Quitting social media is one of the best decisions I've ever made for my life, my mind, and even my home.

I'm not here to tell you what to do with your phone. This is my experience and what I noticed after I stepped back.

A lot of people are walking around with a sense that something feels off. Some know exactly what it is and some can't quite put their finger on it.

I was one of those people for years. I felt like my life didn't happen unless I photographed it and posted it.

If you didn't share it, it didn't happen.

I had no idea how sad that was making me. Even saying it out loud, it sounds sad.

I've been pulled back for a long time now. Every time I hop on temporarily to check up on people, I still get stressed and I still start feeling down.

So I get validated on this decision over and over again.

The Anxiety Change Came First

The most visceral change, the one I felt almost immediately, was in my anxiety.

If you've been around here a while, you know I'm prone to it. That's the whole reason I build a supportive home environment and lean hard on calm spaces and soothing practices.

Removing that input did more for me than most of the anxiety tools I've tried over the years, and I've tried some weird ones.

There was a specific irritation to it too. This feeling of never being caught up in the feed, never having seen everything, always missing something.

I'm a bit of a completionist. I've worked on it for years and I'm better than I used to be, but my brain still insists that unfinished means not done.

Mix that with the pressure to broadcast every good moment and you get a permanent hum of stress. It was a red flag I couldn't ignore.

TikTok Gets Its Own Category

TikTok deserves its own section here because it's a completely different kind of mental pull for me.

With Instagram and Facebook there's at least a social element. People you actually know, or people you feel like you know because you've followed them for years.

TikTok is just noise in my brain. And so much of it is AI-generated now.

I log in to check something on my own account and it never takes me to my own account. I get thrust straight into the feed where one thing after another flips through my visual field.

There's a losing of mental control on that app that I can't fully explain. My brain goes somewhere I didn't choose to take it.

The content is rarely substantial. A million opinions from a million strangers and a lot of loud noise.

I don't hate on anybody who does their TikTok thing. It's just the app I avoid the most.

Blank Mental Space Is Not Optional For Me

The thing I lose most when I'm spending time on social media is blank mental space.

Matt and I really disagree on this one. He's a habitual scroller on Reddit.

I've tried telling him about the research on what boredom does for creativity and for thinking outside the box.

Try convincing somebody addicted to technology that boredom is good for them. It's a losing conversation.

As an introvert who runs anxious, I need blank time the way some people need sleep.

I like naps and rest too. Blank time for me is the ability to sit with my own thoughts and let my brain wander wherever it wants to go.

One of my guilty pleasures is being home completely alone with no sound at all. No brown noise machine, no fans, no TV, no kids, just silence.

Ah, that's such a good feeling.

I'd love to take a trip to a hotel by myself for a weekend with absolutely nothing to do. I love having Matt along on any vacation, but being alone with your own thoughts is so undervalued in the world.

There's real research behind this. Your default mode network, the one that switches on when you're not focused on a task, is doing actual work in those moments.

It's helping consolidate memories during rest and connect ideas in original ways, the kind of creative thinking that's hard to reach while you're in input mode.

That tingly, calm, good body feeling from real downtime got a hell of a lot stronger for me than the little dopamine ticks from a feed.

What Blank Space Does For Productivity

The productivity that follows that kind of space is kind of crazy.

Getting into a state of flow after letting my thoughts go wherever they want almost always leads to an idea or some inspiration. That turns into beautiful productive stretches I never planned for.

Productivity can feel good. It just doesn't feel good when it's being forced all the time.

With more blank time I'm present enough to actually be in tune with my environment.

My home has always had this ability to restore me, and there were long stretches where I couldn't receive any of it. I was too overstimulated to take it in.

Your environment absolutely affects your brain and your nervous system, and the way your space shapes your energy across a whole day is bigger than most people give it credit for.

I Don't Need 500 Online Friends

I've canceled entire accounts that had over 500 people on them.

Nothing was wrong with those people. I just don't need 500 online friends.

I want fewer real people who know what's actually happening in my life instead of only the parts I've chosen to post about.

A lot of people tell me they're only sharing with friends. But those friends often don't really know you outside of that scroll, and you don't know them outside of theirs.

That kind of connection comes with a lot less trust.

Photos, Privacy, And The People In Them

My 18-year-old has never wanted photos of herself shared online. That was true long before I ever had a public feed.

