How to Detox From Social Media Without Deleting your Account

How to detox from social media without deleting your account? Yes, you can unplug your social media without destroying it.

Raise your hand if you’ve experienced the following: You look up from your phone and realize you missed the entire TV show you were watching because you were on your phone going through social media. You’re not the only one. 

I recently published a blog post on ( 10 Surprising Benefits When You Quit Social Media), because I know some people want to stay off social media for a longer time and if so, then this post is for you. If I can do it, so can you. 

People are spending more time on social media as it becomes more significant in our daily lives. Being active on social media platforms can be tiresome and, worse, can hurt your mental health.

According to recent research, social media can create a bubble that narrows people’s minds and has an effect on the reward regions of kids’ brains.

Research  

According to comScore’s 2017 Cross-Platform Future in Focus report, the average American and Nigerian spends two hours and 51 minutes each day staring at their phone.

In addition, according to a 2018 poll conducted by consulting company Deloitte, respondents checked their phones more than 50 times per day on average. 

The reality is that you can’t altogether avoid social media. For many individuals, it’s a part of their professions, a chance to learn new things, and a way to stay in touch with friends and family.

It’s difficult to picture a day without social media if you’re a digital marketer, social media manager, or business owner. 

We frequently get out of bed and instantly check our social accounts, read the newest headlines or popular topics while drinking our morning coffee, and share our latest posts before even arriving at our workplace desk.

How Constant Use of Social Media May Hurt Your Health

Social media accounted for 30% of all online time in 2016. Incredibly, 80% of social media time is now spent on mobile devices. Let’s explore how using social media excessively can start to harm your health.

a. Your sleep is disrupted.

Screen time in excess can hurt the length and quality of our sleep, particularly if it occurs right before bed.

More precisely, exposure to short-wavelength blue light before bed might shorten REM sleep, lessen morning alertness, and prolong the time it takes to fall asleep.

This light is released by tablets, laptops, phones, LED lights, and the sun.

For a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of excessive social media use on health, you can delve into the insights provided by experts at Lanier Law Firm by visiting their article on social media addiction.

b. It causes FOMO.

Spending a lot of time on social media to observe what other people are doing can make the fear of missing out (FOMO) worse. Yet, refraining from using social media could compel you to rely on less fulfilling forms of communication with friends, including phone calls or face-to-face meetings.

Try to keep in mind that people share content on social media that they want others to view since studies reveal that some Facebook users think their friends have happier, better lives than they do.

How to Detox From Social Media Without Deleting Your Account

There are basic actions you may take without permanently deleting your profiles and accounts if you are feeling isolated or seeking a social media detox.

Take these simple measures to ensure that the time you do spend on social media is conscious rather than mindless.

1. Track Your Use With Built-in Settings.

You can’t change a habit unless you first completely comprehend it. Thankfully, tech developers are attempting to assist individuals in spending less time on their phones.

You can check which applications and websites you use the most and set daily restrictions in Digital Wellness. When you reach the limit, the apps and websites pause and the notifications stop. 

As a result, you’ll only spend the time you choose, exactly where you want.

Both Apple’s digital wellness Activity Reports and Google’s Digital Wellbeing dashboard track how much time you spend on your phone, how frequently you use different applications, how frequently you unlock your phone, and how many alerts you receive.

Note: Get an Alarm:  If you’re serious about undergoing a digital cleansing, don’t sleep with your phone or any other technology. If you rely on your digital device to wake you up in the morning, you can purchase an alarm clock.

2. Define and Designate Detox Periods

We’d all be better off if we could take a break from our devices; it’s crucial to schedule this into your day so you don’t forget! Maybe it’s for a few detox hours each night before bed, or maybe it’s in the morning when you don’t have to work online.

When you do take a break from your screens, take notice of how you feel after you detox from social media. Do you feel less stressed? 

“Unplugging by itself is unlikely to make a difference in your life,” Swartzberg observes. “Yet, spending that digital-free time focused on your relationships and activities you enjoy can improve your life.” Sure, you can use technology to disconnect from technology. 

Several apps might assist you in developing healthier phone habits. 

• Moment encourages you to disconnect by posing tasks ranging from “put down your phone for 30 minutes” to “turn off some notifications.” 
• Siempo (now available on Android and soon to be accessible on iOS devices) turns your phone’s home screen black and white to make it look less enticing, and it periodically rearranges your app icons so you don’t, say, open Snapchat first thing in the morning. 
• And Flipd hides all of your most distracting apps unless you set time limitations.

3. Make a screening schedule and stick to it.

Monitoring the time spent on a social networking app settings will assist you in creating your screen schedule.

There, you will see the average time frame you have on your account and how much time you spend on it.

After that, you can adjust it to fit your ideal timetable. Establish time limits for yourself on social media. 

Set time limitations for your personal social media use in the same way that you would for technology-free times.

This can be used to limit the amount of time you spend on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, among others.

Be sure your objective is reasonable before you decide to establish boundaries for yourself. 

