I have realized that people care about streaks and sending random things, but not everyone cares about sending actual glimpses into their lives. Some just send stuff like their living room or their curtain which tells me nothing. I should really clear up my Snapchat more often.

I let only my college friends know that I returned initially. I was loving snaps from my friends again. I also realized that Snapchat deletes unopened snaps after a month. I was confused because I expected a ton of snaps to be waiting but there weren't many and they were only recent ones.

Over the past two years, the friends list grew again and became filled with some noise again. I cleared it up again recently, unfriending people without remorse. You can't be totally sweet and polite while strictly maintaining your boundaries, something has to give. I was on the fence about unfriending some people but eventually made the decision to do it.

I'm still loving snaps from my friends and sending snaps to them. It's fun to show them my outfits and what I'm upto, and I love seeing what they're upto. We also tend to send a LOT of snaps when we're travelling so everyone else gets to vicariously travel too. One time, 3 of us were sending snaps from Nainital, Dubai, and Paris and the rest of the group was just watching a snap spam haha. Currently, two of my friends are in Indonesia and Norway and are showing their trips to the rest of us.

A year after I initially uninstalled social media, I still didn't want to return. The longer it had been since I had the apps on my phone, the more I didn't care about them. Since I didn't want to return even after a year, it didn't make sense to keep considering it. The next lowkey aim would be 2 years but I knew that my decision wouldn't change. So I made the blanket decision to stay off social media until I really wanted to return.

After making that decision, I logged onto Instagram once or twice to clean it up. I cleaned up the people who follow me. I archived all photos in my personal account and posts with my face on the bookstagram. I wanted them to have nothing of my life. I didn't want anyone to be able to stalk me and find out what I'm up to (everyone's default stalking platform is Instagram, of course). I'm glad to have regained my privacy and have control over what random people can see.

I briefly installed Instagram in September 2024, only to post quick book reviews while I was super sick in bed. As soon as I was able to leave the bed/couch and do other things, I uninstalled the app again.

Now, two years later, I barely think about social media. I don't even consider returning other than to quickly promote a blog post. I still check messages on the laptop browser sometimes but it's rarer. It's more likely that I open the sites to message someone whom I can't reach out to otherwise (like bloggers for a one-time chat). I don't even want to see my bookstagram because I realized how much social media was affecting my reading.

I sometimes look at Reddit from browsers if I'm specifically searching for something and want to hear from regular people instead of wading through tons of business sites. During the India-Pakistan tensions, I installed Reddit for a couple of days since my friend said it's good to find out thoughts on the ground. But I didn't like the app much and didn't find it useful. So I uninstalled that as well.

After moving my newsletter to Substack, I briefly had the Substack app on my phone as well. Despite what people say about it not being social media, it feels like one to me. Especially with the notes feature. I couldn't even discover new newsletters easily. I had it for a month or so before uninstalling it. When the newness and excitement wore off, I realized that it was like any other social media, only seemingly filled with self-proclaimed intellectuals. I now check that through the browser as well, once in a while, to catch up on newsletters I follow.

As I'm writing this post, the only social media app on my phone is Snapchat. The most used apps are WhatsApp, Safari, Messages and Snapchat (in that order). Functional and targeted towards what I care about. Three of them are to talk to friends.

thoughts & reflections after 2 years without social media

I haven't explicitly thought a lot about how my life has changed after uninstalling the apps unless I was thinking about what to write for this post. Sometimes, I realize something while in conversation with people or journalling, but I don't normally dwell on the absence of social media. It's normal now.

However, I did start thinking about the difference for this post and I have a lot to say.

relationship with my phone and social media

My screen time is still fairly high number-wise but I'm not concerned because of the use itself. Most of the time is spent on messaging apps, others are random. For example, some days my cab service app will show up as one of the top apps just because I was on it for 10 minutes to track my cab. 10 minutes is enough to put an app in #3 spot many days.

To give a proper example, I spent 2h 51m on my phone today. The number is high, isn't it? But looking at the breakdown, it isn't bad.

• #1 is WhatsApp with 26 minutes (it's how I talk to everyone, including my parents).
• #2 is Messages with 18 minutes (I use iMessage with a few friends)
• #3 is the Watch app with 15 minutes because I reset my Apple Watch today. One of my friends and I share our Fitness activities with each other. We live on opposite timezones so I usually wake up to notifications that she's closed her rings for the day. It's a lovely way to wake up, knowing that my friend is doing well across the world. There has been some bug due to which our activities haven't synced for a few weeks. After a bunch of googling and checking settings, I reset my Watch to see if it helps.
• #4 is Safari with 14 minutes. It's how I google stuff and read the news.
• #5 is Mail with 13 minutes. A necessary part of life. Also I wrote a long email to my best friend last night and he wrote a long email in return overnight which I read during breakfast today.
• #6 is Google Pay with 13 minutes. It's basically my wallet, so, another necessary part of life.
• #7 is Pinterest with 11 minutes. I was looking for outfit inspo for my new beige pleated straight fit pants. I've never had beige pants before so I need some ideas on how to make it work with the tops I have.
• #8 is Clo's blog with 11 minutes. I was slowly reading her Spring Brew post throughout the day. For some reason, Apple tracks individual websites separately too if significant time is spent on them. I believe this number isn't included in the Safari count but I'm not sure.
• #9 is Snapchat with 10 minutes. The time spent on the app is fairly low lately because I remember the app exists only twice a day or so.
• #10 onwards are apps with <10 minutes.