She's a private person. For the longest time I thought it was kind of annoying because I wanted to share a picture of my family.

Now I get it. I think she's smart.

We share pictures thinking they go to friends and family. Then they go to everybody that person follows.

Those images end up in the cloud and they're searchable. I've looked up long lost friends from high school and found their photos through a plain Google search, sometimes from other people's accounts entirely.

There's no such thing as online privacy when you're sharing pictures with the public.

That's why you rarely see photos of my family anywhere. Occasionally a baby shot of Chloe, and even that I try to limit.

She's going to look completely different in five or ten years. At some point I'll stop altogether, because that's her privacy.

People have the right to be seen or not seen. It used to be that you printed photos and handed them to people you were seeing in person.

There have been moments where I asked my kids if I could post something and they said yes. I really wanted to share a family photo from Japan, partly because that trip surprised me in about nine different ways.

They approved and it was all gravy.

I chose to put myself on the internet. That was a conscious decision.

Then there's the candid photo where you weren't ready or weren't even looking, and somebody posts it anyway. I've always hated that.

Social media culture normalizes it. Stepping back made it a lot easier to hold that boundary for myself and for my kids.

My Real Relationships Got Better

There's the obvious part about presence and not having a screen in front of your face at a family dinner. We don't allow phones at our table because it drives me bonkers.

I can't imagine living in social media now that we have a toddler. Chloe is at the age where she needs me fully present in the room.

She wants eyeballs on her. That's not possible while I'm scrolling and she can feel the difference.

Even a three-year-old knows the difference between uh-huh and actually listening.

The other piece is that I don't miss hearing the opinions of people I otherwise like and respect.

You've probably seen someone you care about post something you disagree with, in a tone that's antagonizing or making fun of something that matters to you.

Beliefs get shouted out that you had no idea this person held, and you were completely fine not knowing.

That creates friction in real relationships that wouldn't exist if we weren't all living inside each other's thought feeds all day long. I don't need that friction.

I Spend Less And Want Less

My habits change when I'm online, and my spending habits change most of all.

I want less and feel more content with what I have when I'm not constantly looking at what everybody else has. It's one of the biggest things I quit in order to simplify.

Even if you never compare yourself to anyone, every other post is an advertisement for something the algorithm has already decided you're likely to buy.

When you're not being served targeted ads on a loop, you stop thinking about things you weren't thinking about five minutes ago and reaching for your credit card.

Slowing down what comes through the front door in the first place made a bigger dent in my house than any decluttering session ever did.

I spend less money now and I feel more content. Both of those connect directly to not spending hours a day inside an environment designed to make me feel like I'm missing something.

My Business Is Not Me

This last one might relate to you or it might just be mine. It's the separation between myself and my business.

It took me a really long time to absorb the truth that I'm not my business.

The metrics on any given post aren't a verdict on me as a person. Likes, comments, whether something goes viral, none of that measures who I am.

When you're broadcasting your personal life online, the line between professional feedback and personal attack blurs really fast.

If you attach your self-worth to those numbers, and engagement data is all they are when you post as a creator, you end up somewhere scary.

It's easier for me to keep the two separate because I'm not living my personal life on social media. There will always be a wall between what I share for work and who I am as a person.

That doesn't mean anything I share here is untrue, or that I never tell personal stories. There's just no camera inside my home catching all of the good and the bad.

When I first started out it was really hard to find that line and build that wall.

Where Social Media Still Earns Its Place

Social media isn't all bad and I want to say that clearly.

I get great value out of looking things up on YouTube. I love watching Veritasium break down some scientific phenomenon.

Structured groups can be awesome too. A small community or support group with actual parameters and a reason to exist beyond general scrolling.

I just don't live in them. I don't let them pull me back into the broader ecosystem.

I also appreciate having a way to reconnect with people I've known over the years, as long as those people want to be connected to and checked in on.

When I remember somebody and decide to reach out, I do it. Then I get back off as quickly as I can.

What I Actually Took Away From It

My life is less anxious. I'm more creative, more present, and I have more money since I stepped back.

I just stopped, noticed how I felt, and decided I didn't want to go back.

I liked the new feeling better.

If this clicked with you, the same principle stretches well past your phone. Simplifying your life comes down to protecting your time, energy, and mental capacity from the things that take them without asking.

Because when your home makes you feel good, the world becomes a better place.