I just opened my Netflix viewing history to check when did I watch The Social Dilemma. It has been 18 days. I watched it on 10th September 2020. I have been trying to limit my social media usage for quite a while now, and to be honest, I was struggling with it.
After watching The Social Dilemma, I followed a few steps and would like to share them (or better document them, because no one reads this blog).
The 15 mins value
I had made my mind that I want to quit social media. I didn’t want to delete my accounts (you know because I may need them again), so I did a little, you can call it an experiment. I opened Facebook and scrolled for 15 minutes without any break. Then I made a list of things that I found in the 15 minutes scroll that may add some value to my life OR I would learn something from it, and I found ZERO things.
Sure, I follow a few pages like Film Companion, Jio MAMI Film Festival, or I am part of groups like MoviesDrop. All these pages and groups have content that I want to consume. Apart from these three-four pages/groups, I didn’t find much to hold onto.
I was never a fan of Snapchat or Instagram. So it wasn’t hard for me to delete those apps. Then I was left with Twitter, Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, Telegram, and WhatsApp.
WhatsApp – The hardest for me is WhatsApp. Although I am not very active on WhatsApp, I do get important messages from time to time on it.
Twitter – I was not much active on Twitter. I installed it quite recently. I still have it on my phone because I follow a few people who regularly post good content that I would like to consume. The political conversations happening there are very extreme sometimes but I try and avoid them. Follow me @rohilla_aakash.
LinkedIn – I deleted it just now before I started writing this blog post. Now trust me when I say this, LinkedIn is a great place to start conversations with business prospects or to land a good gig or job, but recently I see people are rubbing their own make on each other’s faces, just like those YouTube reaction videos. I am still on LinkedIn. I may visit LinkedIn from my computer but the phone app is gone now.
Reddit – Reddit was installed only after I deleted Facebook, maybe to fill the gap. I follow a few communities on Reddit that have good discussions going on. I deleted it a few days ago because it failed the 15 minutes test two times in a row.
Quora – Don’t know what is happening, maybe it’s the threads I have visited in past, or their algorithm is like that. All I get on my Quora feed are these types of questions.
“How to get into IIT?”
“Is 35k per month enough to survive in Bengaluru?”
“What are the perks given to an IAS officer?”
I still get some topics that I am interested in, so I haven’t deleted Quora yet. If it fails two consecutive 15 minutes tests then I will delete it.
Telegram – I was active on Telegram when I used to invest in cryptocurrencies (remember those damn ICOs). But now I won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. After exiting a few groups, there wasn’t much on Telegram, so I deleted it.
Now, do note that I haven’t deleted any of my accounts. I just deleted the apps from my phone. Make it harder for yourself to open social media and you will do just fine. Like if you open your social media first thing in the morning then instead of using your phone as an alarm, use an actual alarm clock. This way when you wake up, your hand won’t go on your phone without you knowing it. Don’t use the phone in the toilet, although I am guilty of this habit. But nowadays, I generally browse Feedly instead of social media.