The above is why I don't truly believe posts from people saying their screen time is 30 minutes. Most of the above are for connecting with people across the world. Isn't the phone's main aim to connect people? Instead of spending time faux-connecting on social media, I do it 1-1. Sure, people say they hang out with friends in person but I'm in a different city with no friends nearby and I have several friends across the globe. I'm pretty chuffed that I spent so much time today talking to people I care about.

I don't have video apps on my phone either like YouTube or Netflix. I've taken to watching on my iPad or TV which further limits scrolling or waste of time. I have YouTube for a while earlier in 2025, I had installed it for a guide video I think, but I quickly got hooked onto YouTube Shorts. After a few days, when I realized that it's not doing me good, I uninstalled it again. I won't install YouTube on my phone unless I need it for a specific reason.

In the initial few weeks after uninstalling the apps, I compulsively reached for my phone a lot and would look around the apps a bit before putting it down again. It was a habit to reach for my phone every few minutes, even if I didn't have a reason to.

Since my phone is purely functional, my attachment with it has reduced. I reach for it way lesser. Recently, I picked up m phone only thrice in the entire work day. I've forgotten my phone multiple times—once even in a cab—and Apple Watch's "find my phone" feature is used regularly. In my last office, people used to flag me down to hand me my phone because I'd have left it somewhere after talking to people. It's not uncommon for me to open my messages after many hours and have several texts waiting for me. The worst/best is when I'm at home because I don't care about my phone at all.

Having a smartwatch helps too, because I don't worry about missing calls or important messages when away from my phone. I can control the music from my watch too. I don't need to open my phone to do small things and hence my phone usage reduces.

While I'm with friends, since I don't have anything to check in my phone and hence use it lesser, I notice how others randomly scroll on phones very often. I'll be with a couple of friends and it can happen that both of them are on their phones. I just look around where we are and wait for them to finish. Sometimes, I get annoyed and tell them to put their phones down. But it's so prevalent.

I still have the instinct to retreat into my phone during awkward moments. For example, if I'm waiting for people at the badminton court and don't want to seem like an awkward loner. During them, I text friends with what I'm doing and what I'm thinking, and eventually I have to stop being on my phone. I eventually have to take action or do something else. With friends, it can create silences but sometimes I find out that I can sit in comfortable silence with some people. Not everyone, but enough.

I miss social media the most when I want to avoid someone. It's so easy to pretend as if you didn't see someone and hence didn't talk to them if your attention is on your phone. But if you're not engrossed in anything and looking up and around, you will make eye contact with people and have to talk to them. I don't have a lot of people I dislike, it's just that there are many instances when I don't have the social energy or mind space to make small talk with people.

So far, I've been texting streams of messages to my friends about who I'm avoiding and why, and it does a good job of seeming as if I'm occupied with someone. Sometimes I don't whip out my phone fast enough and have to make small talk. It's fine. I don't think this trait will change considering I'm (mostly?) an introvert.

It took a while to not think about sharing anything interesting in my life. Since I was creating content for years, it was a habit to take photos of good food and drinks, to share what I was reading and anything remotely interesting or aesthetic. I didn't like that I couldn't passively share it anywhere. I didn't want to share those on Snapchat either, my snaps are usually unfiltered videos or commentary on my days. They're very personal peeks into my life.

That instinct to share everything is gone now. In fact, when I meet friends nowadays and pretty plates of food are served, I don't immediately reach for my phone. My friends take photos and I either wait till they're done or take only because they exclaimed over it so much and I send it on Snapchat. I prefer not to, though.

I started doing things for myself instead of an audience that I bring along with me. I stopped caring about how pretty my work looks or whether my space looks aesthetic, focusing on the vibe and functionality instead. I started doing what I wanted to instead of what I thought the world would fine interesting.

Eventually, I grew abhorred to the idea of sharing whatever I did. I don't want to taint my experiences by sharing it with the world live. Even if I have Snapchat on my phone, my instinct isn't to capture things. I'm often too engrossed in the world to capture it. Instead, I've taken to writing blog posts about things after they occur like a journal.

