3 Surprising Wellness Insights I Discovered After Deleting Social Media

What would happen if you changed your relationship with digital media? I’m not just talking about “scaling back” or doing a digital detox for a weekend. What would happen if you made major changes to how you interact with the virtual world? And what if those changes led to a version of you that experiences more freedom, more joy and more autonomy?

Over the past several years I’ve experimented with stepping away from social media and drastically reducing my exposure to digital content. And every time I do, I notice the same thing: I’m more empowered and in control of my time, which means I’m more in control of my life.

I want to share 3 insights that I’ve experienced after deleting social media, reducing digital dependence and reframing my relationship with virtual content. I’m not sharing this as a blanket prescription for everyone, but I’m inviting you to think about your current relationship with the digital world and whether or not it’s moving you closer or further away from the person you want to be.

The Quiet Rebellion Against Digital Dependence

As our world is growing more and more digitally dependent, there’s a small, but growing group of people who are intentionally pushing back against that narrative. Even as giant tech companies are insistent that AI will change the world for the better, there are many people questioning those claims.

Some of our skepticism is a direct response to how digital dependence has affected our lives, our attention spans, our children and our way of relating to other people. This skepticism is not only healthy, but absolutely necessary. The stats prove it:

US Adults spend more than 7 hours a day on screens – this is excluding work by some reports
The average person checks their phone nearly 100 times per day – about once every 10 minutes
A 2022 study found that nearly half of all smart phone use is out of habit and not intentional
Teenagers now spend 8 to 9 hours a day entertaining themselves with screens
A recent researcher I follow recently wrote an article about how film students can no longer watch the film without digital distraction

We’re all being impacted whether we know it or not.

Designed for Dependence

What has happened to humanity when we mindlessly reach for our phones and begin swiping without fully realizing what we’re doing?

How is it that when confronted with even the slightest amount of downtime, like standing in a line or waiting for our date to come back to the table after using the restroom, so many of us pick up our phones to fill the space of 5 minutes?

Why is it that young people cannot make conversation or even eye contact for that matter?

How many times have we watched an hour or more evaporate because we were scrolling, checking email for the 10th time in an hour or googling that burning question that led us down a rabbit hole of wasted time?

These are questions I’ve been asking myself. Because, I too, have experienced all of the above even though I am very conscientious of time spent on devices. And it’s not because I’m lacking in willpower. It’s because these devices are expertly designed to make us all addicted and dependent on them.

And without intentionally changing the direction, that’s what we will experience.

It’s like someone who makes no effort to invest in their health. They will, without a doubt, be subject to the default settings for Western Culture as they age, and that includes one or more chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, rapid cognitive decline and cancer.

We’re now at a time in our culture where the digital world has become so integrated into our daily lives that we will, by default, be slaves to technology unless we take control and make the technology slaves to our will and desires.
Erica jones

In this article I will use the terms social media and digital dependence frequently and sometimes interchangeably. Digital dependence is exactly as it sounds: it’s our tendency to rely heavily on devices and technology by way of repeated, daily use.

Much of what I share about social media can also be said about digital dependence. You can be digitally dependent without ever using social media. You can incessantly browse the internet, check your email or scroll news sites.

My goal in clarifying the meaning is so that when I use the term social media, no one feels like they’re off the hook because they don’t have an instagram account.

I also want to make it clear that I am not against digital technology. I use digital tech on a regular basis and I intend to continue. I am simply posing questions and offering insights that I’ve gleaned over the years because I believe this is an essential conversation for wellness.

Contrary to what we’ve been told, we don’t have to be on social media. This was easy enough for me to accept personally, but this was very tough to accept from a business perspective.

About 7 to 8 years ago, I was like many business owners rushing to grow on platforms like Instagram. This included endless hours of filming, editing and posting reels as well as responding to comments. It was stressful and I absolutely hated it. At the time I had a small team and they insisted that I post to Instagram stories regularly to document “behind the scenes” moments of my daily life.

As a private person, this felt like some kind of visual spectatorship that I wasn’t keen to participate in . And that’s probably why I was never very successful on those platforms. I wasn’t willing to dance to the beat of the algorithm.

What Is the Real ROI of Your Attention?

When I shut my business down in 2023 I felt the biggest relief to never have to post to Instagram again. This had been a years-long build up of tension that felt like a massive energy misalignment. I was pouring a ton of effort into a platform that was draining me.

The drain was not just in the effort to create the content, but also the amount of time that I spent distracted by the platform. When I really needed to be working on my business I was instead responding to comments, checking how many people liked a recent post or reviewing the stats from the previous month.

The return was not worth it. It wasn’t worth the energy and it also wasn’t worth it for my business. Most of my business was not coming from social media, but I continued posting for the longest time because I was told that’s what I should do.

