Stop The Scrolling: Staffer takes a three day social media cleanse

The second I open my eyes every morning, I immediately roll over to do my pre-remote-school-TikTok scroll. My phone has me wrapped around its finger, as I’m absorbed in it during passing periods, in between bites of food and it’s the last thing I see before I go to bed — it’s basically burning a hole through my hand. So I decided to delete TikTok and Instagram for three days to give my mind a break. 

I initially made this decision in an attempt to cut back on the embarrassing amount of time I spend mindlessly scrolling through various social media platforms. Three hours and an empty Snapchat inbox later, I regretted my rash decision and craved the distraction. I didn’t realize how much time I spent on these apps until I realized my phone didn’t hold nearly as much value to me once they were gone. 

On the second day of my social media hiatus, I was so desperate for something to do that I fired up my trusty Kindle. I read enough books in my three-day cleanse to earn me an ‘A’ in English for the rest of the year. When I wasn’t reading, I was looking for new recipes to try, deciding which workouts I wanted to do and even resurrecting my elementary school Crayola watercolors. These other forms of entertainment were a relaxing way to fill my time and definitely a way I’ll take a break from my phone in the future.

This generation, including yours truly, spends so much time looking at screens for enjoyment that we’ve become dependent on them as a constant source of distraction, and we seldom pay attention to whether these distractions are good for our health. 

Scrolling through TikTok would give me a few laughs here and there but it also repeatedly had me comparing myself to random user’s “what I eat in a days” or “how to get a smaller waist” workout routines. Instagram scrolling was no better when all that’s posted is the most polished version of everyone’s lives. It’s exhausting to see nothing but perfection online and it would constantly leave me with a sneaking sense of anxiety that I couldn’t shake.

Of course, I considered redownloading these apps several times during my cleanse, but finding other ways to keep myself occupied became a fun task. Everyone should try this experiment, even if it’s just for a day. It’s crucial to understand just how much time we spend online — and after giving it up, I find myself less inclined to fill every second of my downtime scrolling. I will definitely schedule a social media cleanse into my planner for at least once a month.