My fear of missing out or being forgotten is gone too. I keep in touch with the people I care about in other ways, I don't need to publicly share stuff in hopes that my friends will see it and strike up a conversation. Now, I send whatever on Snapchat 1-1 or via text and the conversations are more frequent and much better. It made me think about what social media brings to the table. How does it help with connection? I'm sorry but sharing memes and reels doesn't make a friendship.

I don't think about Instagram or Twitter unless someone mentions it. It doesn't cross my mind that people are sharing reels and memes with each other all day. I actually did not realize that Twitter was renamed to X until a good week or so after it happened when a friend mentioned it.

Every time I log onto IG, mostly to post a quick stories to promote new blog posts, I feel a bit lost. We don't realize how much an app changes while we're using it because they roll out separately and over time. Big changes are seen but the small ones are easily adapted to. However, since I return after weeks, I feel as if it became very different. Even Twitter feels very different now. I saw new icons and didn't bother figuring them out.

the old way of shopping and discovery

We've gotten so used to it that we forget how much content on social media is ads. Instagram has ads every few posts and stories. Twitter X shows a lot of ads which look like normal Tweets. Snapchat has also started bringing in ads recently and I'm blocking them all. Pinterest has ads every few pins too.

Now that I spend most of my time reading blog posts and articles or watching YouTube videos (I have premium, so without ads), I avoid a lot of ads that once made me shop too often. Although creators mention sponsorships, they're usually not relevant to me so it doesn't matter. The ads on social media are based on our data and hence they're scarily accurate in marketing.

I've shopped a ton through Instagram and I won't lie, a lot of those items are good. My BlissClub pants that I shopped because of Instagram are still my favourite pants. I still wear spinner rings every day which were introduced to me on Instagram. There are other things that I haven't bought but I almost did.

Since I don't have those tailored ads anymore, I have to find things to shop the old way. I'm not introduced to new concepts that will work for me easily. If I want new clothes, I have to go searching for the styles that I like and research brands that are good.

Recently, I wanted to try a new style because I got bored of my current outfits. I had to search for outfit inspo on Pinterest and scroll a lot to decide on one. Then, I had to pick apart the style to see what I need to buy. Searching for the straight fit pants alone took multiple days. Buying a pair of pants took so long.

Although I hate the idea of Instagram mining my data, I miss being handed products I'd love on a platter just a little bit. We hardly search for anything if we're on social media because it hands them to us even if we like something similar. There's the "theory" that the phones are listening to us as well and showing related ads.

Last year, one of my coworkers mentioned a "funny" anecdote that I found very concerning. For her birthday, she wanted a a Shiva chain/necklace as a gift but she also likes being surprised with gifts. Instead of telling her husband what she wanted, she said "Shiva necklace" a few times to his phone. He got a Shiva necklace ad and bought it for her as her gift. Everyone laughed when she said this but I was like ??

I mentioned the above story to other friends and they just shrugged, saying it's not a new thing and that there have been many instances like this. I was shocked. Is phones eavesdropping on us normal now?! The baseline for privacy has eroded without us noticing.

Before I uninstalled the apps, I still had to search for things on the app for them to eventually be shown as ads. Apparently even that effort isn't needed anymore. If someone wanted Korean style pants, they could just talk about it near their locked phone and be shown the products within a day.

Since I've been off social media for so long, and it looks like my data isn't mined through Safari, whenever I briefly install the apps now the ads are irrelevant. They don't have proper data to show me relevant things. It feels good, shows that I've stayed off long enough.

thoughts on content itself

In the rare times that I check others' posts on social media, it's evident how superficial they are. Firstly, the noise and useless content are shown the most. Even genuine content doesn't feel refreshing because it's not as interesting or deep. Seeing thoughtful content is quite rare because most are scrambling to share anything and everything to keep people’s attentions. The sheer volume dilutes the quality.

I won't critique too much because I was the same, but it's hard to realize that quick shouts into the void aren't helpful if that's all we have energy for. I felt dissatisfaction creating content back then too, I just couldn't articulate why. I couldn't specify what I wanted which I wasn't getting. Now I can.

I've always loved long-form content more. I used to see short-form ones because they're quicker and easily available. They're aren't as useful or nice, though. Now, I make time to read long-form content, even if I have to read/see it in snippets. I enjoy most of what I see too. There have been so many articles that took 10 minutes to read but are absolutely worth it. For example, this amazing article about being a good girl article or this betterment burnout article.

Such things aren't easily shared on social media, the platforms simply aren't made for them. Yes, people can link to them but links are easily lost and not shared as often unless by the person who wrote/made them.

I'm spending my time on long-form content which provides much more room for nuance and space to think. I like that I'm learning about people or things more often than not. I like that spending time on them feels satisfying. It's not draining like social media was.

