Step one: Write a post to inform everyone that you’re taking a break from social media. Phrase it so they know you’re doing something extremely worthy. Also say something scathing about Meta, so they feel guilty on multiple levels for remaining.
Step two: Stay on social media a little longer to respond to the people who respond to your post about quitting social media.
Step three: OK, now you’re really quitting social media. What counts as social media, though? Surely LinkedIn isn’t social media, it’s too boring. Spend a few hours scrolling LinkedIn. Decide you don’t need a business optimisation course or a tutorial on how to set up a job alert. Also, why do people send messages on LinkedIn to thank you for connecting with them on LinkedIn? They literally invited you to connect in the first place. Decide that not only is LinkedIn dead, your LinkedIn inbox is a coffin.
Step four: Spend a moment feeling nostalgic for the days when the spam messages in your social media inboxes were from square-jawed men in military or medical uniforms who were obviously bots.
Step five: Look at your to-do list. Sigh. Do your taxes. Text six people to tell them you just did your taxes. No replies. Consider rebooting social media for satisfactory responses. Remember that you told everyone you were taking a break.
Step six: Clean the refrigerator.
Step seven: Respond to emails that have been lingering for months in your inbox.
Step eight: Go for a walk. Take a photograph of the beautiful sunset. Resist urge to post it. Instead send the sunset photo to seven different WhatsApp groups. Have a momentary existential crisis while considering whether WhatsApp is social media. Decide that you would never know what was going on at your children’s school or sporting groups without it. Keep WhatsApp.
Step nine: Sleep the superior sleep of someone who is not on social media. Have dreams unvisited by random high school acquaintances and great-aunts with a penchant for doll collecting. Wake in a cold sweat with the realisation that you have no idea what is going on in anyone’s life.
Step 10: Meditate instead of scrolling. Ha, just kidding. Doomscroll on news sites and gnash your teeth at the actual state of the world instead of the state of the teeth of your friend’s 15-year-old son who just got his braces off. Read a news article about tariffs. Put your phone down.
Step 11: Pick it up again. Is Goodreads social media? Rate the last 12 books you’ve read on Goodreads and go down a rabbit hole of analysing the reading habits of all your friends on Goodreads. Wonder how much of these lists are performative. Is it even possible to read Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in the same week? Decide that Goodreads is also social media and delete.
Step 12: Go for a run. Download the stats from your smartwatch for your run. Send to your running WhatsApp group and your mother instead of posting on social media. Your mother: “Are you OK? Why are you sending me your heart rate?”
“I just wanted to share my run this morning.”
“OK. Why are you suddenly texting me so much? Did you see the photos from your cousin’s wedding on Facebook?”
Step 13: Reinstall social media just long enough to look at wedding photos. You can’t like them because then people would know you’ve broken your break. Delete again.
Step 14: So many hours in a day! Write an article about quitting social media.
Go back on social media to share the article you wrote in those 24 hours when you were actually productive because you took a break from social media.
