Why I technically Quit Social Media

I was on a long break; more like a break I never really planned for but ended up taking anyway. Maybe it was difficult for me to get a grip on what I write and how I write; maybe I was just lost in the way I connect with words.

I tried to alienate myself from the virtual world but I failed miserably because I was still scrolling on Reddit; commenting here and there; debating endlessly; as if that somehow counted as engagement. It did not. It was a loop I had to break and I realized that I needed to put a check on myself. So now I have adjusted a timetable for myself; I have given myself a room for my writing and a room for my thoughts.

The biggest step I took was uninstalling Reddit and Twitter from my phone; that is probably the most defining decision I have made this year. I will still be using them on my computer but that is very different from having them in my pocket all the time. A few years ago I had already uninstalled Instagram and though at the time it was for different reasons it ended up being one of the best things I did for myself.

Now with Reddit and Twitter gone from my phone too I feel lighter; I feel like I have reclaimed a part of my life that I had been handing away bit by bit. As for YouTube it is already something I barely touch; I do not even have the app on my phone. I watch it occasionally on my TV or sometimes on my iPad but never in the way that keeps me stuck scrolling for hours.

The decision to stop using YouTube on my phone turned out to be more powerful than I expected; it stopped my entire scrolling of shorts. That last platform where I still had reels or shorts as they like to call it is completely gone for me now. My YouTube viewing itself has reduced drastically; it is maybe two or three videos a day at most and I am fine with that. The important part is that the endless scrolling cycle has been cut.

Now you might think that without these platforms I am using all my time productively; reading; writing; exercising; maybe even meditating. But no. What I end up doing most of the time is watching movies and TV shows. Some people might laugh at this and say I have only shifted the addiction but I do not see it that way. The difference is huge. When I watch a movie or a series it is my choice; it is something I have sought out; I know what I want to watch and I sit down for it.

This is not like subscribing to endless OTT platforms and scrolling aimlessly for something to kill time. I used to own all those subscriptions once and I realized quickly that it was another trap. Now I learn about a movie or a show; I look for it and I watch it on shadow websites. You might say this is wrong and ethically questionable but the bigger trap to me is the subscription game itself. That is another discussion on its own; a whole debate about how our money and time are pulled into circles we never asked for.

The real question I keep coming back to is this; how is it that watching YouTube or Instagram feels like a waste of time but watching a TV show or a movie does not? For me the answer lies in the difference between forceful entertainment and chosen entertainment. YouTube and Instagram monetize our time; they push entertainment onto us even when we are not seeking it. That is why I found myself randomly visiting those sites without reason; why I kept scrolling reels without knowing why. Yes they can be entertaining but did I actually ask for that entertainment? No.

Some of the people I know even use reels to sleep; they literally control their sleep to fit in just one more scroll and for what? Why are we sacrificing something as important as sleep just to be entertained by something we did not even ask for? Fifteen years ago we were not like this. We had better things to do. We slept properly. We watched movies with patience. We even sat through boring ads and yet we were satisfied and we had attention spans that lasted.

Attention span itself is another conversation and I could go on about it but this much is enough to say that we have slowly become products of the social media box. We are not consumers; we are not the customers; the real customers are the advertisers and the corporations. We are simply the product being sold.