I now spend lesser time consuming as well, simply because consuming anything needs a dedicated block of time. Although I sometimes read a thing throughout the day whenever I have time, it's more likely that I savour articles over a drink in the weekend. I'll set aside some down time and read or watch stuff. It's not mindless, it's not folded within every hour of my day.

Network tools are distracting us from work that requires unbroken concentration, while simultaneously degrading our capacity to remain focused.

Cal Newport, Deep Work

Since I'm consuming a lot of long-form content, my mental strength to create long-form content has increased again. I used to write a ton of blog posts when I initially started blogging and the number kept dwindling as my usage of social media grew. I was posting way more short reviews or thoughts on social media. Now, I'm back to posting long stuff and I'm writing much longer posts too. The current post is already 5 thousand words long!

This mental strength is also referred to as the ability to do deep work. That ability doesn't come naturally and needs to be practiced and honed. The more I move away from quick things, my concentration power has increased and I'm able to blog for hours and do it for consecutive days. How else would I produce my recent Margins of the Week post which is 14 thousand words long?

Instead of chasing the high of quickly writing something and posting, hoping that it'll be noticed, I'm focusing on the process of creating itself. Most of my blog posts are mini projects each which take multiple days to write. I took it a step further for this post by putting all my notes into NotebookLM and then making new notes from the auto-generated podcast (which is scarily good). I've begun to love the process itself more than the end product. Finishing a post is satisfying and I don't care about how it is received.

it's not just social media, it's culture

No matter why we hang out on social media, we can't deny that it shapes communities. Earlier, trends were started by celebrities on magazines. Now, anything is a trend. The ice bucket challenge, the slew of "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers" reels, Korean face masks, and more. Anyone can go viral, so everyone's trying to go viral. Everyone's constantly adopting what's "in" and posting about it. It doesn't just change the content, it changes us too.

Social media shapes who you are too. You see people doing something often enough, you tend to do it too. Like being influenced by the people physically around us, we're influenced by the people we admire on a screen. Watch enough workout videos and you'll begin to workout. Be told that you should care about a cause enough and you will advocate for it too. You might think that you're changing your wardrobe to something more "you", but it's probably because of something online that influenced it.

Looking from the outside in, it seems like the hype train is everywhere. Either people are hyping something up or criticising something. As soon as I see anything, it feels like I'm being shouted at. There are neutral posts but the shouting ones seem to be more. To be fair, I’m not spending more than five minutes seeing posts even on laptop browser so maybe I'm off base.

Only after leaving social media did I realize that I'm not a big fan of Taylor Swift. Sure, I like some of her music and find them catchy. But I barely think of her in daily life. For many months before I left social media, I was known as a huge TS fan. I followed her new music religiously, bought a tote bag saying "Taylor's Version", and was vehemently on her side over the ownership issue of her initial music.

A few months after I left social media, someone messaged me about being happy that The Eras Tour movie will be released in India as well. I didn't know about it and I didn't care. He then asked what's the one stanza from her songs that lives in my mind rent-free and I genuinely couldn't remember, it looked like it didn't live in my mind anymore. Only then did I realize that I hadn't even thought about Taylor Swift in a while. Since I wasn't constantly seeing posts about her songs, she wasn't a big artist in my mind anymore. Sure, I still listen to her music but it's not that great anymore. I like other artists' songs more.

Sometime recently, Taylor Swift finally got the ownership of the masters of her initial albums. I found out a few weeks later. All I thought was, "good for her", and I moved on. I used to care so much about that and now it's barely on my mind.

We're all social beings. We want to fit in and be able to talk to others about stuff. Social media is supposed to help find your crowd but it's making us mold ourselves to what we see instead. Either we're following what we see or trying to be "different" by doing the opposite. Social media shapes who we are, even if we actively fight it.

Now that I'm away from the deafening noise of other people’s opinions, I feel like I'm more myself. I am still influenced by others, especially the people around me, but it's much easier to be myself when I'm not consuming content telling me how I should be.

Social media has started to create small echo chambers instead of introducing us to new things. Earlier, it was fairly easy to find new things or come across people with different opinions. The algorithms now try to tailor your experience to your tastes which creates an echo chamber.

If you like Taylor Swift, you will see posts from others who like her as well. If you dislike Taylor Swift, you will see posts from people who dislike her too. Almost the entire world is on the internet and hence it's not hard for the algorithm to find people who are similar to you. It groups users without letting us know and without knowing it, we're lobbing the same opinions back and forth, never having a nuanced conversation or broadening our perspectives.

Due to the echo chambers, it's easy to believe that everything you say is right because there are others who think the same. Unless your posts go viral and people who think otherwise argue with you, you will remain in a bubble. It doesn't encourage radical thinking, letting people feel more self-righteous than they should.

I believe it's a big reason why there are so many haters (I don't know another word that encompasses everyone who fully believe in wrong things) online, because they are others agreeing with them. There are still a lot of people who believe the earth is flat. The number of people against vaccines during the pandemic was concerning.

