What I Learned From a 6 Month Social Media Detox.
Image description: There is a picture of typewriter on top of a wood desk. There is piece of paper in the typewriter with text written on it. The website “www.tiffany-landry” is written in red ink and the rest of the text is written in black ink, that text reads: “I believe that one of the most powerful things we can do is to honor that voice inside of us that says “I can’t do this anymore” or “this isn’t worth the cost.” For me that moment happened last November when I decided to take a 6 month social media break because I realized that my health as a neurodivergent person needed to be my priority.
I believe that one of the most powerful things we can do is to honor that voice inside of us that says “I can’t do this anymore” or “this isn’t worth the cost.” For me that moment happened last November when I decided to take a 6 month social media break because I realized that my health as a neurodivergent person needed to be my priority. For context: I had been consistently using social media (Instagram and TikTok) to promote my business since I moved back to the United States in 2020. While the majority of my coaching clients came from social media, being on social media came at the very high cost of my autistic wellness. So I decided to take a 6 social media break from Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and to explore if I could improve my quality of life being off of social media. I shared a bit more about how I approached my social media break here and in this blog post I’m going to share the big and small miracles I received from being off of social media.
Surrendering to the unknown.
Have you ever stayed too long in an unhealthy relationship and then just had the sudden clarity that actually you needed to leave? Social media to me felt like an unhealthy relationship where I was deeply unhappy and yet kept going back because I thought I had no other options. I didn’t have a huge email list as a safety net and my livelihood literally depending on being able to market on social media. But I’ll be honest: I was really exhausted, unhappy and in actual pain.
Every time I went on social media I would get sensory overloaded and also socially overloaded. Social media consistently gave me the visual overstimulation of my autistic nightmares and ironically social media was way too social for me. It felt like being in a crowded room with hundreds of people having loud conversations. Even though I tried doing things like deleting the Instagram app and only downloading it to share a post-it unfortunately wasn’t working. I was still getting overstimulated and still experiencing things like headaches, anxiety and feeling shutdown after any amount of social media usage. To me the miracle moment was asking myself: “why am I doing something that I know causes me pain and makes my autistic health suffer?” The answer was of course capitalism and needing to earn a living. But I realized that I needed to find a better way and that my well being and health mattered so damn much.
The Social Media Break Experiment:
The rules: 6 months off of Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. The rules were that I could not engage with any of these apps from either my phone or via my computer.
The intention: To heal from sensory overload caused by social media and to explore ways of marketing my business that were more accessible to me as a hypersensitive autistic person.
The context: I was living in the country and waiting for my house to be built (until February 9th when I moved into my sweet autistic sanctuary), I worked with my clients, I healed from sensory overload and prioritized my autistic health.
What were the results? I’m going to share with you 4 big miracles that happened when I honored my needs and took 6 months off of social media.
1.) My autistic wellbeing bloomed.
Image description: Over a peace colored background there is an image of a retro television. The white text on the television reads: “what are the right conditions for your neurodivergent well being to bloom?”
What are the right conditions for your neurodivergent well being to bloom? This is a question I ask a lot of my autistic clients because we really do need the right conditions for life to feel accessible, supportive and to just feel good. Once I got off of social media I realized how much pain and discomfort I had been in by engaging in social media. The biggest miracle was really simple: to just not be sensory overstimulated every day. I believe that it was also really supportive to have a longer container of 6 months vs previous social media breaks I had done that had only lasted a few weeks or at most a month.
A really beautiful thing is that my autistic self got to have the experience of living in a sensory safe environment since I had moved to the country in July and now wasn't experiencing sensory + social pain from social media. Since the previous two years I had been in non-stop sensory pain and overstimulation it was like my autistic self and body got to take a deep breath, recover and get it’s needs met.
2.) I had so much more time.
The first weeks into my social media break I noticed myself reaching for my phone when I was bored, lonely or to distract myself from a challenging emotion. But after that initial detox period something really beautiful happened: I suddenly had so much time. Even for someone who spent very little time on social media, I started having so much extra time on my hands-which led to increased capacity.
What did I do in my free time? Apart from coaching clients and writing my newsletter on Substack, I mostly did things that were restorative and gave me joy, such as cooking, reading, taking long walks, visiting my mom’s goat farm and chatting with friends. Life got slower, more intentional and mindful-which felt like a pretty amazing miracle.
3.) I started honoring my privacy.
