I finished my digital detox—now what?

What I learned, what's next, and what did Zillow ever do to anyone?

Spend a few moments scrolling and you’re bound to see at least one post—Substack essay, meme, or whatever—about how people are quitting Instagram and trying to relinquish the hold social media has on them (no, the irony isn’t lost on me, either).

You’ll see a beautifully curated photo of a stack of notebooks, a candle (or three), a cup of tea, and no technology; the poster claiming they are clinging on to slower moments. But what, exactly, does all of that mean?

What led me to Detox?

I can’t remember exactly when the feeling of wanting to change my relationship with technology happened for me, but based on my 130-day streak on BePresent it looks like it started in mid-November, right after the election and after I came back to Substack after a long hiatus. Instagram specifically started leaving a bad taste in my mouth, and I used an app (the aforementioned BePresent) to set some limits around that and a few other apps. It worked—I allowed myself to open Instagram five times a day for five minutes each time. And just like that, I cut my scrolling on Instagram.

But then I found myself scrolling for entirely too long on LinkedIn, and so I set a daily app limit for LinkedIn and I cut my scrolling there, too.

You know where this is going. In a very If You Give a Mouse a Cookie moment, I replaced LinkedIn with Substack Notes and so I set a limit there.

Then I did the same with Facebook—yes, Facebook of all places. An app I barely used for the past five years, usually only to browse various neighborhood groups and to post my own wares on Buy Nothing, now became a place I couldn’t get enough of.

The Facebook moment struck me, and I am a bit ashamed it took me that long to recognize this pattern. I’d obviously known I had some habits that needed adjusting—I wouldn’t have downloaded an app blocker if I didn’t think I did. But replacing one vice for another is why they tell you not to enter a new romantic relationship in your first year of addiction recovery.

In February, I learned about

Break Free From the Internet

’s five week Digital Detox. I immediately signed up, and was very surprised to learn, after I’d committed, that this wasn’t as simple as deleting Instagram from my phone for three weeks but rather it was a complete detox from most digital spaces in order to learn how to use technology as a tool.

My Ongoing Battle with Screen Time

Five weeks total, or 35 days—one week of getting prepared for the detox, three weeks of completely separating myself from the entertainment and mindless side of technology, and a final week to slowly reintroduce these digital spaces and reflect on what’s next. Every few days, an email came to my inbox with challenges, tips, writing prompts, and encouragement.

I thought I was just deleting Instagram

The first week was all about setting intentions and getting prepared. I’d get emails every few days with journaling prompts, challenges, and things to think about.

I journaled about my current relationship with the internet and technology and what I wanted to come back to—I knew I didn’t want to cast technology aside completely, but there was something about the vapid consumption loops I found myself in that I felt I needed to get away from.

I also made a list of all the things I thought I would have time for now that my phone was cast aside—including cleaning out the bedroom closet, playing my guitar, and writing for hours every day. Those things mostly didn’t happen, but I appreciated the exercise.

I was to delete every app on my phone that had any entertainment value—social media, games, TV apps, the news, etc. I was also to follow the same practices on my computer. Break Free From the Internet says:

You might want to keep around your banking apps, grocery apps, or anything else that's an essential tool. Don't cheat yourself here. You know the difference.

Looking for a new house? Zillow is a tool. Playing a fantasy game in your head? Zillow is an entertainment app.

So I deleted Zillow too, as we’re no longer realistically looking for a house. Because I did in fact know the difference (much to my chagrin).

In the thick of it: I was bored, I was tired, I got sick

My first day of the initial elimination stage of the detox was on Presidents’ Day. A day off for me and my kid, we went to a play space in the morning and though it was fun, it was exhausting.

When he went down for his nap, all I wanted to do was curl up under the covers and watch about two-three hours of TV, give or take. I couldn’t do that—I was bored, I was frustrated, and I almost threw in the towel. I can start tomorrow, I thought. I forgot today was a day off, anyway.

I remember sitting in bed paralyzed. Too tired to do chores, I took out my Kindle and read the first few pages of a book. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sounds of my kid waking up over the monitor and two and a half hours had passed. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I didn’t have TV or my phone to distract me (and to keep me moving forward).