It's easy to believe that you're right if you're talking to and seeing people who think the same. It's harder in person because then you'll have to argue face-to-face, maybe with people you care about. It's much easier to pull away from people who think differently and be self-righteous because there's a group of people like you online.

During the brief time I had the Substack app on my phone, I was confused with the "quit social media" trend. I'm not sure if it's a thing everywhere else but it's definitely a big thing on Substack. It didn't make sense. Some people's entire content was about quitting social media. Several posted about quitting social media to join Substack, but used Substack Notes which is social media too. A lot of people were preaching quitting social media and slow living when it seemed like they were doing the opposite.

The Substack algorithm seems to be creating echo chambers too. I found SO MANY similar articles in the feed. It was already hard to find other newsletters because Notes were shown more, but when articles were shown they were on similar topics. It tried too hard to recommend stuff I'd like but it felt like I was seeing the same things.

A context bubble is created too, which makes no sense to outsiders. The other day, my colleagues were laughing about a "cringe reel" both of them saw. I didn't know it so they showed it to me. They laughed as they played it but I didn't even understand it, let alone find it funny. It's so context driven based on other reels and trends online that I couldn't make sense of it at all. I was just confused.

The above wasn't a one-time thing. I experience a dissonance with the people around me just because they're on social media. I don't understand the jokes that they find funny. A reel may be a treasure trove for others because it quickly shows some restaurant recommendations but it's not helpful to me, I still have to look the places up. There are often references in conversations that I don't get.

Can we really escape influencer culture? Way more people are thinking and talking about this nowadays which is good. But I feel like the question isn't correct. Influencer culture started way before social media, through magazines and popular people. TV influences people too (Fahrenheit 451 shows it well). It's just that there are way more influencers now.

But it's a two-way street. People can shout into the void but their words won't have an influence until others receive them. There are enough influencers of different kinds from different places that there's always someone whom we will admire. The problem is when we take things too far, following their every move and choice. Parasocial relationships have become widespread and normal too, with followers thinking they're as close as family to the poster. That doesn't happen without choice.

We can escape if we just stopped following people closely. Read/watch from them once a week or a month. Don't see what they’re doing every day—what they’re wearing, what they’re eating, or what they talk about. Influencer culture isn't new and it won't stop until individuals step back.

The next time you make a choice, think "is it me or is it the culture?" Are you having matcha because you like it or because it symbolises a life you want, based on someone you saw? Are you drawn to monotone furniture and homes because it's your aesthetic or because you see it everywhere online? You might be surprised by how many small details about you are not active choices at all.

paying attention to life again

Regular social media usage chips away at our ability to pay focused attention. Conversely, focused attention is a hot commodity in today's world filled with knowledge work. This is not a new fact. There are several books and researches on this. Most us look at these facts, funnily enough on social media, and lament about it but we don't do much about it. Most take action only after reaching a breaking point.

Maybe I was lucky enough to step away before I reached the breaking point. Instead of struggling to regain my focus, I fairly easily found my way back to it. Maybe it was easier because I still had the practice of reading for hours or zoning out in my work, oblivious to time or hunger. I got back my attention in big and small ways and it feels glorious.

The main difference is that I people-watch and notice (almost) everything. Fairly often, I'll mention that there was a specific store or sign on our way and my friends would say, "really? I did not notice." I point out things to my friends that are literally in front of them.

Since I don't have anything to scroll through, I look around me in lines. I look at the passing streets while in transit. I look around in brief silences while hanging out with friends. I look at menus and decor if I'm waiting for my friends. Maybe why I seem more friendly to people as well since I'm not lost in my phone. I struck up conversation with two airport security men and even had an hour-long conversation with a man sitting beside me on a flight. I'm not someone who usually makes conversation with strangers but they were nice.

I've slowly grown to love observing outfits and relationships. Firstly, women dress so well and I almost exclusively look at women's outfits instead of men's. I observe what they wear, what they pair together, the way they put colours together, and more. I've genuinely become so inspired to wear colours again because I see others looking gorgeous in colour. Outfits also tell so much about a person.

Because I'm not on my phone, I notice how more and more people are reading books in the metro now. "People nowadays don't read" but maybe it's just that we don't have a lot of comforting places and time to read. I love that more and more people are carrying books around in their daily life and I love seeing what others are reading.

It's interesting to see people interact as well. I can't dissect my relationships because it'll be totally biased but I often notice how others interact. The way people smile and lean into each other, their expressions and body language, whether people together dress similar or not—all of it is fascinating.

Decor has become fascinating to me again. I remember being interested by design when I was in high school, specifically interiors and fashion. It stopped sometime in college. I'm beginning to appreciate design again. I love going to new places and carefully observing the designs. I almost always comment on the decor nowadays, the way restaurants pair colour and texture, or the furniture choices.

