Social media became the new great addiction of our modern age.Itis similar to alcohol, gambling or drugs.Notifications, likes and new followers release dopamine in our brains,and we get addicted to that feeling.Social media companies are well aware of that,and designed their platforms to keep us on them as long as possible.
When we get asked if we could live without social media,the answer almost always is
"sure, I just don't want to",
Which is what every addict says.
In the last weeks, I realized that over the years I built an unhealthy habit of consuming a lot of social media,probably because my work was always based around it.Due to the lockdown, I was trapped at home in my boring hometown,
so the online world was the placew here the cool stuff happened.Therefore, the screen time on my phone got up to an all-time high of 5-6 hours a day.
As I saw many other creators doing a social
media detox, and read many articles about it,I got curious,so I decided to live the next 30 days without social media,and see what I can take away from this.
Alright, here's the plan.I'm deleting Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat from my phone.On my laptop, I banned the websiteswith an app called SelfControl.
It says "you will be anable to access those sites -even if you restart your computer or delete the application",which...Already freaks me out, to be honest.I mean, this icon looks dangerous, right?
I also kept messengers like WhatsApp and
Facebook Messenger on my phone,but besides that, nothing else.
From now on, there will be no more scrolling,no funny videos, no posts of my friends having fun,and no photos of beautiful girls.
In the first week, I spent most of the time
filming, editing and replying to emails,
where I already ran into my first problem.
A client of mine sent me an email with a video link
to a video which is similar to the one he wants,
and it was a f*cking YouTube link.
So I tried to open it, but I couldn't
because of the program.
So I came up with an idea,
and I downloaded it with a YouTube
downloader on the Internet.
It's a little bit of cheating, I guess,
but I mean, I had to.
I also spent a lot of time with friends.
On one day, my buddy Alex and I hiked up a mountain
and made it to the top just in time
before the sun was about to set.
The whole scenery looked perfect, and the old me
would have probably snapped a hundred pictures
and Instagram stories to share with the online world,
but as I couldn't do that,
I really got to enjoy the moment,
and took it all in.
Without worrying about how many
likes this picture would get,
it kind of felt liberating.
Later that week, I fell back into old habits.
Sometimes I caught myself tapping
where my social media apps used to be,
I binge-watched several series on Netflix,
as I needed another source of entertainment,
and I spent much more time on WhatsApp,
not only to text with friends,
but weirdly, also to look at the
different profile pictures of them.
Probably that was which came
closest to Instagram, I guess.
Day 7
of social media detox, and today is my birthday!
Guys, come on.
Usually people reach out by Facebook or...
Yeah, mostly Facebook, to be honest,
and they just say "happy birthday"
and post something on your page.
But today is a little bit different,
because I just can't look on my Facebook
or any other social media.
Still,
some of my real good friends, they reached out,
they called me or we just FaceTimed.
Yeah, I don't really miss any of the comments
where people just say "happy birthday"
on Facebook, and that's all.
It's so much better to have people just reaching out,
truly asking what you're up to.
It just feel like a much stronger connection than...
Than just via social media.
Later that day, some of my closest friends came over
and we had dinner together, which was really fun.
In the next 2 weeks, a lot of things
happened and changed.
I bought myself a new drone, and
tested it together with my brother.
As I didn't fly drones for quite some time,
it was really fun to get back to it,
and I decided to do a little roadtrip
to some of the nicest places in my region,
to practice flying and capture some cool shots.
To make use of this trip, I decided to shoot a video
about why we should make more mistakes.
So, I drove along those winding roads while
talking about the things which really mattered to me,
and every now and then, I stopped to fly my drone.
As the day slowly came to an end, I felt
something that I didn't feel for a long time.
I was passionate about the work I did.
Throughout the whole day, I barely used my phone,
and I felt like I really connected with
filmmaking and storytelling again.
In the weeks before I quit social media,
I was in a deep creative rut,
I had no inspiration and no motivation
to create anything,
but on this day, everything turned around.
I felt reenergized and active,
and I was ready for a new chapter.
I've been staying in my parents' house
for 8 weeks due to Coronavirus,
I decided to leave my hometown,
and move to Munich.
Okay, so now it's day 20,
and I've been here in Munich for 7 days now,
and so far I'm feeling really good,
I'm feeling really productive.
This week I actually published 2 videos on YouTube
instead of one, which was my goal,
so yeah, that's really nice.
I just felt like creating a lot of videos
at the moment, so that's what I did.
