Taking a Break from Social Media Because I’m Over It

Do you ever wonder what life felt like before we had phones glued to our hands? Before the notifications, the endless scrolling, and the constant need to document everything?

I do...a lot.

I’m a Xennial—stuck between Gen X and Millennials, part of the last generation that lived a full, tech-free childhood before being thrown into the digital boom. I’ve seen both sides.

I remember when life felt slower, simpler, more present. Not because we were more mindful or disciplined, but because there simply wasn’t another option.

When we were out, we were out. No checking who called, no rewatching videos of the night before, no obsessing over how we looked in pictures—we had to wait to get those developed.

If we got on a plane, that was it—we were untethered. No WiFi, no in-flight texting. We landed in a different country and had to buy a calling card just to hear a familiar voice. 

Messages weren’t instant. We waited for things. We weren’t fed a constant stream of updates. The world felt bigger because we weren’t plugged into every moment happening elsewhere. 

We had penpals, we handwrote letters, we mailed printed pictures to friends. We had to wait. And in that waiting, there was excitement. Things felt like they mattered more.

But now? Everything is instant, yet somehow less satisfying.

Somewhere along the way, the magic of waiting, the joy of anticipation, disappeared.

And in its place? This constant flood of content that never really fills me up.

When Social Media Stops Feeling Fun

This morning, the thought of opening Instagram made me physically cringe. Like, full-body ugh.

I’ve been rotting on that app for the past three weeks, drowning in my own overthinking, scrolling endlessly—sometimes to cry, sometimes to feel better, sometimes to feel worse. Mostly just to escape my own thoughts.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I felt disgusted by my phone. The weight of my own unproductivity hit me.

Instead of picking up my phone, I grabbed The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell to read.

I wound up just lying there, trying to recollect my dreams—who was there, what was happening, what we were saying.

I didn’t want to lose that moment, that rare clarity of thought, by grabbing my phone and falling into the void again.

The Endless Scroll and the Illusion of Connection

I’ve been saying for months that I spend too much time on social media. I doom scroll...daily.

It’s become this fake little habit—watching other people, searching to be understood, hunting for new ideas, tactics, strategies, and news.

I refresh Instagram between meetings like something groundbreaking is about to appear, even though I know exactly what’s waiting for me: more noise.

Even when I realize how addicted I am, I don’t know how to just stop.

I have books, tons of them, books I want to read, but my brain is wired for distraction now.

I think about how much time I’ve wasted, how behind I feel, how slow my mind feels compared to what it used to be.

Even when I’m reading, even when I love what I’m reading, there’s always this background noise running in my brain—like too many apps open on a phone, draining the battery.

Back When We Just Lived

How did we do it back then?

How did I exist without constantly wondering what was happening somewhere else?

I was in the moment.

I wasn’t looking for a distraction.

I wasn’t checking my phone.

I was just there.

I remember the calls to my dear friend Kay’s house phone—his actual house phone—knowing he’d pick up at whatever hour of the night it was, knowing that if I said, 'Hey, wanna go out?', he’d know exactly what I meant.

And the nights that followed—the dancing, the clubbing, the spontaneity—no texts, no check-ins, no distractions. Just living.

L-I-V-I-N

God, that feeling. I haven’t felt that since I was 25.

That golden era. That invincible version of me.

I would do anything to feel that again. Back then, nothing felt impossible.

My brain wouldn’t even let me think I couldn’t do anything I wanted to.

I was living in my world and not living vicariously through someone else’s in a social media app. 

Have I Lost Myself to the Scroll?

But now?

I don’t know where that person went. I don’t know if she’s gone forever.

I used to be bold, untouchable, fearless. I was offensive, arrogant, unapologetic. I didn’t care what anyone thought.

Those days were fun. Exciting. Filled with ‘fuck its’. 

I laughed more. I cared less. I had grand ideas about how to take on the world. Life felt big. I was free.

Maybe I was just filling my time in other ways, running toward something instead of away from it.

But at least back then, I was doing. I was present.

I wasn’t numbing myself with a screen.

Will Social Media Ever Give Me What I’m Looking For?

The more I consume, the more disconnected I feel—from myself, from real life, from the moments that actually matter.

But here I am now, in this loop of consuming, scrolling, absorbing everyone else’s thoughts before I even get the chance to form my own. 

Somewhere along the way, I stopped living for myself and started living in a digital haze—watching instead of doing, reacting instead of being. 

And all of it, all the time I’ve wasted on social media, hasn’t brought me any closer to the person I was or the person I want to be.

And now, I’m just… here. 

Alone, yet surrounded by a million virtual strangers whose thoughts and opinions may or may not be contaminating my own.

Who even am I?

And more importantly—how the hell do I get back to her?

Maybe I won’t magically wake up feeling like my 25-year-old self again. 

But I know one thing—there’s no way I’ll ever find her in the endless scroll.

Perhaps the real challenge isn’t quitting social media. 

It could simply be remembering how to live without it.