If I could go back, I would ask myself:

What’s the real ROI of your social media presence whether for personal or business use?
If it disappeared tomorrow what would actually change for you?
Is it really adding value to your life?
If so, in what way? Are there better ways to get the same value for less time and effort?

Insight #2: Digital Dependence Destroys Leisure Time

Everyone knows that social media and digital dependence can ruin productivity. We’re very much accustomed to that idea. But many of us don’t realize how our digital use is affecting our perception of leisure time and how we use the leisure time we have.

Most people view their time through a lens of scarcity: they never seem to have enough. How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m too busy to do _________________.”

But the average American spends 2 to 2.5 hours a day on social media alone. That’s 15 – 17 hours per week – literally, a part-time job. This adds up to over a month per year.

Digital dependence exacerbates time scarcity because our dependence on technology makes it easy for us to consume it in small, distracted nuggets.

We’ll spend 5 minutes here, 15 minutes there, not realizing that the total time spent adds up to hours throughout the day.

This reinforces the idea that we don’t have enough time, not because the idea is true, but because the time is mindlessly slipping away through pings and clicks. This silent assault on our energy and attention is a risky situation because:

Not only does the time fly when we’re engaged in these platforms but
Time spent on devices is often a low value, low priority use of our time

The result is that valuable time and energy are disappearing without our realization.

The Lost Art of Quality Leisure Time

This may be most evident in the way people spend their down time. Down time is not prioritized enough – especially amongst high performers – but it’s critical for optimal health and wellness. It can relieve tension, provide a mental reset, restore energy, joy and more.

There was a time when people had hobbies. Remember those? The activities that one would invest their leisure time for the simple sake of pleasure? Things like cooking, baking, gardening, bike riding, playing piano, jigsaw puzzles, writing or taking a nice walk. These are some of my favorites.

These days, the art of quality leisure time is lost. Most of the time, people are more content to sit on the couch and scroll through their phones or binge a few episodes on Netflix.

When I cut back on digital dependence and started making more time for high value, high priority things, I started realizing how much free time I actually do have.

And I don’t say that lightly. I’m busy homeschooling 4 children, plus building businesses with my husband and running our household.

There’s never a moment when I don’t have something important to do. But even with all of that, I realized there’s room for me to create more time and space for what I value. When I started creating more boundaries – especially with my phone – I instantly freed up more time. Here’s a few questions that helped me take action in reducing digital dependence?

What could you create if you reclaimed just one hour per day?
What hobbies have you abandoned that you once truly loved?
When was the last time you were bored?
If someone audited your leisure time, would it reflect what you say you value?

Insight #3: Freedom Creates More Freedom

The more entrenched I become in the digital world, the more I crave it. Investing my time in the world of algorithms and fast paced content trains my brain to desire more and more of that type of content. It’s a hijacking of my attention span, making it more difficult to focus. This is a huge liability for someone who likes to think, write and explore creatively.

Conversely, the more I exercise my autonomy over technology, the more freedom I feel and the more I want to wield that control over it vs. allowing it to control me.

Your Brain Becomes What You Repeatedly Feed It

It turns out that there’s science behind this idea and it lives in the concept of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s incredible ability to adapt to our experience of life by forming new neural connections and altering existing ones.

So this means, the more we ingrain certain habits, the more the brain adapts to expect those habits. Essentially, the brain orients itself to what we repeatedly feed it.

If we feed it speed and novelty through rapid content consumption, then that’s what the brain will come to expect and crave. But if we feed it slower, more controlled and intentional content that requires a deeper level of focus and attention, then that’s what the brain will crave.

It comes down to a personal decision. Here’s some questions I’m asking myself to help identify areas of improvement:

What kind of brain are you training yourself to have?
Does your attention span feel strong or fragmented?
Are your daily digital habits leading you into the person you want to become?
What is the opportunity cost of your current digital habits?

Your Energy Is the Real Asset

Stewarding our energy and taking care of our mental health is a cornerstone of true wellness. There are many statistics that show that social media use increases the risk of anxiety, depression and thoughts of self harm.

But even if you don’t experience these outcomes, the digital world draws on our energy, fragmenting our focus, reducing our attention spans and diminishing mental clarity. These are not the fruits of health and wellness.

If we view our energy as a currency, the question becomes: what is the best return on the things we value?
ERICA JONES

If we view our energy as a currency, or an asset that we can invest to get an ROI or a DOI (deficit on investment), the question becomes: What is the best way to use my time for the highest return on the things I value?

This is not just a question of productivity. This is a question of aligning the time you spend to what’s most valuable to you. And if wellness is a priority, then intentional use of digital content is a requirement.