Me, bored as FUCK, unaware that I am about to take an almost 3 hour nap.

I found the same thing happened during that first week, at night. I was falling asleep between 9pm and 10pm—without my default scrolling or just one more episode nighttime habits, it felt like my brain and body were being given the space to breathe and relax. I realized how bad I’d gotten at listening to my own sleepy cues, and all of the things I thought I was doing to unwind were really keeping me wound up. And if I really think about it, it’s been that way for years.

With no more phone (or computer) games, I purchased a crossword book and would do a crossword while drinking coffee in the morning, sitting with my son while he ate breakfast. I tried to keep my phone out of sight as much as possible, especially during these morning moments. I listened to Podcasts for the first time in years—something I used to only do while commuting but now found myself really enjoying the medium while doing dishes or just relaxing in bed.

Analog mornings - me and my crosswords, my kid and his sticker book

I even deleted my email apps initially, but during my first week I missed a fraud alert on one of my credit cards. It got resolved, but I still got spooked, so I redownloaded it but added an app blocker so I could only check my email on my phone at specific times.

In that first week, I was more productive, more focused, and more present. I also found myself more and more bored, which is honestly a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time (definitely during the pandemic, at the beginning especially, but other than that I realized I don’t let myself feel bored, ever). It was almost refreshing to know that I could be bored.

Instead of whipping out my phone to look up every thought that came into my head, I kept a list on my phone of things I wanted to Google and had planned to revisit it at a set time. The first time I sat down with my list, I didn’t actually want to look any of it up—I didn’t care about that information anymore, or in the case of “third Ohio city with a ‘C’, not Columbus or Cleveland”, I remembered Cincinnati all on my own.

I became intimately aware of the clutter in my email inbox, and slowly started the process of setting some intentional time aside to delete emails that no longer served me. I really don’t need marketing emails from last month, let alone from 2014.

Then, at the beginning of week two, I got sick.

I came down with a horrible stomach bug plus fever combo that no one else in my house (thankfully) caught. I napped as much as I could, but when I’m sick and not napping, the only thing I want to do is watch TV. Not having that was painful—another moment I almost quit.

I made it through—those few days honestly a total blur. I could barely focus on crosswords and found myself falling asleep to podcasts playing in the background.

The rest of the second week and most of the third, were uneventful. I got used to my slower way of life. I started leaving my phone in various rooms around the house to not feel tethered. I was getting ready to end the detox, slowly introduce technology, and was overall feeling good.

And then, when I had just three days to go, I got sick again. This time, a cold that knocked my entire household down.

The days are long (and so is this cold)

It felt cruel. We did throw Bluey on for my kid, so maybe that’s cheating, but there was no way I could fathom parenting while sick if we hadn’t done that. We survived that weekend at home, and on Monday my son was back at daycare. I was still sick, took the day off, and I’d completed the ‘active’ part of the detox.

So, what did I learn?

The fifth and final week—which is all about reevaluating and reintroducing—brought me a lot of clarity. I reread my journals and peaked at my Instagram DMs on my laptop. It took me a few days before downloading some of apps back and even then I immediately set limits on them. There are also a bunch of apps that are off my phone for good, which is already a freeing feeling.

I spent that first Monday in bed catching up on the TV I’d missed—mostly Severance and the start of White Lotus. I started to play the Sims, but after eight minutes I got bored. I haven’t opened it since.

I learned a lot during this time. I noticed how much we all normalize these phone behaviors—scrolling, sending memes back and forth, wanting information instantly, etc. My husband joked about my crossword book, but my former reliance on keeping my Wordle streak or his Words with Friends habit is standard, no one blinks an eye.

I missed my daily Wordle and my LinkedIn games, but I am no longer beholden to those streaks. Playing a game every day doesn’t need to be something I check off or achieve, rather something I can dip into when it feels good in the moment. On the other hand, I have a new disdain for doing crosswords online. I will keep my crossword book, and I still reach for it most mornings.

My stepdad and I do send the Wordle to each other every day, and I missed that little moment of connection. I started sending him photos of me with my crossword book when he’d send me his daily Wordle (which he never stopped doing 😭).

