This week, I quit social media on my phone, at least in the app form. I have done “digital cleanses” before where I leave the apps installed, and I put timers on them. Inevitably, I always bypassed those controls with the “Ignore for 15 min” snooze button that Apple provides.
This time is different though. Uninstalling the apps, without disavowing the sites completely, feels more appropriate to my goals. I haven’t disabled my Meta account (FB or IG), and I haven’t deleted my Reddit or Tiktok accounts so I can see that content on the web when I want. I left YouTube and Substack installed because I consume long-form content on those platforms. I left the Meta Business Suite app installed so I could easily post updates for the SV Loka page, which also allows me to respond to posts and messages without the tempation of endless scrolling.
Pruning
This effort feels like intentional pruning without eschewing the reality that I enjoy the occasional touch points and will continue to post for the SV Loka page. I want to cut the Endless Scrolling. It’s not about the misinformation or the extremism or the insane amount of polarizing bias that exists in my feeds.
The point is to cut the noise. Endless Scrolling feels awful to me. What does that mean? The best way I can desribe it is it feels like there are endless numbers of opinions, viewpoints, sound bites, challenges, moments of hope, points of certain doom, counterpoints from the other side, and so much more information to process that does…what for me?
How does the endless stream of information contribute to my goals in life? How does this enormous amount of input help me relax (presuming I’m “taking a break”). For me, this Endless Scrolling has taken on a new life and is no longer relaxing. I can’t log into Instagram and check out my friends’ photos without being bombarded by political messages, trauma healing techniques, and general noise promising “screenshot for your fortune today”.
I want to consume meaningful content. I want more than 140-character bits of your day. I want to know your story. I want to go deeper. I want to learn skills for daily life, both emotional and physical (fitness, boat life, art, etc.). Two hours of 1-5 minute reels does not actually feed or restore me.
Restoration
So what does restore me? Creating. I am a creative, and creating nourishes me. It’s not creating to post on a social media feed, though I’m sure some of you would argue blogging is an early/basic form of social media. And that’s why I don’t have comments on my site. Writing blog posts on this site is not intended to build community or engage in fervent discussion. It’s a place for me to put thoughts out into the ether, and maybe discuss with friends IRL as I work out my thoughts in digital format.
As 2025 ended, I found myself reflecting a lot on things I said I wanted to do (at least to myself) and how that compared with what I actually did. I thought a LOT about writing in 2025, and struggled with the question of “what’s stopping me?” Apparently, in 2025, I had stopped journalling (pen and paper style), and it had been many months since I had written in that tome. Until the last week of December. I picked up the journal, and simply wrote a couple of pages. What came flowing out was frustration with the noise I was willingly introducing to my brain. What would happen if I turned off one of the feeds?
Progress Report
So after 3-4 days, what’s changed? I already feel lighter. I spent several hours of one of the days getting the build tools for this site back up and running so I could publish here again. I had a “stuck” post from April that I had written but hadn’t published because of broken tooling. Removing the noise of social feeds gave me the headspace to sit and focus for a couple of hours, and get it working again.
I don’t miss the apps most of the time. I can still log into Facebook and Reddit on the web if I really want a fix or need to research something. I can view Tiktok videos when people link them to me. I still feel the compulsion to reach for the apps, which affirms my decision to uninstall vs. disabling accounts or setting time limits.
That compulsion is the secondary component I want to eliminate, and I am well on my way to retraining my body in that regard. For now, the additional mental and emotional energy is resulting in outcomes like changing the fresh water solenoid on our toilet (#boatprojects) and posting on this site.
So far, so good.