I wish I was joking, but five years ago my screen time was between 10 and 14 hours a day. For weeks, for months. I'm not gonna lie, for a whole year. How sad is that?

So I know exactly how it feels to be in that cycle, how to get out of the cycle, and how it feels once you're out of the cycle, because at the time, I knew I wanted to get off social media. I knew it was bad for me, but I didn't understand just how extreme the complexities were.

This post will guide you through the best benefits of intentionally reducing your screen time and social media usage and provide you an actionable plan to start today. If you are a visual learner, I recommend watching this video:

We're All Just Animals Staring at Screens

Imagine if you went to the safari and every animal you passed by was just on their phone. You saw a rhino just scrolling through TikTok, you saw a giraffe on Instagram Reels. Like, what the hell, what is going on here?

But because the whole of our lives we've been iPad kids, we've been iPod kids, we've been iPhone kids, we've never thought twice of it. I was once in the same place you are now - searching for the one hack that would finally break through my superaddiction. Although there is no single "hack," I can guarantee the plan I will share with you in this post will instantly reduce your screen time & social media usage, while acting as the first step in reclaiming authority over your time.

Let's Get This Straight: You Won't Become a Superhuman

When you get off social media - or my advice to you is really just to reduce your usage - which is what I did, then all you're doing is reclaiming what it means to be human. You're not doing all these extraordinary productivity limits. Your cat who sits on the couch for 10 hours a day is being more productive with you; they're living a better life than you.

When I got off social media, I was simply recalibrating with the median/equilibrium. I never considered my life would change in these ways, because the truth is, your life doesn't get 10x better, it just gets 10x less worse. Please do not underestimate the drastic difference this ends up being.

I want to talk about the three biggest benefits that I observed when I got off social media, just so when you begin on this voyage/journey, you can see it for yourself, and that will give you the satisfaction to keep going, such that your hope doesn't dwindle. You can see real-time results.

Benefit #1: I Got Less Emotional & Depressed

I saw less mood swings, and I was projecting less on my friends and family.

At the time, I was in this loop of depression, and I thought to myself, "Why am I so depressed? Why am I so sad?" And it's the same thing if you saw someone who's fat eating McDonald's five times a day, and wondering, "Why am I so fat?" Obviously, you're eating McDonald's five times a day. You're spending 10 hours on social media. Of course, you're depressed. How do you not see that?

And assuming that you get out, you'll say, "Yeah, that's obvious. I can see now why I might have been depressed, why I might have been sad, why I might have been portraying these traits." And at the time, I thought it was just freaking something wrong with me. I thought "I have clinical depression. Something's wrong with me." When, in reality, the problem with you is that you're spending too much time on social media, which goes into the next benefit, which I had more agency.

Benefit #2: I Got My Own Opinions Back

I had more control over my own opinions. I had my own beliefs, right? Do you ever scroll through Instagram, TikTok, whatever, and see a provocative post. Example: "McDonald's is putting sperm in their burgers," and you're like, "Damn straight they are. That's why I'm fat right now. Freaking McDonald's is putting sperm in their burgers," and you like the post because it's provocative. YYou agree with yourself, "Hell yeah, let me see what other people saying. Let me open the comments," and all the comments are just like, "Yo, this is stupid. This is not true at all." And you now have to go through the process of liking all the comments, saying to yourself "Yeah, who the hell would believe that? What the hell? That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard." You even start liking the comments because you feel bad, as backlash against believing it in the first place.

And worse off is when the comments get along with the post and you start taking it as your own idea, so then you go to your friends and you're like, "Yo, you guys know that they're putting, like, sperm in McDonald's? No, genuinely, like, they are. Like, they've done studies on this." You even start making up information: "No, as in, like, some guy literally tried to go against them. He tried to sue them and they shot him. Yeah, suicide. That's what they said. No, no, like, this is literally what they said." You start citing invisible sources and studies.

That, for me, was the worst problem because I knew at the time that this was a terrible issue, and this was contributing to my sadness because I felt like I couldn't have my own opinion, because everything I felt was chosen for me. Everything I believed was just consumed.

