'I Never Realized How Much I Mindlessly Scroll Until I Deleted My Social Media Apps for Two Weeks'

If I watch more than one TikTok video in a row, I become mean. Obviously, this is a huge problem and not exactly flattering to admit, but I knew it was time to spend less time on social media right after I barked at my life partner for the second time they tried to talk to me mid-Tok. So I deleted TikTok, Instagram, Twitter (which I don't really use, but deleted anyway) and YouTube, and prayed for a longer fuse and a better life.

I didn't think it would be hard. After all, so much of my day is spent on the computer writing, and the rest of it I'm usually outside, walking the dog, working out, eating or watching TV. How much social media do I really use? I haven't even posted in a while, I thought to myself. This is going to be a breeze.

It was not a breeze.

What My First Week Off Social Media Looked Like

I allowed myself to use certain social media on my desktop (for work only, I swear, because I do need to stay aware of TikTok trends and such for my job), but other than that, I refrained.

Five days went by and I was doing really well. I didn't even need social media. I was reading a book! I was cooking real meals for dinner! I found time to bake bread! I even took up a new hobby, flower hammering, which is when you transfer the colors and prints of a flower onto a piece of cardstock or fabric, by pounding it with a hammer. (Highly recommend you look it up.)

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I was a worldly person, one with nature, living wild and carefree. I was hammering pansies in my dining room, after all, and eating homemade rosemary sourdough for goodness' sake.

But I quickly realized that was just the honeymoon phase. I was about to crack.

Day six and seven felt like torture. It was less of a choice to stay offline and more of a struggle not to sign on. What was I missing? How many likes had I gotten in my absence? Had it been a month? A year?

I fell off. I consumed it all. I went down a TikTok rabbit hole about how to throw a Bravo-themed birthday party and I don't know what time of the night (morning?) it was before I came back to earth.

I'd probably done enough blue-light damage to my eyes for all of eternity. But this was the challenge I'd signed up for and I had to rise to the occasion. Or at least, what was left of the occasion.

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How I Got Myself Back on Board

So I took a deep breath and tried again. Self-care journals with trackers really helped. I would wake up (naturally, no alarm) and immediately after doing normal human hygiene stuff, sit at my desk and start my self-care trackers. What was my mood? Where was I in my cycle? How did I sleep? What was I feeling? Then, it was right to the gratitude journal, in which I challenged myself to list three things I looked forward to in the AM and later at night, record three things I was thankful for.

These two daily journal entry moments helped start and anchor my day. And more importantly, they slowly took the place of the early-morning social media check and the late-night scroll that I was used to. A newly implemented rule—no phone in the bed, morning or night—helped too, so I had to read a book to entertain myself or else just go to sleep.

I won't lie—it took a while to adjust the sleeping schedule. Going to bed isn't as tough for me as waking up is, and I had long relied on my phone and that first early-morning scroll to wake me up enough to get out of bed. Without it, I had to motivate myself on my own. Getting up when you're still exhausted is the worst.

But I managed. Pretty soon a full two weeks went by. Toward the middle of the second week, I stopped even thinking about it. I hardly noticed when I wasn't on my phone and most importantly, I didn't crave it anymore.

I had finally made this social media-free life a habit, which made it more of a lifestyle than a choice or a challenge.

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How I Feel About Social Media Now

My apps are back on my phone now, but I don't keep them in the dash on my main screen—it's just messages, phone and mail. That way, the IG button isn't right there, begging to be pressed. I've done the same with the rest of my social media buttons, "hiding" them, so to speak, in one "social media" category. It's a small thing, but it adds an extra step so that social media isn't right in my face. It's tempting enough, so it doesn't need to be front and center.

I haven't made bread in a while and I'm in between books right now, but these days, my daily routine is neater and more streamlined.

And then I got the one alert that actually mattered: Your screen time is down 49% from last week. Huh, will you look at that. You better believe that notification made it into the gratitude journal.

Next up, how much time should we really be spending on social media?