This observation has also made me realize how many restaurants and cafés don't have good design. The art on the walls don't make sense, the furniture doesn't go with the walls, and the interior's vibe is at odds with the menu. I've become more appreciative of the places that have cohesive design, even if it doesn't look aesthetic at first glance.

When I was in college, around the time I stopped noticing design and was making more social media content, I was known as a forgetful person. I forgot people's birthdays and would forget important stuff if I didn't religiously a bullet journal to keep track of things. My best friend still reminds me on people's birthdays so that I wish them. I used to joke that I had a 1GB memory.

Maybe because I'm paying more attention to life now, my memory has become better as well. I still use my technology to remember menial things for me but small things stick in my mind much more, especially memories with friends. What someone said about a random thing, the art on the wall at a café, etc.

more focused work

My focus is easier to reach as well. It doesn't take long or a lot of effort to get into a focused mind space. I'm able to easily finish my work in a few hours of focused work. I get annoyed when my focused work is interrupted by people but it's easier to slip back into it again. It's like I reclaimed my mental bandwidth by not spending any of it on social media.

The other day, I reached on time for a meetup that my friends were at least 30 minutes late for. Instead of scrolling, I ordered a drink, whipped out my iPad, and wrote a newsletter that was brewing in my mind. It was fairly easy to slip into a focused zone despite the environment.

I've made a few rituals that help as well. I have a playlist which helps me get into the zone for blogging, use CHPTRS music to drown out sounds on the floor at work and focus, I know what times I am the most productive, and I know when to not force it.

Probably because I've become used to focusing on something for hours, studying for interviews for my current job was easier. Once I sat down to study, I could easily lose hours in it, forgetting about everything else. Although I didn't study for a long time, what I studied stuck with me and my interviews went well.

At this point, being able to pay attention for a significant amount of time is itself a competitive advantage. Of course you’ll be better at studying/working/learning if you’re able to focus on the material for 30 minutes straight. I can see the difference in myself now that I have more focused hours compared to a few years ago.

By allocating a few focused hours, I'm able to get my work done for the day and don't touch my work laptop at home later. At home, I'm able to blog with focus for an hour which is adds up well. In the mornings, I spend 30 minutes writing morning pages as part of The Artist's Way.

I used to pride myself on being able to multitask well. But multitasking helps only upto a certain level. After that, the quality of everything I do will reduce. Soon enough, I wasn't satisfied with any work that I produced. Something had to change. Letting go of multitasking helped.

Knowing when to focus on one thing and when to multitask can change the game. Not everything needs concentrated focus and not everything can be done well in conjunction with other things. Multi-tasking is fine when you do the dishes and listen to an audiobook. Multi-tasking doesn't help when you're coding and having a conversation about design at the same time.

I'm at a good place now where I know what works well most of the time and I prefer to focus on one thing at a time instead of multi-tasking. Familiar slow music is my #1 choice to put me into focus mode if there are distracting sounds around me otherwise silence works well.

the impact on relationships

I lost a few friendships. This was what I was afraid of and it happened. I had low-key friendships with quite a few people on social media which never made it past the initial stage. If I had stuck around, maybe we would have become closer or maybe not.

The friendships I lost were dependent on me being active on social media. Once I stopped being around and stopped posting, I never spoke to them again. Although I'm sad about what could have been, I realized that if it didn't happen in a year or two, it probably wasn't going to ever happen. They turned out to be fleeting connections in the social media mass. Ones that required me to post two to three times a day and respond to theirs.

Although it's called "social" media and provides infinite opportunities for new friendships, most of them don't actually pan out simply because there are so many people, none of whom you really know. It's easier to "click" in person than online. Even if you do grow closer online, there's a certain line to cross beyond which you're actually friends. I believe that line is when your friendship leaves the apps. It can feel like you're connecting a lot even though it's shallow and you won't know until you stop being active on the app.

That's why, I'm beyond grateful for the friends that stuck beyond the apps. I met some people who stayed in the same city and few of them have become very close friends over the years (Vaish, Chai, and Manju—don't know what I'd do without you 🫶). I talk to few others on Discord.

I do think that the ease of making online friendships has reduced. There was a golden period many years ago during which people were making life-changing friendships online and received support that they wouldn't from the people physically around them.

Somehow, over the past few years, it has crumbled. I know that it's not just me. There are way fewer people who talk about their online friends. There are fewer people tagging friends in things and having random conversations in comment sections. Everyone's an influencer who tags only their closest friends from years before or people that they're professionally collaborating with. The warmth and friendliness seems to be gone.

I won't lie, I've been more frosty to people online over the past few years because I've had a few bad experiences. I'm suspicious about every guy who DMs me (most of them were actually creeps so I was right). I've tried to be friendly with women but it's just.. not the same. Everyone's simultaneously too busy with their real lives to make friendships online and yet constantly present online trying to connect. It's a conundrum.

