How Did I Get Started?
The natural reaction to removing social media from your life may be scary. I felt the same.
Start slow; too many times we are unable to make a habit stick as we set ourselves up for failure by overcommitting when humans have a natural tendency to take the path of least resistance.
Do this right this second and I guarantee your chances for success triple:
Move social media to your computer.
Delete Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, dating applications and even those applications that pretend they are not social media such as Strava and Letterboxd.
Once that’s done, download oLauncher on your phone. Yes, it looks bad; this is by design. It is not meant to capture your attention. Select the apps you want to show on your homescreen, ignore the rest. My setup is; WhatsApp, Maps, Chrome, Mail, Calls.
Move everything onto your computer. You can check these notifications later.
Make a Coffee, or Lunch
Limit yourself to 5 minutes for this specific task.
This is the first moment you’ll notice the phantom reach for your phone. The pocket check, the reflex glance at a screen that now shows nothing. Let it happen. It passes faster than you’d expect.
Sit Still
In my research, I have found a simple but potentially effective challenge.
Sit still, anywhere you’d like. Look out the window. Sit until you believe 30 minutes have passed.
Most people drastically underestimate. The gap between your perception of time and actual time is a quiet indicator of how disconnected you’ve become from the present. This isn’t meditation. It’s recalibration.
Macro, Micro, Diffuse
This is the start. Baby steps. I’d like to coin this framework:
Macro — Get something productive done.
Micro — Concentrate perfectly for 5 minutes.
Diffuse — Unwind. Let your mind wander.
Generally, I will have a pen and paper with me during the diffuse stage, as this is when your creativity comes to the forefront.
Why Mind Wandering Matters
This is essentially why I started all of this.
Algorithms prevent mind wandering. Every gap in your cognition, every idle second, gets filled with pre-selected content. You end up thinking the thoughts of others rather than creating your own.
Real human connection is important. So is the space between connections; the part where your brain processes, creates, and occasionally arrives at something entirely original.
A child’s imagination comes from allowing the mind to wander. Somewhere between growing up and downloading our first social media app, we traded that imagination for an endless feed of someone else’s opinions.
Letting the mind wander is not wasted time. It is closer to brain training; it enhances creativity and builds awareness. There’s a reason I keep a pen and paper nearby during the diffuse stage. The best ideas don’t come when you’re focused. They come when you stop.
I don’t have all the answers here. How far can we push mind wandering? How much does this enhanced awareness actually impact daily life? I’m still figuring that out. But the early signals are hard to ignore.
The First 24 Hours
The realisation after the first day should be this; you have more time than you thought, and fewer urgent things than your phone suggested.
Here are a few things that helped me:
- Treat your computer like a library visit. Write a list on pen and paper before you sit down. Attend to it. Then close the laptop.
- Change your Do Not Disturb settings. Enable all calls to ring, mute everything else.
- Pen and paper is your best friend. Want to research something? Write it down. Once you’re at the computer, deal with it then.
- Working on the computer is not the enemy. If your job requires screen time, that’s fine. Working on a computer is not the same as being consumed by one.
Intent
Intent is the crux of the habit. We are not eliminating the internet; we are eliminating the algorithm filling gaps in our cognition.
We want to fill our mind with the present. We want intent in our actions. This does not mean deleting the internet forever. It means making your own choices about what enters your head and when.
That’s the difference between using a tool and being used by one.