offline diaries: three weeks without social media

not using your phone makes you realize a lot of things about yourself

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Three weeks ago, I decided to delete all the short-form content platforms from my phone. If you want to know why, you can read about it here.

It all started with deactivating my Instagram account, which led me to also delete the TikTok app. During my first week without social media —documented in this other post—, I was still using Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, and Substack. I had reached my main goal —to stop consuming short-form content—, but I knew I still had a long way to go.

During my second week, I decided to finally deactivate my Twitter account as well. I realized that, after all, I had started using it as TikTok, mindlessly scrolling through short-form text posts that an algorithm was feeding me.

I am still not 100% off social media, but I feel like the progress I have made in only three weeks is already remarkable. Every day feels like a constant epiphany, so I am going to share some of the things I have realized.

This is who I am trying to become

Since I am not on my phone as much, and sometimes I have nothing to do, I have started observing other people’s phone habits, and I have realized that everyone is so much more online than I thought. I am back home for the holidays, so I have been spending a lot of time with friends and family only to find out that pretty much everyone is glued to their phones.

My dad, who used to scream at me for my phone addiction when I was fifteen, spent half of our Christmas dinner watching Instagram reels. When I tried to make conversation with him, asking him what he was watching, he just blankly replied, with his thumb in constant movement: ‘Videos’. ‘What kind of videos?’ I asked. ‘Just videos’, was his response.

My most Black Mirror moment yet, though, was during New Year’s. I spent it at my friend’s house, with her family and a couple of other friends. And I want to make clear that I absolutely adore these people, and I don’t want to make it seem like I think less of them because of their phone habits.

However, picture this: It’s 00:01 a.m. on the first day of the year. Everyone was celebrating one minute ago —but now they are all sitting in silence, backs curved, staring at their own little screens. The festive music is still playing, but no one is dancing anymore. I sit on the sofa, watching the scene with an uneasy feeling in my chest. No one talks to each other.

And I feel even worse when I realize this is happening everywhere. These people are not watching TikToks —they are talking to other people who are also inside their homes, glued to their phones, ignoring the real people in the real world around them. I think it’s beautiful that, nowadays, we have the chance to wish a happy New Year to those who don’t live near us. However, while I was looking at that scene, I kept asking myself:

‘How much of the real world is the digital world taking from us?’.

On that note, I wrote this in my last post, and I still stand by it:

“Is real life truly outside of social media? Or do we live in such a sick society that, by leaving social media, I am missing an important part of human interaction? If I don’t come back, will I always feel like this? As if I have one foot in the real world and the other one in an abyss of isolation where only offline people drift into oblivion?” — the weekly scrapbook

Also, since I am no longer on social media, fewer people have said ‘Happy New Year’ to me. But now, I know who the real ones are. I know who remembers me even when they don’t see my face on Instagram every day. I was afraid of being forgotten, but I have made peace with that. My connections feel more genuine now.

On a more personal note, I keep noticing things I used to not notice. The other day, I thought I got on the wrong train because of what I was seeing outside the window —I have been taking the same train for five years, but I never truly looked outside until now.

And damn, it was beautiful. I kept wondering why I was ever glued to a screen, when the real world outside is so breathtaking. Now it’s much easier to sit still with my thoughts, and I feel more connected to my emotions. Not only that, but now it’s easier to talk to strangers, since people approach me more and I no longer have a device to hide behind.

There is a feeling of calm that I can only feel now that I am offline, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Comparison is over in 2025

My favourite thing —and something I thought would never happen, to be honest— is that I am starting to lose my obsession with my appearance. Not only that —but I am also starting to like myself for how I am, and not for who I want to be. It’s the most liberating thing in the world.

The other day, I was taking some pictures of my friends —who looked absolutely stunning— and they kept asking me to repeat the photo, because, according to them, they looked ugly/fat/the angle was bad/they wanted to change their pose/etc. As time passed, I noticed they were genuinely pissed about it, and they ended up hating each one of the 50+ photos I took of them.

I felt bad because they truly looked amazing. I also noticed that I no longer care about these things: take one picture of me and I will be fine. Two, at most. But I am not performing for an invisible audience anymore —so I don’t really care how others might see me in the digital world. I look in the mirror and I feel content with myself. Pretty, even. And that’s because I am looking at myself from my own point of view, instead of everyone else’s.

Lastly, since now I am consuming less media, I am able to recall everything I have watched/read that day. Before this, I was watching over 200 TikToks in a day, and I couldn’t remember any of them. Now, long-form content consumption feels more meaningful, and it stays with me for longer. It feels like I am finally starting to digest things —instead of getting a stomachache from mindlessly binging them.

As I already said in my last post, though, I can still find some downsides to all of this. Not everything can be perfect —but I am trying my best to make this as enjoyable as possible for myself.

The truth is that I feel more and more isolated from others. I feel like everyone else lives in a world I no longer belong to, and it gets harder to connect with people who are chronically online. Suddenly, everyone is posing in front of a camera, asking others to tag them in their stories so they can repost, talking about a group chat I know nothing about, and I feel left out.

I am lying in bed with my friend after the club, and she keeps texting our other friend who is still there. There is no real conversation between the two of us, but she keeps laughing and telling me what our other friend is texting her. After a while, she tells me: ‘Do you want to watch TikTok together?’ and when I tell her I don’t, she adds: ‘Well, you can use my TV. You can watch Netflix, or play something on YouTube’.

It’s 5 a.m., and I have a flight in three days to go back to Amsterdam. ‘I just want to talk’, I tell her. But the conversation dies as soon as I get my phone to google something she mentions, and she takes it as an opportunity to get back to her own screen.

During these past three weeks, I realized everyone is looking at the world through their phones —not through their own eyes. And I don’t know how I feel about being offline. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life glued to a screen, but isolation and loneliness scare me to the point where I have caught myself fantasizing about going back to Instagram.

Maybe I should start addressing the root cause, because I truly am terrified of being alone. Maybe we all should start addressing the root causes of our phone addictions. Because sure, all these big tech companies are doing the unimaginable to keep us in their apps for as long as possible.

But I think there’s also a small part of ourselves that knows we are doing it because we are terrified of looking inwards. Because we don’t want to feel lonely, we would rather stroke a screen than be alone with our own thoughts. Because we are afraid of boredom, and we are afraid of hard-work and long-term commitments. So we scroll, we swipe, we like and we follow because it’s easier for us.

And because we need connection. And we no longer know how to create it.

Being offline has taught me that real connection requires vulnerability, presence, and the courage to face the quiet moments—something no screen can ever offer. I just hope we all realize this one day.

No matter how hard we try, a thumb will never be able to replace a heart.