Every now and then, I get the urge to disappear from social media completely.
Deactivate everything. Stop scrolling. Stop checking what everyone else is doing. Get my attention back and return to some peaceful version of life where my phone isn’t constantly asking me to look at something.
I’ve done it several times.
And eventually, I come back. 😅
For a while, I thought that meant I just wasn’t disciplined enough. If I really wanted to quit these platforms, surely I should be able to delete them and move on with my life.
Read my previous post about Digital Minimalism.
The more I think about it, though, the less I believe this is simply a discipline problem.
It’s hard to disappear when so much of our social life happens online
Social media doesn’t feel like an optional little corner of the internet anymore.
It’s where people announce things, share updates, organize events, promote businesses, and keep up with friends they rarely speak to directly.
And I notice the difference whenever I deactivate my accounts.
My phone gets suspiciously quiet.
People don’t always reach out when you disappear because, in a strange way, social media has become part of how we maintain relationships. We watch someone’s Stories, see their vacation photos, learn that they changed jobs, or find out what they’ve been doing without ever having an actual conversation.
It gives us the feeling that we’re keeping in touch.
Take that away, and you suddenly realize how much of modern connection has become passive.
I don’t particularly like that, but I can’t pretend it isn’t part of how we live nowadays.
Even Jennifer Lawrence recently joined Instagram after years of staying away from having a public account.
I have mixed feelings after finding out about it, actually. She’s supposed to be one of the few celebrities I look up to for not having a social media presence. But now, she has one. So basically, no one is immune.
I hate when the whole problem gets reduced to self-control
Whenever people talk about phone addiction or social media, the advice often sounds the same. And I’ve heard enough of that over and over again.
Set a timer. Delete the app. Turn off your notifications. Develop better habits. Put your phone in another room.
Those things can help, but we still have responsibility for how we use technology.
What frustrates me is the idea that struggling to control your attention automatically means you lack discipline.
These platforms don’t exist as neutral spaces that we just happen to misuse. Companies actively test and improve features designed to keep people engaged: endless feeds, recommendations, notifications, autoplay, and all the other little things that make it easy to stay longer than you intended.
Then somehow the entire responsibility gets handed back to the person holding the phone.
“Just have more self-control.” Really? I just find that hard to accept, to be honest.
Reading Stolen Focus changed how I look at my own attention
I started reading Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus because I was trying to understand why focusing had become so difficult for me.
Naturally, I approached it like another personal problem to solve.
You know… I thought I just needed better routines. More discipline. Fewer distractions. Probably another productivity system because apparently I haven’t tried enough of those already. 😅
I’m almost finished with the book now, and one idea keeps sticking with me: attention doesn’t exist separately from the environment around us.
There’s always something competing for it.
Things like.. notifications, information, work, social media, messages, news, and entertainment. The expectation that we should always be reachable and aware of what’s happening.
Of course, I can work on my own habits. But I’ve stopped believing that I can solve the entire problem by becoming an exceptionally disciplined person who never gets distracted because you know… I’m a human being. 😅
And that sounds exhausting in itself.
I can’t exactly remove technology from my life either
This is where things become complicated.
I work online.
I communicate with clients, research, write, design, build websites, use AI, manage projects, send emails, and run a business through a screen.
Technology isn’t just entertainment for me. It’s infrastructure.
And outside work, so much of ordinary life has moved online too. Payments, shopping, appointments, invitations, communities, entertainment, networking, even relationships.
So when people say we should simply “disconnect,” I always wonder what that actually means in practice.
Do I throw my phone into the ocean and move into the woods? That’s tempting, yes. 😂
But realistically though? I don’t want to reject technology. I still like it.
I just don’t like feeling as though I have so little control over how much of my attention it takes.
I miss when people had a little more mystery
This might be the part that makes me sound old.
I miss not knowing everything about everyone.
Now we can know what someone ate, where they went, what they bought, what they believe, what they’re angry about, who they’re dating, what they’re working on, and what their morning routine looks like.
And somehow, these ordinary parts of everyday life have become content too.
We know so much about complete strangers now because more creators are sharing the mundane details of their lives. At this point, I’m not even sure I’d call it a trend anymore. I think it’s just part of how the internet works today.
And because we know people are watching, we also think about how we present ourselves.
Even things that look spontaneous can feel carefully manufactured.
Yes, I’m part of this too. I post things, although not that often. I run a business online, and I still think carefully about what I’m comfortable sharing and what I’d rather keep private.
I just find the constant visibility tiring sometimes, you know?
If it were entirely up to me, I’d rather not know everything about everyone. And I don’t need everyone knowing everything about me either.
I don’t think quitting completely is the answer for me
As much as I fantasize about deleting everything whenever social media gets on my nerves, I still keep coming back because there are things about it that I genuinely value.
So I don’t think my goal is to quit anymore.
I’d rather figure out what a healthier relationship with technology looks like for me.
That still means changing some of my habits and paying attention to what I allow into my day. But I’m also done treating every struggle with focus as proof that I just need to try harder.
I’m almost finished with Stolen Focus, and I still have a lot of thoughts about all of this.
I don’t want to escape the internet.
I just don’t want it taking more of my attention than I’m willing to give.
