How to QUIT social media ?

As far as my belief goes, social media is not the main villain in our stories. Instead, it’s more like an accomplice or a guy who helps the main villain in executing his/her plans. It’s like a medium for them to showcase their villainy and harm us in the best possible way. These villains are no other than the people who already exist in our lives, and who without our consent, affect our lives, sometimes in a good way and mostly in the bad ways.

In my previous articles, “How social media is ruining our lives ?” and “How to use social media in a non-toxic way?”, I’ve discussed in length about the impact these people have in our lives, and how we inadvertently become prey to their hunt for approval and validation. Though the list is inexhaustible, I have still tried to give an angle to the things in the simplest possible way.

Now scores of people believe, that the best way to gain control of our lives is by completely quitting social media. Only then we can actually start to attain the balance we have always aspired to accomplish.

This is true in fact. Using social media in a limited and a controlled manner is no less than a Herculean Task. It requires more mental strength than quitting it all over.

So if you’re amongst those people who wish to completely quit social media and want to regain the steering of your life, here are few tips which might come in handy.

1. Don’t go Cold Turkey

This is one of classic mistakes that people do when trying to quit a bad habit. Going cold turkey means quitting on something right way, without giving any time to adjust with this newness in our lives. When you quit social media right away, you’re basically embarking on a very difficult journey, which has a 90 percent chance of failure. Though it sometimes work for a handful of people, still for most of us there is a high chance of relapse.

Now there is a simple maths that works here. As already explained, with the use of social media, we have fed our brain with loads of dopamine (pleasure causing chemical) and since your brain is not flexible enough in accustoming this change in your life immediately, it is going to replace those dopamine hormones with cortisol (stress causing hormones), which most of the people couldn’t bear and eventually will resort to social media again.

It is quite similar to smoking. When people try to quit smoking, they go Cold Turkey without any plan of action and scheme to execute it properly. As a result, a little disturbance occurs in their life, and they automatically gravitate towards their weaknesses.

Now, what should you be doing in order to prevent yourself from relapsing. First, your plan of action should include easy and achievable steps. For example, you should not try to quit social media in one day. Try to understand that is going to take some time. Instead, take tiny steps. As a beginner who wishes to stop using social media, start using it only on alternate days, and on the weekends use it either on Sundays or Saturdays. Next, after one week of alternate usage, you should start using it on a gap of two days.

Now, as the gap will increase, your urge to use social media will gradually decrease (and your dopamine levels as well). Also, you can have your own scheme of things. If you stick to your plan, in no time you will stop feeling the impulse to grab your phone and log into your accounts.

2. Change your lifestyle

Now we need to understand that with the passage of time, social media has a became an integral part of our lives. For some people, it is even more important than eating, drinking and sleeping. The first thing that most of us do when we wake up is, check our phones for notifications and messages and in many cases that is the last thing we do as well. We harm our sleep schedule just to get an update of some else’s life stories and achievements. Further, we take more interest in other’s life than in ours (or maybe we deliberately do so to escape our own realities).

Now when something is that integral in our lives, it becomes even more difficult for us to quit it and accept our life without it, since without it our life seems pointless. However, that is not true. Back in the 80s and 90s people lived a good life and even better than we live today. The rate of depression and anxiety has surged in the past few decades, despite the presence of a tool called social media.

So what can we do about it, such that we eliminate social media from our lives and still live without any regrets ?

For starters, we need to replace our bad habit with multiple good habits. What I mean to say is that, one bad habit is equivalent to two or three good ones. In our case of social media it is “three”. We need to distract ourselves from such habits in a healthy way such that our new habits don’t become a concern for us. Now I’m not going to ask you to resort to “playing video games”. That would be like jumping from one bad habit to other. But, you certainly can perform other activities like reading books, gardening, improving your skills, etc.

Secondly, I understand that social media has given us authority to invade into other people’s anywhere, at any time and on any day. However, this accessibility has made us vulnerable and ignorant, since now we are more exposed than we ever were, and we don’t even realize this fact. So, now if we really want to grab the control of our lives, we need to focus more on ours and less in other’s.

Last but not the least, focus on your health, both mental and physical. Go out in the natural environment, get some sunlight and fresh air. Now you might be wondering, how all of this is going to help you in quitting social media. Well, all these things work as a catalyst in accomplishing your tasks. When you go our and see other people, it somehow distracts you from feeling bored and on top of that it also helps in calming down the running horses in our notorious brain.

Here’s a recommendation, start reading books on self improvement. They will not only teach you a lot about the psychology of human beings but will also be a life changer for you.

3. Allow yourself to get bored.

Perhaps one of the main reasons why we are so much involved into social media, is because we don’t have anything else to do. Our lives are not as interesting as others, and the only way to break this cycle of boredom is by getting a hit of dopamine every now and then. Most of us have this apprehension that if we keep our brain idle, it will end up bringing the bad memories and that’s why they tend to keep themselves busy.

However, that’s what our brain tells us. The truth in fact is a bit different. When we allow our brain to wander around, it instead tries to find the solution of our existing problems and brings up the ideas to tackle the problems that may arrive in the future. Our fears of the past is our brain’s way of telling us to be aware of such situations in the future. In addition to that, boredom is usually misinterpreted as a problem. The fact is that, boredom is our brain’s indication or a way of telling that things are getting back on the track, that is, it is regaining it’s focus and attention.

