Quitting social media doesn’t mean you have to be out of the loop. Here’s how to make sure you stay connected, whether you’re on a social media detox or quitting altogether.
When you’re deciding to step away from social media, you don’t necessarily have to deactivate every account you have suddenly. Each platform is different and may impact you in varying ways. Maybe it’s the algorithms that keep you sucked into using an app for hours on end, the inauthentic aspirational posts that make you feel inadequate, or the proliferation of misinformation that makes you start to question reality. Decide if you just want to quit a few specific ones or if you need to get off it all.
Some people will find Instagram impacts their self-esteem terribly and that X (formerly Twitter) is toxic, while maybe Facebook is less detrimental and keeps them connected to their contacts. If you decide just to narrow it down, you can still use the other platforms you’re on to stay in the loop and keep in contact with friends and family, within reason, of course. You don’t want to have another platform become problematic for you.
Set Limits on the Ones You Stay On
If you do decide to stay on a few social media platforms while leaving the others, make sure to set reasonable limits on yourself for the ones you stay on. You don’t want them to become replacements for the ones you left. You left for a reason, after all. The dopamine hit you get from social media engagement can be addictive, and just because you quit the ones that were the most problematic for you doesn’t mean that others won’t become problematic with time.
You can unfollow influencers and celebrities that you may feel negatively impacted by seeing and just keep your close friends around. You could decide to only use a social media platform for messaging your friends and family and stop yourself from scrolling through your feed as well. Setting time limits on social media apps on your phone or computer can also keep you from overusing them. Just remember not to simply turn the limits off when you hit them, they serve as more of a reminder than anything to maintain a healthy distance from social media.
Make Sure to Get Your Friends’ Phone Numbers
If you have friends that only use one of the social media platforms you’re leaving, or if you’re leaving all of them altogether, make sure to ask for peoples’ phone numbers before you fully deactivate. You’re trying to maintain a sense of digital wellness, not trying to disconnect yourself from your networks.
So instead of looking at your friends’ social media profiles to get updates on their lives like many of us unfortunately do these days, just text or call them and see what’s been going on. You could even ask about any happenings on whichever social media platform if you want to little dose of the thing you’ve given up.
Utilize Group Chats
A great way of staying in the loop with your friends without using social media is through group chats. If you’re not already in some, set them up with your friend groups so you can all stay in the loop with each other without the need to check each others’ social media feeds. You don’t need Instagram to be able to see photos of your friends’ dogs.
If you’re already in some group chats but they all exist on social media platforms, specifically ones you may be leaving for good, suggest moving the group chats to a messaging app instead. Taking the group chat over to iMessage, WhatsApp or Signal is simple enough, so you don’t have to miss out on any news or banter when you quit social media.
Read the News
Social media is a major source of news for a lot of people these days, and that could be the case for you. So, without using social media, if you want to stay up to date with current events and political news, you’ll have to actually seek out the news on your own. Not only is reading the news on your own good for staying off social media, you’re also less likely to come across the massive amounts of misinformation that are spread via sites like Facebook and X.
There are a lot of great news aggregators, like the tried-and-true Google News and Apple News aggregators or platforms like Flipboard or Pocket. You can also download news apps to your phone and set notifications for certain topics, so you can always stay in the know without the need to doomscroll.
Kick It Old School With Forums
To make sure you still have a place to discuss things you care about, like hobbies, TV shows, or anything else, you could take a look at joining some forums. Forums lack a lot of the more toxic features of social media, with no predatory algorithms that try to suck you into using them for longer. Granted, you can still get in fights on forums, but that’s largely avoidable.
While Reddit is still technically a forum site, it can be addictive like other social media platforms, especially since there are countless communities to look through and so many people use it. Stick with smaller niche forums for each individual interest, and utilize them specifically for discussing your interests, not as a way of getting a quick hit of dopamine.
Quitting social media might seem like a daunting and isolating task, but you can do so in a way that doesn’t leave you with an intense fear of missing out. Taking steps to improve your mental well-being and disconnecting yourself from apps that prey on you is a great way of improving your life, and keeping in touch with friends, family, and the world in other ways can make it a lot easier.