Keep a written log of every time you check social media during a regular weekday, whether it’s for work or personal reasons. This will make it easier for you to practice self-control during your social media detox.

You must be patient with yourself in this one, as you must in all others. Following your screen routine requires taking one step at a time.

4. Disable Mobile Social Media Notifications.

It’s as if we’ve all evolved a  Conditioned response to that small ding or vibration we get whenever a notification arrives on our phones (and how many times have you believed your phone vibrated only to find no messages?).

Go to your phone’s settings to disable or manage notifications, particularly for the most annoying apps (looking at you, Instagram). 

Turning off mobile notifications for your accounts, or corporate accounts if not essential, is an easy approach to avoid checking your feeds repeatedly.

If you aren’t continuously alerted to what’s going on online, you might be less likely to check it on your phone as frequently. You can instead jump in during your designated hours to catch up.

To take a break, go to your phone’s settings and select how you hear from social networking apps.

You can even silence that never-ending group text while keeping individual text notifications on—or turn your phone completely silent and face down while you’re busy. 

5. Delete Some Apps Completely.

It sounds frightening—what is a phone if it isn’t constantly linked to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or Tiktok? Nevertheless, to be honest, deleting those apps from your phone will have no effect.

You can still access most of them on your PC, avoiding severe FOMO, but you’ll avoid the automatic response of opening and scrolling out of boredom.

One of the biggest reasons we become addicted to social media is because it is so simple to use. Consider trying to reduce your sugar intake while carrying candies in your pockets. It would be impossible.

Remove any social media apps from your phone and ban specified websites from your laptop.

It’s best to keep the gadget you use for social media distinct from the one you always carry with you. 

This way, you won’t be tempted to use social media every time you unlock your screen or while working.

One of the challenges for folks on a social media detox is the worry of losing out on things when they go offline.

You may reduce your screen time by removing apps from your phone.

6. Prioritize Other Activities, Hobbies, and Passions

Instead of viewing this as a way to curb negative behavior, consider what you stand to gain by detoxing from social media.

What activities or interests would you have more time for if you redirected your time on social media? Certain activities can even improve cognitive function and memory retention. 

To make your detox more productive, try reading, learning a new language, or keeping to an exercise program to replace the time you’d regularly spend on social media.

You’re probably looking through your phone because you’re bored—so get engaged! Join up for new exercise programs, take a long bike ride, enroll in a cooking class or volunteer at a local animal shelter. 

You may also use your phone for what it was designed for: conversing (gasp!). Instead of tagging each other in memes for eternity, start organizing catch-up calls with any long-distance friends.

7. Establish A Routine

Everyone like their routines, right? A night-time routine and a morning routine. Have a pattern for your online presence as well. Consider turning off your alerts after 10 p.m. and checking them only in the morning.

Try a few different combinations and permutations to determine what works best for you. Here, the goal is to establish a pattern of behavior rather than entirely withdraw. 

Enjoy writing in journals, planners, to-do lists, and other forms of writing? You should use this one. Grab a journal and a pen, and use it as a social media activity log. Here, honesty with yourself is crucial.

Write it down every night if you spend an average of 5 hours on Instagram, 2 hours on Linkedln, and 15 hours a day in front of a screen.

Monitor your daily activity and give yourself the objective of gradually lowering your numbers until it becomes a habit.

8. Get An Accountability Partner

Unless it’s an emergency, have a confidante change your passwords and restrict your access to your accounts. Remember to only share your login information with people you can completely trust.

Do you know how telling people you’re heading to the gym after class or posting about your #gainz on Instagram makes you more likely to adhere to an exercise routine?

The same may be said for a social media detox. It all comes down to accountability. Inform others that you’re reducing the amount of time you spend publishing and sharing.

In the best-case scenario, the people around you would not only support you, but they may even join you on your social media detox.

9. Get Rid of The People You Follow.

There is no end to what you can feed your head on social media. Yet, the majority of the items have no value.

You don’t need to know what random celebs are doing or what their political ideas are. When it comes to a strong social media strategy, less is more.

It frees up brain space and eliminates the need to stay up to speed on people you don’t care about, resulting in less online time.

10. Be Prepared To Feel Uncomfortable

We can identify some patterns if we are honest and understand why we blindly spend so much time online. We’re either avoiding boredom, loneliness, overwhelm, or anything else that’s bothering us in the back of our brains.

Social media simply provides an easy escape from such emotions. 

Read More: Everything you need to know about Social Media Addiction

Each day, we are all allotted only 24 hours. Disconnect from social media and make in-person connections with individuals you care about to ensure you have complete control over the short time you have.

With so much of our time spent staring at a screen, it’s easy to become addicted to social media. 

We may regain much of our control and time by being more conscious of how we use it, without having to delete it entirely.

It’s best to keep your head up and deal with them right then and there than to try to find an escape. In the long run, fleeing may lead to even more serious addictions.

Relax and let the emotion pass. It will eventually escape.