But now I don't have that instant feedback on thoughts, beliefs, ideas, theories, so I just choose what's my own. And now, I have the time to introspect, to ponder, to ruminate, to wonder about this world, and so I come up with my own ideas. Now, if somebody says, "There's freaking sperm in the McDonald's burgers," I want to say, "You're dumb," but then I realize, I probably would have believed that five years ago. Not dumb, you just been kidnapped by the algorithms.

Benefit #3: Time for Actual Good Habits

And the third benefit, of course, was now having the time, so I could use that on actual good habits, actual good practices, like reading. Of course, if you are already mastering the mind, cultivating the self, and aligning with the soul, you know the good practices.

The Plan: A Simple System That Actually Works

Let's talk about the plan, which is honestly super simple. You won't believe how simple it is because of how complex and convoluted it is in your brain, but it really is simple. The thing is, however, it's gonna take time. It might take, for some of you guys, two months. It might take, for some of you guys, six months. But it is an entire blueprint because, right now, you're addicted.

I tried to go on a dopamine detox once, where I just deleted all my social medias, and I kid you not, I experienced withdrawal. The same thing that you experience when you get off drugs for the first time, when you stop doing alcohol after you've been doing it for 10 years, I experienced withdrawal. I even quit the challenge because I didn't know how to do it.

Two Important Things Before We Start

1. Don't complain about the time. All the other ways won't work because these people are trying to sell you snake oil. They're telling you, "No, no, do this method right now and it will work. Tomorrow your life will be better." Only, they simply want to see you a product or service.

2. If you discovered this six months ago, would you have wanted to enact it? Of course you would, because today you would be social media free.

The Step-by-Step Process

The plan is:

1. Go on your phone and count all your social media apps

2. Go to your screen time in settings

3. Sort by hours spent on each app for the week (TikTok, then Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, whatever)

Every week, go on your phone after reading this and set reminders for yourself. Genuinely say, "Hey, Siri, set a reminder for one week from today at this exact time to delete X app." And week by week, delete the app (not the account, just the app) from your phone starting from the lowest used all the way to the top. So if you have eight social medias that you use, then in two months you'll have all the apps deleted.

You can still access them on your computer, and I encourage you to do so, but if you're in public, you're not gonna go on TikTok, because you do not want to be on TikTok in public. Imagine you're on TikTok on your giant laptop screen in class or something. You're scrolling through, there's a conspiracy post that seems silly. You look around, make sure nobody saw. You tell yourself, "oh no, I can't be doing this." The next post is just some girl shaking her butt. You have to click off and now you're thinking, "Okay, that's the last time I'm gonna go on TikTok ever on my computer." And that was your last means. That is the case with all social media.

Also, if you want to see it on the train or on your commute, you have to pull out your laptop. Then you have to open your hotspot. You just don't want to do that to see some random post. You're not gonna do that. You're going to spend the time mindfully. Maybe, you'll start going on the weather app, but you're slowly detaching yourself from these addictions.

Deleting the Accounts

After you deleted all the apps (let's say it's been two months), now you can start deleting the actual accounts so that you free yourself from:

1. These algorithms

2. Them having your data (which honestly, your data is everywhere so it doesn't really matter at this point)

You can start to completely free yourself. And it's much easier this way. I used to think you had to go on a dopamine detox to get rid of the social media addiction, but then I deleted the apps - even YouTube - and I was like, "Oh, I'll never be able to live again. How am I gonna get through this?" But then I realized people have been doing this for years. They've been doing nothing when they had nothing to do for years. If, for example, you're once more on the train, just look around. Oh, that's cool, there's a river on my commute, I never noticed it (because you're on your phone all the time. It's really not that hard).

The Soft Launch Strategy

Once you delete all the apps, then on your own discretion is when you can start deleting the accounts, because you're becoming the person who doesn't have social media. You're becoming a normal person. So if someone comes up to you and says, "Hey, what's your Instagram?" You can say, "This is my Instagram, but I don't have the app, so I'll add you back when I get home." Essentially, you're soft launching being the person that doesn't have Instagram, because when you get home, you add them back, and then in the future you get to a point where you can say, "Okay, I think I'm ready to take the leap to say I don't have Instagram." Because, even though it does not seem so, there is a huge difference.

