A January Free From Social Media

I took a semi-impromptu month off of social media this January (which ends today). On December 30th, I saw my cousin post a story that he'd be off socials until February, and I figured "if Gen Z can do it, I can too".

January has been my most social-media-heavy month every year for about a decade. I started an Instagram community called Vegans of LDN in 2015, and each Veganuary we'd have a big boost of followers and a very intense collaboration schedule - whether was heavily pregnant and exhausted, or just motherhood-level exhausted. In the months preceding, I'd go out on 'content days', often hitting up four or five eateries a day and shooting all the food for Veganuary campaigns - most often with a baby or toddler in tow.
I've barely posted on that page in the past year+ as I have my third (and final!) baby at home all day every day while my husband works, and in the evenings it's family time as a five. So this January, I thought... fuck it! Let's not even open the app. And it felt soooo good.

I'm posting my thoughts on my month off social media, as someone who has never ...ever... taken a single day off of Instagram in over a decade, just for myself to look back on, really. I don't think it's a monumental action; I don't think it's particularly virtuous or even interesting. But it was a big change for lil old me, so it earns a place on my blog.

What I thought might happen

I have read several clickbaity articles on giving up social media, so here's what I thought would happen. I thought I'd sleep more. I'd be more productive. I'd have better posture. I'd spend more quality time with those around me. I would eat more mindfully due to not snacking while scrolling. I'd feel more connected to nature. I'd be a more present human.

What actually happened

I did not sleep more. I have a 14-month-old baby who is currently cutting five teeth at once and went through two separate lurgies this month. He is latched to my breast all night long and intermittently yelps and/or hits me in the eyeball with his hands/feet. However, it often takes me a long time to fall asleep, and there was a slight shift here. It's still been taking me a while to get to sleep, but the dozens of thoughts popping into my head have mostly been relevant to my actual life and my own, personal day. My brain hasn't had to work so much to shut down, because I have been feeding it *much* *less* *unnecessary* *content*. That's been wonderful.

I have been mildly more productive. I noticed, gladly, that I wasn't actually in the habit of mindlessly scrolling on social media at times of the day where I had the option of being more productive. I tend to scroll when I'm (a) in bed in the morning feeding the baby but it's too early to get up with him, (b) nap trapped during the day, and (c) feeding the baby to sleep at the end of the day. One big positive impact was on my 'action later'/'read later'-type tabs. I read the things I'd bookmarked to read later, instead of compulsively opening Instagram and reading through twenty slides from a meme page. I finally learned about trepanning. Awesome. I did also end up spending money on things I'd bookmarked to buy at a later date...

My posture hasn't changed from less time on social media, because I mostly use it while screwball-scrambled in a gnarly kind of position while feeding the baby.

I spent a little bit more quality time with those around me. This applied mostly to when I'd enter the bedroom after putting the older two kids to bed. The baby is in this bedroom. Peppe and I would often be on our own phones for a bit, having no-one-speak-to-me time, which is quite essential as parents of three. But naturally, as I've been getting my phone out and having nothing to entertain me on it, we've ended up speaking to each other a bit more at that time. I don't know if he's thrilled that I've encroached on his no-one-speak-to-me time, but it's nice to connect at the end of the day.

I have not been eating more mindfully due to not snacking while scrolling. I snack a lot and am not great at eating meals. I'm in a vicious cycle of being too tired to make food and then not nourishing myself enough to potentially sleep better. We'll get there soon enough.

I have felt a little more connected to nature. I wasn't expecting this effect since I use social media mostly indoors, but I realised how many dull photos and videos I take to post on Stories!!! Wow. Maybe I really can drink matcha without sharing it online?! I'm still taking lots of my kids though. Matcha will always be green, but my kids won't always be small and squishy.

Finally, have I been a more present human? I'd say 5-10% so. I get distracted easily and need to micro-manage myself on a daily basis in order to make sure everything gets hit. Taking away social media has taken away one big distraction, so in that sense, I've been able to focus a little more on the task at hand.

What next?

I thought I'd be itching to open Instagram for missed messages, XiaoHongShu for my Chinese culture fix (although I heard a million Americans downloaded it this month, ughhh) and X to catch up on the shitshow that's happening in the US. But I'm really, really not. I noticed for the first, maybe, 4-5 days, that my thumb would compulsively slide to the folder where I keep Instagram - it's usually in a folder called 'do not open' to try to delay me from absent-mindedly opening the app - and even a couple of times in the second two weeks of the month, that muscle memory kicked in and my thumb went in search of Instagram. The most interesting thing about this month has been to see how my brain is wired to seek content and validation that doesn't really affect what's in front of me: my kids, my husband, self care, my home, my offline work teaching yoga and fitness. My brain is definitely addicted, to some extent, to social media. I'm going to take a little time to think about how I want to use it from now on, before opening it all up again in February.

Let's see how it goes.

1/2/25 edit:

I opened my phone this morning, looked at my browser tabs, and realised that I've definitely been 'influenced' less in the past month than I usually am. I haven't gone searching for much that's new. I've been ticking off the old instead. And I doubt that I would have gone traipsing through Vinted looking for pedal pushers (apparently they're called Capris these days?!) in November if I hadn't been on social media that month. I do love them though. And I love the idea of being influenced by what's on my screen less, and what's around me in real life more.