But something's also changed, because
when I was at home, at my parents' house,
there were still people around me
all the time, there was my mum,
my brother, so there were always
people that I could just talk to,
but here it's just myself,
there's nobody else here.
And because of that, I actually had a stronger
need to socialize with other people,
and therefore also to go more on social media apps,
so that's why I became actually
a little bit active on LinkedIn.
You take what you get, right?
Yeah, I'm not really taking it seriously, but still,
I feel like there's a deep need in us to see
what's happening in other people's lives.
I don't know why, but yeah, I feel the need to just...
See what's happening with other people!
In the next few days, I spent the majority of
the time in front of my laptop, editing videos.
I was motivated, focused and rarely distracted.
I was in a creative flow,
and I got a lot of things done.
While I enjoyed my work again and
was passionate about creating videos,
there was still something missing.
In the evenings, when I finished work,
I would often just sit in my bed,
and I didn't really know what to do.
I was exhausted, and I didn't know
how to fill these last hours of my day,
as I would normally spend them on social media.
So I knew something needed to change.
That's why I started to read books
and go running in the evenings.
I even set a new personal record.
Holy shit,
I just ran 21 kilometers in 1h20.
To counter my lack of social interactions,
I started to meet up with different friends
and old colleagues every other evening.
Sometimes I went to the park on my own,
to just chill and eat something.
Even by just sitting there and
drinking a beer with my duck friends,
I already felt happy and social, in some way.
I would say that in this last week,
I definitely became more active.
Okay, it's now day 30,
but to be honest, I wasn't even looking
forward to going on social media anymore,
because I really enjoyed the last 30 days without it.
But for the sake of this video,
I still downloaded all the apps,
and I replied to my messages, I scrolled through
Instagram and I watched some YouTube videos.
One and a half hours were gone just like that,
and yeah, the time just flew by,
and I was just sitting in bed,
and I was kind of overwhelmed,
because my mind didn't have access to
that much information in the last 30 days.
The funny thing is that there was nothing really
worth mentioning that happened on social media,
nothing changed and everything was just the same,
I didn't miss out on anything.
But still, my mind was just running wild again,
and I was distracted and I couldn't really focus.
Therefore, I decided to not use any
more social media for today, at least.
Okay, so what did I take away from these last 30 days?
While due to my job, it was sometimes hard
to stay completely off social media,
it had many benefits.
As I spent less time on my phone,
I had more time for my real friends.
I reconnected with people whom I didn't meet in years,
and it felt like already existing
friendship only improved.
I stopped comparing myself
with other people all the time.
When I scrolled through social media, I always
saw the amazing works of other filmmakers,
and thought to myself "why can't I
be this good at creating videos?",
"why should I even try if it has been done before?".
During the detox, these questions started to disappear,
and I reconnected with my passion
and creating videos again.
I started publishing new videos every week,
and my views and subscribers really
started to increase, which is awesome.
Thanks for subscribing, guys.
My productivity increased as well, as I had
no problem getting into a creative flow while working.
I was less distracted, more focused,
and had an overall mental clarity.
The biggest change that I saw happening
was my ability to be in the present moment.
While normally the time seemed to rush by,
and my mind jumped from one though to another,
a few weeks into the detox,
everything around me started to slow down,
and I was able to drown out the noise.
As I could only think about positive aspects
that I took away from my social media detox,
I was sure that I'm not going
to go back to how things were.
So here is what I'm going to change.
I turned off all notifications for social media apps.
In this way, I don't get pulled
into the apps by themselves,
but instead, I only use the apps if I really want to.
I started building a habit of going for
a 30-minute walk every single morning,
without any distractions.
No phone, no music,
just walking, listening to the wind
blowing through the leaves,
and seeing the city come alive.
These walks make me feel very present
and free up my mind.
I will start to do "no social media Sundays",
so every Sunday, I don't consume any social media
in order to connect with the real world,
and recharge my batteries.
So, this 30-day detox turned out to be a much
bigger project than I expected in the beginning.
It really changed the way I interact with social media,
and my perception of the things happening around me.
I think all of us should do this kind of detox
in order to reevaluate our relationship to social media,
and also to prioritize our time
in the real world and in the online world.
So trust me on this, give it a try,
don't use any social media for the next 30 days,
be strict with yourself,
and I'm sure you're going to experience
as many benefits as I did.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video,
it was a little bit different to the other ones,
but I felt like it was an important topic to talk about,
and I wanted to try for myself for a long time.
So yeah, feel free to subscribe,
and turn on notifications if you don't want to
miss out on any of the upcoming videos.
And I hope all of you guys have a great day.
See you soon.
