How to Live Without Social Media

The sense of getting back to your real life.

So you’ve deactivated your social media. (Or you’ve decided you’re going to.)

Congratulations! This is a big step for you. You’ve realized you have a problem, whether that be wasting too much time or caring too much about likes, and have finally done something to fix it. Really, good for you. Pat yourself on the back.

So you’re free… what now?

Probably one of the rudest awakenings you can experience after deactivating all your social media will be that you was someone who could be forgotten. To some people, if you don’t have Facebook or Twitter, you don’t exist. You will end up not talking with a lot of people simply because you no longer had a Messenger account.

Don’t be frightened by this, though. Your true friends will still be there for you, you'll still able to make your friendships work. But be sure to realize there are people you’re going to stop talking to after hitting that deactivate button.

“The desire to win, the desire to be successful, the urge to reach your absolute potential … these are the keys that will open the door to personal excellence” — Confucius.

When there’s no one to compare to when no one gives you approval through a comment. Then you can do it yourself. You shouldn’t listen to anyone other than your intuition and the five most important people in your life.

Without social networks, unconsciously, you live without approval, or reaffirmation, because you have no one who will say if what you have said/done is good or not. Who cares?

In social networks, everyone has an opinion. They are all experts in various fields. In one way or another, you end up being infected by those “opinions.” When you live without social networks, the only help you can receive is the one you seek. If you decide not to look for it, you will not have resources, nor noises that will dictate what you can do and what you can’t do. You will have the opportunity to stop sharing with other people and get to know yourself better.

Do you feel like you would be entirely out of the loop if you abandoned all your usernames? How would you know what that friend who moved to Colorado is doing? Here’s an idea. Try calling, texting, Skype-ing, letter writing, or heck, talking in person with the people you care about. We promise it will mean much more than a double tap.

Watch the news! Listen to an NPR station on the way to work. TMZ won’t let you miss out on all the latest celebrity drama if you must know. Download apps like Circa, that keep you up to date on currents events.

Some people check their social media accounts as soon as they wake up in the morning, during breaks at work or school and while they are falling asleep. Think about when you tend to look at social media, and then find another activity to fill that time.

Just because you’re swearing off social media doesn’t mean you’ve got to swear off all websites whatsoever. You can always go back to playing online games!

Whenever you make a significant change in your life it can be confusing and upsetting. It’s usually an inability to cope with these feelings that drive people back to social media, or whatever they’re trying to quit. You, however, can quiet the storm and improve your odds of staying away from the social media finger trap by meditating for an hour every day. You’ll achieve a much more consistent emotional state and won’t need the constant reinforcement so many people crave from their social media interactions.

If there is one commonality among most social media aficionados it’s that they tend to be somewhat sedentary. Even if they’re old enough to have had something of a life in the BF (before Facebook) era chances are they are far less physically active now than they were then. That would extend to you of course. The good news is that if you’re coming from a place where it seems all you ever did was social media then now you get to do everything else! So go do everything else.

You’ll find that most of the world you knew before is still there (except retail stores of course). So there is no shortage of things to do and places to go.

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