The one change that didn’t work: I deleted all my social media apps – and found myself bored

A year into the pandemic, in early 2021, I was spending most of my time online. I sat and I scrolled – on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – letting the latest horrifying news wash over me, or watching videos of cute animals, or messaging bored friends about our mutual states of crisis.

The more I scrolled, the more all-consuming it became. I found myself instinctively reaching for my phone whenever I could. I would write a paragraph of a piece with a tight deadline, then have a browse on Twitter as a treat. I would watch TV and simultaneously check Instagram during scenes that lost my attention; even in bed, I would scroll to get to sleep and wake up to my phone’s blue light.

One morning, I woke up to a notification that one of my social media passwords had been compromised. I swiftly changed it and accepted my phone’s prompt to log me out of all my accounts, just to be safe. Unbeknown to me, I had two-factor authentication enabled on my Facebook account but now couldn’t get the code I needed to log in because I had to log in to get the code. I was locked out.

I took this development as a divine intervention. Scrolling had been taking up most of my time, and now that the world had begun to reopen, I could go cold turkey. I deleted the apps and immediately felt smug. There was a world out there waiting for me – this would be, I told myself, my ticket to a newfound creativity; a new means of engaging with life.

Once I got over my fear of missing out, I found I really did have more time on my hands. I read more, focused on my work and tried harder to keep in touch with my friends.

But I was getting bored. Setting limits for yourself may give you an illusion of clarity, but life’s joys are often found in the unexpected connections and unplanned moments. I missed friendships that, at least in part, had come to exist online: the pal who works in cinema to whom I would always send inane bits of Twitter film “discourse”, or another friend with whom I would bat memes back and forth. I missed being distracted from work by their chatter. The silence of being offline was starting to feel oppressive.

After a month or so of abstinence, I capitulated. I got my accounts back (minus Facebook, where I was still trying to verify my identity) and decided to engage in social media with greater intention. I placed restrictions on the time I would spend online and the ways in which I would use various platforms. There would be no more scrolling in bed, for instance, and I began muting or blocking Twitter accounts that made me feel stressed or angry. I only followed friends, colleagues and people who made me laugh. On Instagram I found my niche and I followed TikTok compilation accounts and food bloggers. Soon the algorithm was feeding me only what I wanted. I had gamed the system to make my accounts a place of satisfaction.

I also realised how much I had missed social media’s capacity to inspire. Since people are unpredictable, so is the content they throw up online. Any given scroll might uncover the genius of Takuya Nakamura playing trumpet over drum’n’bass, the writing of Chinelo Okparanta, or a Sylvanian Family drama. It turns out that a bit of time-wasting can lead you down unexpected and delightful paths.

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