I’m doing just fine without the white noise, thank you

T“I have a lot more spare minutes these days

WO months ago I finally logged off for good.

After years of moaning about how much I hated being glued to my phone, mindlessly thumbing through apps, barely speaking to anyone, unless it was doing so virtually, making half-hearted attempts to control my phone addiction (one of them lasting longer than a few days) I had had enough.

The real turning point for me was when I got envious of people who didn’t have any social media accounts.

And it was the exact same reaction that I had towards teetotal people back when I was a problem drinker:

Lucky them. How do I get in on that? Their life seems great, etc.

What’s weird is, when I went tech “cold turkey”, it felt just as jarring as my early days as a nondrinker.

Like – what do I do now?

All this time suddenly on my (phone-less) hands. Because it turns out you don’t pick up your phone very often when you aren’t on any social media platforms.

A smart phone isn’t even necessary. I don’t see it for hours at a time now.

My sister-in-law whatsapped me, and I didn’t see it. So she panics because my time stamp says I haven’t been on there for days.

Is that how severe my attachment to online messaging was? That I answered everything so instantly, people now assume I have come to harm when I don’t reply immediately?

During work time it was no bother, to be honest. Especially since my concentration levels pretty much instantly improved. I went from being barely able do the simplest task for five minutes at a time, to hours and hours of effortless deep focus.

That’s purely down to no longer incessantly scrolling through Facebook and Instagram.

I know that because nothing absolutely nothing else in my life has changed.

Scary, no? Night-times weren’t great at first. I felt like I was sat staring at a wall, even when I was watching television.

Like I wasn’t doing enough, and something was missing.

Then I discovered crafting. Which l haven’t done since I was 12 years old in home economics class.

And it was like a lightbulb went off in my head.

This is the thing I love to do. This is what makes me happy. It actually gives me the instant gratification that I was chasing the promise of – but never finding – in an online space.

And I do it every spare minute I get now.

I have a lot more spare minutes these days too.

I don’t miss the white noise of people.

The minutiae of what they are doing, feeling, thinking or eating, in thrice daily updates.

I don’t even miss seeing photos of them, their kids, puppies, whatever.

Does that make me a bad friend? Very possibly.

But a far happier person, so I’ll live with it.

Very occasionally I have to do something on our LinkedIn account for work.

And I get straight in and out of there, asap.

Because it just feels yucky. I won’t ever go back on my personal social media accounts.

And I can’t see myself ever needing them for professional purposes.

But if I do I would definitely ask someone else to run it for me. Someone who actually enjoys it. Which is something else I have a greater appreciation for now:

Some people love social media. They are great at it!

It makes their world a far better place.

But I’m not one of them. So being able to finally break that habit is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

And I am never, ever going back.