Coming to my in-person relationships, it's definitely changed things. Earlier, our conversations were peppered with social media references and "oh I saw you did this". To quote a YouTuber who said exactly what I feel, "my friendships were filtered through a news feed and when we actually finally met in person, we had nothing to talk about."

Let me make one thing clear: only my college friend group snaps a lot of unfiltered stuff and we have conversations on the app. We're good friends enough to still talk about what we did at length in person. With other friends, it's not like that. We didn't end up sharing a lot because we'd see what each other did on social media.

Now, since I'm not on Instagram, we share full stories instead of assuming the other person knows what we did. There's more to talk about in person when we've not pre-consumed each other's life through impersonal posts. I show photos from my trips in person and they show me theirs. When I meet people whom I don't meet or talk to often, we have full conversations about life updates. I share photos and stories in personal chats with closer friends.

One time, I spent around 30 minutes just looking through the photos of a trip my friends took that I couldn't join in on. I asked them the context and commented on the photos. They told me many stories and lots of anecdotes. It was fun.

Disconnection leads to a deeper connection because there's no way to make it shallow. I have close friends whom I talk to or friends whom I have good conversations with once in a while. That's it. Whoever I actually talk to, I'm good friends with. I can easily rebuff people that I don't like because there's a slim chance they'll get to know anything about me unless I say it to them.

I don't have random acquaintances that talk to me superficially via DMs. I don't have random people from college or school reaching out after seeing a new photo of me—especially when the photo was on a mutual friend's story. I lost weight after quitting social media and for a while, whenever my friends would posts photos with me in them, random people (guys) would DM me as if they want to reconnect. I saw those DMs only later on and ignored most of them. The timing is kinda creepy.

Also, a side-effect that I did not expect but I'm loving: I can say "I don't have social media" and rebuff people whom I'm not vibing with from wanting to connect. Because Instagram is less personal, it's easier to ask for IG handles than phone numbers, especially when people are not sure if they want to remain connected. I had many random people following my Instagram whom I've never spoken to after I met them. I cleaned up followers on my personal account recently and have decided to not add anyone I don't speak to.

it can feel a bit lonely

This is something I've not seen anyone who quit social media say yet: no matter how long it's been, it can feel alienating to be out of social media because it's the default for others.

I already mentioned the aspect of not understanding jokes or memes because they're coded in so much context that you don't know about. That's actually the least upsetting.

Often, people say, "did you see what so-and-so posted?" and continue the conversation. Others in my group would have seen it so the explanation never follows unless I ask for it. Sometimes, people ask me that specifically. Even after 2 years of saying, "no, I haven't seen it, tell me about it or show it to me", I still have to keep saying it.

On group chats, my friends exclaim about something on the group chat and continue discussing it rapidly. I have to figure out that it's due to an Instagram post that I missed. I can't add much to the conversation unless I go see the original post and I most often don't want to open social media sites.

Another, worse, form of it is when I ask someone about something they did and they say, "oh I posted about it." SO? I haven't seen it. Even if I have, are you not going to tell me about it? Do the posts say everything that is to be said?

Few weeks after my amazing Ladakh trip, I met a friend after a long time and mentioned the trip. She then asked me why I don't post photos from it. She said that she didn't know I went to Ladakh until she saw a mutual friend I went with post photos. That is not how I want you to know about it. I'd rather tell all about it to you myself and show you all the photos instead of posting a few carefully selected ones. I'd rather hear your thoughts instead of seeing a generic comment or 100 likes that don't matter? Also, I don't know where you went either so maybe tell it to me in person?

Something that happened recently which was a bit upsetting: I asked a school friend whom I'm fairly close to to send photos of her engagement (it was a family-only event). I asked her thrice at different times. She said she will. So I waited. And I waited. Then I forgot about it because other things took up my mind. A month later, one of my other friends commented about her photos and I said, "what are you talking about?" Turns out, she posted them on Instagram. I didn't know. I opened Instagram on browser and saw them. I simply liked the post. Even if I was on Instagram, what will I even say there beyond a generic comment? It's not a personal chat that I can say anything. If it was on a personal chat, I'd have said a lot. But I was upset about it and I didn't say anything.

It's been 2 years and I still have to remind friends that I'm not on social media, that they cannot assume that I saw whatever they posted. If it's a post, maybe I'll see it later someday. But I definitely would not have seen a story that can be viewed only for 24 hours.

i'm not living under a rock

There's this general perception that people who quit social media live under a rock. That they're totally disconnected and don't really keep up with things that aren't related to them. That is only possible if one stops talking to people or only talks about things relevant to their lives. Posts by people who quit social media doesn't help refute this idea because they're all like "screen time under 30 minutes, living for myself, talking to only 5 people, blah blah".

