Social Media diet for 30 days

It’s been around a month now since I uninstalled all the social media apps from my phone.

Instagram, Reddit, and X (Twitter) that I used to use heavily I just deleted those apps.

So I think this topic or experiment is not something new over the Internet. I myself have read lots of blog posts and reports on this topic, but for me, I wanted to experiment myself and see what difference it really makes.

A backstory

I think it all started way back in 2020–21 when Covid hit and everyone was locked into their houses. At that time, I was in my second year of engineering, and like everyone else, I had a lot of time and was mindlessly spending a lot of time on the Internet just watching things and wasting time. Until I watched this documentary called “The Social Dilemma.” After watching this documentary, it was an “Ahhhh” moment for me. After that time, I deleted Instagram, and it did help me as that mindless scrolling stopped. And I did focus on the things that I really needed to.

How it started

But for the last 3 years, it feels like I have been using all these social media platforms heavily and had tried quitting them or deleting them but was never able to do it. Last month (Dec 2025), I just deleted those apps. I think deleting Instagram and Reddit was not an issue for me, as I felt that using this two apps I was just wasting my time (here I’m talking about doom scrolling and not reading anything informative on Reddit, though I believe Reddit is a very good platform if you want to hear opinions on specific topics; whenever I need something, I add Reddit at the end of the search. I even read somewhere that major information we get from ChatGPT is scraped from Reddit itself) .

But for X (Twitter), I felt it was more of a platform where I used to get the latest updates about tech and, in general, what is happening, so I felt like I should not delete this app as I was just reading things and getting information. I decided I should delete X (Twitter) as well.

Within days after deleting those apps, I felt something different. As I WFH, whenever I felt like taking a break, I used to pick up my phone and start scrolling on X to see what’s happening around, and I used to spend more time than I intended to. Now, as I deleted those apps, sometimes I used to pick up my phone and search for X, and suddenly I realized wait, I have deleted those apps. (After retrospect, I started to see a pattern whenever I used to feel frustrated and not doing anything, I just used to open this app and start scrolling.)

Was it helpful?

Short answer: Yes. But I would like to explain in detail what difference I feel and whether I would like to continue not using social media.

As I mentioned, Instagram and Reddit were worst for me because I used to spend endless time on these platforms, and as people call it “brain rot.” But X was something that I missed, though for me, Hacker News was something I used to open first thing in the morning and glance through all the topics on the first page. Here, I was getting most of the information happening around tech and in general, but something was still missing.

Then I thought should I start reading newspapers? Because this was something that I wanted to do for quite a while, but I used to just say to myself, why do you need newspapers? You already have the Internet, and all the information is readily available online, and you can go and read whatever you want.

Suddenly, I realized the whole point of me deleting Twitter was that if I committed some time to scroll X, I used to go into a loophole on some random topics or controversies that were happening. And I felt NO, I was not preferring online news. I took a newspaper subscription, and till now, I think it was a good decision that I took. I WFH, so whenever I feel like taking a break, I just get up from my chair and read some articles and then get back to work (though in the morning, I used to spend around 30 minutes reading the sections that I found interesting). From a larger perspective, if I see, I got to know a lot about Indian government policies and what all things are happening around me. (Some will say you do get news from other platforms it’s true, we do get news on other platforms.) But while reading a physical newspaper, I will not get distracted and go off-topic and just doom scrolling things.

Another topic that I would like to talk a bit about is spirituality. As someone born in a Hindu family, growing up, I have been taught to pray to God and believe in Him. I have always been curious to learn more about it but never spent time (or should I say I was busy doom scrolling and feeding my brain with unwanted things). Srimad Bhagavad Gita is a Hindu scripture which I already wanted to read because I have heard a lot about it from movies like Oppenheimer, where he quotes a verse from the Gita, and also Sam Altman talking about conciseness. Finally, I have bought the book and started reading it (I would like to share more on this topic in later blogs).

Sleep cycle, As someone who is very much into the gym and calisthenics, I was already conscious about my sleep. But there used to be days when I went to bed and felt like I would just take a peek and sleep, but it used to be hours long. And when I used to get up in the morning, I could feel the difference in my eyes.

One important thing that I have observed is that even if some day I sleep late due to any reason, if the next day I try getting up early, I feel sleepy but anyway I get up. But on the nights where I used to spend time scrolling before sleeping, in the morning I used to feel that irritation in my eyes and no will to get up. Now, once I go to bed, I just keep my phone aside and sleep.

Final thoughts

I think overall, as a person, I’m getting more time to do things that I wanted to do for a while now, earlier my brain used to choose the easy path of doom scrolling rather than doing something which had been on my TODO list for years. All the benefits I have discussed above are something I think a normal person also follows in day-to-day life. For me, this was more of an experiment where I wanted to see how exactly it feels to totally get rid of this thing. I’m planning to continue this “social media dieting” and see what all things I can achieve once I aspire and start taking baby steps.

One most important thing that I’m really happy about is this blog post itself. I have been thinking of writing for quite a while, but it’s just that I felt like this topic was vague and too simple, and why would someone read my blog post? Until I realized it’s not about someone reading your blog it’s more about you penning down your thoughts for more clarity and for your future self. And in the way, if someone reads this blog and benefits from it, then it’s the cherry on the cake.

See you until next time.

Om Tat Sat