I missed writing Notes on Substack, something I set a boundary on during my detox—I only opened Notes when I wanted to promote a specific essay, and set specific times when I’d log on and respond to comments. I missed interacting with Notes and did feel guilty for not responding to certain comments right away but I learned to let that go a bit.

I also didn’t realize how much I wanted to check my stats and what not after publishing essays. I found myself refreshing my Substack dashboard for a little bit after publishing an essay in the middle of the detox and had to, in the moment, set a boundary there as well.

I learned I don’t care about Instagram. Like, at all. When I redownloaded it, I found myself immediately pulled into Reels for about five minutes before closing the app and setting even stricter app blockers. Now, I can open Instagram three times a day for five minutes each time. I have rarely hit that limit since.

For me, there is a time and a place for Instagram though, but it’s not for following influencers or mindlessly scrolling content. I like sharing updates here and there and I like seeing what my friends and family are up to, but that feels more out of necessity and meeting people where they are rather than where I am.

I already unfollowed a few hundred businesses and influencers and have done my best to stay off Reels—those make my brain melt. I look at my DMs every other day or so and watch the Reels that have been sent to me. Every now and then, I do find myself scrolling (and even sending a few things off to friends). Luckily, my app blocker catches me before I get too far.

I haven’t thought much about other social media. The only thing I care about on Facebook is my neighborhood groups, and specifically Buy Nothing. I have no use for Threads, and Reddit is only useful if I access it through Googling something.

As for TV, I really do love TV and missed TV! But I have started to think about how often I casually consume TV—throwing an episode on while doing the dishes or easing into my day by watching a quick episode of Chicago PD between dropping my kid off at daycare and starting work. I surprised myself and learned that I am in fact capable of cleaning the house while listening to a podcast instead (or, yes, even while doing nothing else but cleaning).

Having live shows I watch and catch up on is weekly and something I see no problem with—so I’ve since been watching Severance (that finale, though) and White Lotus when they go live. Multi-season procedurals still have a place too, but I don’t need to binge five episodes between dinner and bedtime anymore.

One thing that I also appreciated about this detox was the nudge to spend more time untethered from my phone. It really is one thing to not look at my phone, and a completely different thing to leave my phone in my bedroom while I’m doing something in the kitchen.

The detox does encourage leaving the house without technology, which I didn’t end up doing. I don’t like leaving the house without my phone because of my responsibilities as a parent, but I might start leaving my phone at home when we’re all together and go out for a quick outing. I know people parented before cell phones but there were also pay phones on every corner. This is more of a personal comfortability thing, but I also am trying to be introspective and make sure I’m not using that as an excuse.

What’s next?

This was a powerful experience for me. I know the answer is not to completely shun technology and opt for a life of stacked notebooks and candles, but I also know I have no desire to move through the world as tethered to my phone as I once was. I have no desire to chat about memes at dinner and am becoming more comfortable with not knowing what’s going on in celebrity news.

I think staying connected to national and world news is important but I also know that scrolling through headlines is not the way I want to stay connected. I subscribe to a few specific newsletters at this point, that offer good news roundups every day. I also have a few news podcasts that help me stay informed but not too connected. I still haven’t downloaded any of my old news apps, and am urging myself to be more intentional about how I consume news.

I’m figuring out the balance of staying connected with friends, especially those that live far, and that has felt like the hardest so far. I missed pregnancy announcements and other important life events because I wasn’t on social media. I know part of that is getting better at reaching out in general, but it’s also the way we’ve conditioned ourselves to share with one another.

At the end of the day, while this pushed me, it wasn’t hard. That’s not to say it wasn’t difficult—it was mentally challenging and was something to overcome but staying off Instagram or missing Severance for a few weeks is not hard.

I also don’t think I would’ve gotten to this place had I not gone all in on the detox. Even with all my journaling beforehand about how I thought I’d feel or what I assumed would be important, there would’ve been no way to actually know how I wanted to change my relationship with technology without eliminating it. I’m grateful to myself that I stuck with it and for all I’ve learned, and also now feel like I have the tools to continue to sit with this relationship as I move forward.

For me, this wasn’t just about deleting Instagram for a few days but rather noticing who I am without distraction. My phone feels less important, my brain feels more engaged, and I’ve learned the difference between bounding around between different dopamine hits and truly winding down.

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