After months and months of being off of social media I realized two things:
I had stopped taking so many selfies of myself and instead my phone was filled with pictures of nature, cats, goats and my house.
That I started really loving having privacy and not over sharing.
To be clear: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with selfies and I’m a big believer in that sharing our stories is incredibly powerful and healing. However, the problem is that when I was on social media I was very conscious of constantly needing to make content. I often shared things that were actually really personal-and also looking back things that I wished I hadn’t shared. Since I wasn’t on social media I began to be a lot more present in life and to drift away from seeing life through the lens of social media.
As I continued to write my newsletter on my social media break it felt really healing to form a new relationship with what and how much I shared. I started to get really private and I realized that I actually don’t want people on the internet to know such personal details about my life. I believe that being off of social media gave me the opportunity to explore:
What type of content and experiences do I feel called to share?
What feels personal and private? What do I want to keep to myself or share with my closest loved ones?
What are some areas that feel off limits in terms of sharing in my content?
Some things get to be just for me and that felt really amazing.
4.) Life got really slow and simple.
Image description: There is a collage of three photos over a grey background. In the photos you can see Tiffany (a white woman with brown hair wearing glasses and wearing a blue and white dress), a picture of Tiffany’s boot clad feet near a stream and a picture of a leaf in top of a tree stump. At the bottom of the graphic is the title written in red “Living a life off of social media.”
For me a huge problem with social media is that it feels really fast, loud and social. At my heart I’m a highly sensitive and introverted autistic country girl who really just wants to write, chat with people one on one (groups are disabling for me), stare at the forests surrounding my house and read. While there are many advantages to social media, it was really important for me to acknowledge that social media does not support me in living my best life.
Being off of social media allowed me to cultivate a really slow and simple life. After moving to my sweet house in the woods I started learning about the slow living mindset and digital minimalism. I realized that a slow and simple life is exactly what my autistic self longs for. I can see the ways in which my social media break led me to create other supportive changes. For instance, in March I decided to unsubscribe from TV streaming services and focus on reading books instead. I had identified that watching TV didn’t feel supportive of my sleep hygiene or sensory needs. After a Sensory Emergency where I had to do a mandatory technology detox in April, I decided to limit my texting and instead arrange for phone call “dates” with long distance friends. To me creating a simple life is all about asking myself:
Can I honor the right pace for myself? Having a slow life doesn’t mean always moving slow. It means moving at the right pace at the right time.
What are my values in life and can I create a life centered around those values? This can mean saying no to things that don’t center those values or prioritizing things that center our values.
What is the right dosage? This is granted a trauma resolution tool but I think it 100% applies to creating a slow and intentional life. What is the right dosage for you in different areas of your life? Work, relationships, health, leisure, movement?
Moving forward with social media.
When I started my social media detox I had the intention to discover ways of marketing off of social media. But I’ll admit that the stressful reality of building a house and then moving into it kind of got in the way. I mostly focused on blogging, writing a weeklyish newsletter on Substack and towards the end of my social media break on creating pins on Pinterest (Pinterest is social media but feels accessible to my brain because I just pin and bolt.) I’m currently interested in continuing all the above and experimenting with posting content to Instagram via a social media post app and explore if that feels good to me.
If you’re seeking a new relationship to social media:
If you’re desiring to explore your own right relationship to social media I highly suggest reading the book Digital Minimalism (affiliate link) by Cal Newport and exploring a digital detox or break if possible. By doing a social media break or detox you can begin to identify what your social media needs and boundaries are.
The reality is that so many things nowadays are social media and everyone is going to have a different relationship to social media. Perhaps you’re like me and find social media incredibly sensory and socially overwhelming. Such important information! Or maybe for you social media is resourcing and gives you access to the community you’ve always wanted-such good information too! Whether you hate social media or love it, I still believe that creating a relationship to social media that feels sustainable, accessible and good in your body is very important. Perhaps that’s never using specific social media platforms, taking a minimalistic approach to social media or putting boundaries on how much time you spend on social media. I believe that by being intentional and mindful with our relationship to social media we can create more wellness and vitality in our lives.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed this blog post! Please feel free to share your current relationship to social media in the comments.
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The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.
Tiffany Landry is a queer autistic coach and trauma resolution practitioner. She works with queer and autistic clients in her programs Slow and The Autistic Mentorship. Tiffany also writes a newsletter on Substack called The Queer Autistic Newsletter.