It's not true for me. I still talk to a lot of people. I put in the effort to message my friends personally. I try to meet my friends whenever possible. It's hard but I try to not take it to heart when some friends don't respond positively when I message out of the blue. Not everyone wants to keep up 1-1 with me and that's okay.

While I was still in Bangalore, I was going out with friends almost every weekend. I went on many vacations and did a lot of things. Just because I don't post what I'm doing online, it doesn't mean that I've disappeared from everything.

This year, after moving to a different city, I made a low-key resolution to write emails or letters to a few friends every quarter and it's been lovely. I've written LONG emails to quite a few friends so far and I have more on my list. I spend a lot of time writing those emails and set aside time to read the replies.

I'm not oblivious about what's going on in the world. Social media makes it easy for us to forget that we don't actually need it. I read the news to keep up on important topics. Even when I forget to check the news, important things come up in conversation. I often talk about current events with my friends and when I miss something in the news, I'll most likely hear about it in the group chat. My team talks about current events, sports, and other stuff during lunch.

I'm actually able to keep up with things in a better way because I don't have to deal with noise anymore. I don't have to keep reading unimportant things because there's a chance that they could be important. Sure, it's easy to miss that Twitter has been renamed to X. It's not important in the grand scheme of things. But it's hard to miss that an airplane crashed devastatingly or that Israel and Iran are at war. I don't need to be on social media to keep up with important things.

Because I've been able to choose when to look at the news, I'm able to actually keep up with it without becoming upset at the state of the world. Sometimes I'm on the news every hour to check the latest news like I did during the India-Pakistan conflict or after the airplane crash, but otherwise it's fine. I'm able to keep up with what's going on without reading others' irrelevant commentary about it.

what i've been doing instead

Uninstalling social media apps didn't just cut down the time I spent scrolling on the apps, it also cut down the time I spent thinking about it and creating content for it. Right after I uninstalled them, it felt like I had a lot of extra time, enough to pick up a new project.

I tried vlogging for the first time. I had a brief stint on YouTube before but it was with other types of content. I love watching silent vlogs on YouTube so I tried making my own. Although my vlogging stint lasted only a few months, it was really fun.

I got into running which I never expected from myself. I went from being someone who doesn't think about exercise to someone who exercises regularly. I have much more time and energy to workout. My "transformation" outside of social media was... interesting. I spoke in detail about my year of being active in this post. I'm still fairly active, although I miss running regularly.

As I mentioned earlier, my screen time is still a bit high because I spend significant time texting friends. I try to text not-so-close friends once in a while. I host (kinda) regular events on Discord to hang out with blogger friends. I've started writing long emails to friends individually. I try to meet friends in person often.

Instead of being buried in my phone after coming home, I spend time chatting with my mom and talking about our days. To "wind down" after work, I do small chores like laundry or tidying things up.

Solo dates have become my thing. If my friends weren't available and I had time, I'd go out alone fairly often in Bangalore. I was comfortable enough in the city to do it. I went to a small concert alone too. I've only been on one solo date in the new city so far but it was fun too. I'm looking forward to checking out more new places alone or just spending time with my thoughts and a drink while staring at the beautiful sky. I've always been comfortable in my own company but it's at a new level now.

My vacations are more enjoyable. Although I take a lot of snaps and random photos, I'm also soaking the experience in without trying to make it look cool via a lens. I prefer taking candid photos or videos quickly and staring at the sights the rest of the time, leaving serious photography to my friends.

I write a lot. Although I published way more blog posts years ago, I believe I write more words nowadays. Almost every blog post is a mini-project. I've written 85 thousand words in 2025 so far. I also write newsletters every month. I journal often, writing around 3 pages each time.

I try new things. It's hard to add or change things in the routine if you don't have the time to learnt it to figure it out. It's also easier to fail at things because you're not sharing any of it publicly live. I have the time after dropping social media so I follow my curiosities.

Last year, I joined a badminton group made of strangers who soon became friends. Through regular play, my game improved a lot. I organized a big part of the tournament we held amongst ourselves. I organized and hosted many events as part of the fun committee at my previous company. I read Anna Karenina (and half of War and Peace). I played a lot of Cats&Soup in a short time.

I spent a while trying out and understanding Substack earlier this year. I'm trying digital planning too. I'm doing The Artist's Way. I'm trying out a new outfit style. I'm already planning other small projects to pick up like crocheting and sketching using colour pencils (which I've not done since... middle school?).

It may not sound like a lot but I feel like I'm living an enriched life. It feels good.

chat with me!

How active are you on social media? How social are you on social media? (They've become different things over the years.)

Which apps are necessary for you? Are there any that you want to let go of but keep because of a specific thing? Do you relate to any of the points I mentioned above? Do you have any observations to add?