There is a distraction machine installed somewhere deep within the subconscious of our brain. Distraction is usually considered the main problem for our loss of focus. However, it is not the main antagonist of our story. It is a mere symptom of a deep rooted issue, overstimulation.

The reason why we reach out for our phone all the time, the reason why we get an attack of anxiety whenever we don’t feel the phone in our pockets, the reason why many of our friends and family members cannot even imagine their lives without social media, and the reason why your life isn’t under your control is overstimulation.

The cause of this problem is our high dopamine consumption. On top of that, it not only produces distraction but is also responsible for other complication such as anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction. In Layman’s terms, our brain, with time, have become extremely sensitive. They are so sensitive, that it could not bear anything that goes against it’s will. As a result, many of us feel as if we are in a conflict with our two personalities, one who wants to get a better life and the one who doesn’t want to.

Now we need to understand that, boredom is basically our brain’s ability to cure all those conflict wounds but in order to help it execute it properly, you need to give your brain some time to stretch it’s arms and retain that phase of control and authority.

As an old adage says “time heals all wounds”. The exact reason why it is said so is because with time, the dopamine bar gradually starts lowering, and our daily requirements of pleasure and excitement start lessening.

4. Take a break from all your electronic devices (phones, tablets, laptops)

Now the reason why the 21st century is full of digital zombies is because the excess availability and access of Internet has made it an undeniable and an inevitable part of our lives. It’s like an adopted child, whom you can’t give up, since that would be something against the law. Life seems pointless to us in the absence of these electronic devices. Without our phones, it seems like we are living a life of a hermit. We have become so familiar with the sound and touch of our phones and laptops, that not having them around starts brewing a virtual pain in our head.

To be honest, that is not a surprising thing to see, since we have so deeply attached our hearts, minds and souls to these small tools. The excessive pleasure these electronic devices provide us is inimitable. Our affinity towards our phones make us more inclined towards using social media. The utilities of our mobile phones have now changed from just calling and texting to literally everything human mind can come up with. Now we can play games, listen to the music, click photographs, scroll social media and what not. In addition to that, it also comes in use for our professional purposes, for example, writing a report, sending emails, sending invitations, etc.

When something is useful to that extent, why would anyone like to run away from it ? Though, it may seem that our phone ( Laptop, tablets) might be the best creation of mankind, it actually isn’t. The list of detriments relating to a mobile phones are innumerable and that is a concern for another time. However, these electronic devices are the mediums that guide us to the deceptive world of social media. If we somehow stop them from doing so, there is a chance that we can quit social media too.

So how do we stop ourselves from the excessive usage of mobile phones ? According to Mr. James Clear, the author of the book Atomic Habits, there are two foolproof methods of doing it.

First, keep it out of your sight. When we see something, our brain sends a response to it. For example, when you see the red traffic light, your brain signals you to STOP! Similarly, when we see the green light, our brain signals us to GO! This is called the cue inducing effect. The nerves in your eyes send a signal to your brain and brain sends a response to it. So, basically when there is a mobile kept right in front of your eyes, your brain sends you a signal to pick it up and start using it, since it sees no harm in doing so. By keeping your phones in a different room or hidden somewhere, the entire cue inducing process may not occur and there is a chance that you may not feel compelled to use your phones until it is really necessary.

Secondly, keep it out of your reach. Basically, when you make things easier for yourself, you tend to motivate your brain, to do it repeatedly. On the other hand, when you make things difficult for yourself, your brain will refrain from producing the motivation required to do it. This fact can be used to break our bad habits and build good ones. Suppose, you wish to start reading more books, then by keeping a particular book near yourself or within your arms reach, there is a higher chance that you will be reading that book. However, if your book is kept somewhere inside a cupboard, within an isolated room, where you don’t spend much of your time, there is a high probability that you won’t read that book ever, since you actually have to make an extra effort in order to get your task done.

However, the same technique can he very smartly used to break a bad habit. In our case, our bad habit is our excessive usage of mobile phones. We can hide our phones and laptops in an isolated room or somewhere we know that we won’t reach at it easily. For example, if you live on the second floor, you can keep your electronic devices on the ground floor such that the next time you feel the urge to use it, you will have to make an extra effort to make it possible.

5. Spend more time with three-dimensional people.

This is like a cherry on top of a cake or perhaps a bonus tip, which is extremely useful, when it comes to quitting social media. When we spend more time with people and talk to them in real life rather than on any digital platform, it builds within us a sense of empathy and proximity to that person’s emotions and feelings. Think about it. When we are talking to someone face to face we actually read their hand movements, their leg movements, the expression on their face, and the body language they are projecting while conversing with us. All these things contribute in making us a better conversationalist and by extension a better human being.

When we talk to people, listen to their problems, and give them solutions, it leaves a big impact on their lives, because in the 21st century, deep conversations are rare and valuable. On social media we receive tons of approval, but that is incomparable to the the approval we receive when we meet people in person.

The former is called the “Approval of Quantity” and the latter is called “Approval of Quality”. Now obviously, the human desires are mostly inclined towards the former, since that kind of approval not only gives us joy but also gives us a place in the society. However, what we fail to see is that the “Approval of Quality” leaves a bigger impact on the other person’s life. It may not make your life better, but it certainly does for the other person. “Approval of Quality” is like a service we offer others with no expectations of receiving anything in return.

You are no longer going to feel the urge to use social media once you become a source of happiness for others, since wherever you go people will be approve you for your mere presence and believe me the happiness which comes after that is one of the best in the world.