And honestly, if you want the attention, you get way more attention from not having Instagram. Obviously you shouldn't do it for that. But if you're worried about losing the attention, you will get so much more attention from not having social media, as in 10x more attention: "Yo, why don't you have Instagram?" "Wait, why don't you have Instagram?"

Because everybody has Instagram today. Everybody's addicted.

I don't want you to be addicted anymore. I want you to understand how it feels to be a real human. And you don't understand the stark contrast of being a human who's on these sites, on these algorithms with manufactured opinions and all of these things for five, ten hours a day, versus somebody who's just living, who lives and exists in boredom, who is mindful of what they're doing on their commute.

Instant Tips for Immediate Results

Shout out to the real ones who made it this far. I'm gonna give you some instant tips right now that are rapid fire, and they'll give you the instant pleasure, because we love to say, "Oh, no instant gratification, just delayed gratification," but, truthfully, that's hard, impossible for many of us. These things will give you the instant beneficial gratification that will lead to delayed results that we desire from self cultivation. These are habits that you can do literally starting right now.

Tip #1: Turn Off All Notifications

Take out your phone. First thing:

1. Go to your settings

2. Turn off your notifications for all these apps

You do not need to know that Jessica from your class Snapchatted you right now. You can respond to her streaks in three hours. Nobody really cares that much.

Put on do not disturb even. I put on do not disturb four years ago. I'm not gonna lie, I still haven't turned it off. I just have do not disturb on all the time and it's very freeing because then your value comes from yourself. Back in the day, I used to just be obsessed with, if I liked a girl, waiting for her to text me, waiting for the notification. Every single time, I'd just wait for the buzz. But then you turn on do not disturb and then you forget, and then later you recall, "Oh shoot, she's texting me. Nice, now I can respond."

Tip #2: Devote 100% Attention to One Thing

Second thing is, devote 100% of your attention to one thing. That's really the problem with our attention span, that you're doing so many different things at once. So you're rapid fire, and then after two seconds you decide you want to go to the next thing because the hook didn't work. And then the next thing, you don't know if you want to stay on this or not, so you go to the comment section. You get a notification that somebody sent you something.

Just make sure that you're devoting your attention to 100% of something at a time.

If, for example, you're listen to music, just put on the music and exist inside of the music. If you want to scroll through whatever app of your choice, go through it, but be intentional. Say, "I'm going to spend the next hour scrolling" (which is crazy to say, because you would never say, "I'm gonna spend one hour scrolling through TikTok." You would never say that, and yet two hours somehow find ways to pass themselves).

Tip #3: Reflect & Journal

Just say at least when you're starting, "I'm going to spend one hour scrolling through Instagram Reels." Spend the whole hour. You'll notice by 50 minutes you're like, "Oh, I only have ten more minutes, I need to keep scrolling." At the end of all those scroll sessions, reflect.

Here's what to do:

1. Go in your journal and write

2. Try to write down every single video that you saw

You will realize that at the time you thought, "I need to hear the end of the video," and then 30 minutes later you have now forgotten what the video was about. And two, this strengthens your memory and improves your attention span.

A Special Message for Those Who Made It This Far

If you made it this far, I got another hack for you. This is just for the people that made it this far. Go to the comments (of the video) and write, "I'm starting my journey today. I appreciate your support." Because if you've made it this far, you deserve it. You're going far. If you made it this far, it might be hard, but compared to other people, it really won't be that hard for you to get off these sites and to reclaim your own humanity.

Put in the comments, "Today I'm starting." I will respond to your comment so that when you do see the notification next time you're on Reddit, then you'll have that added boost of motivation. And I encourage other people on this post to go down in the comments and see someone who commented that and respond to that. All we need is a little bit of motivation before we become the person who does the thing we've always wanted to do. We become the person who doesn't use social media.

See you guys next time.

Peace & love.