In this short blog post, I have shared my experience of the last 4 months where I quit social media and spent that time on meaningful things.
Quitting Social Media
I was never really a huge social media consumer or someone who’d pretty much share everything on it but I did use some of these apps more than I should have. I always felt more peaceful without the need of checking my phone or social accounts. But there was this fear of missing out which is why I never really quit social media.
Back to March 2020, I was out for a run while listening to the “Deep Work” audiobook which had some really incredible ideas of why one should quit social media, and that eliminated all my fears of missing out. While I was out for that run, I immediately deactivated my social accounts(Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram).
“What we choose to focus on and what we choose to ignore – plays in defining the quality of our life.”
Carl Newport – Deep Work
We all tend to focus more on the first half of this quote in our lives but ignore the latter.
I haven’t felt the need to go back to social media ever since I quit apart from feeling the urge sometimes to use Messenger.
Leveraging that time to Read More Books
I have loved books ever since I got out of my teenage but didn’t read as much as I could have.
After quitting social media four months ago, I almost tripled the number of books I would read in a single month and that too with a much better attention span. I went from 1 book a week to 3 books a week. No, I was not speed reading, I was focus reading while being at peace.
I read more than 45 books in the last 4 months. The process of reading was much more enjoyable than it was ever before. And not just in reading, but I felt a positive impact in almost every area of my life after quitting social media completely. Some of these examples include:
- Improved mental clarity
- I can focus better
- I can work over the same thing for long periods of time
Some of my Favorite Books
Some of my favorite books include (in no particular order)
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Principles by Ray Dalio
- The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
- The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
- The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
- Give and Take by Adam Grant
- High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
- The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
- Affective Neuroscience by Jaak Panksepp
- The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
- “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
- The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
- Sapiens by Yuvan Noah
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
- Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
- Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- How to Change Your Mind by Michael Polla
- Deep Work by Carl Newport
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
Outro
I don’t see myself going back to social media anytime soon. I’m enjoying my life, it’s peaceful out here.
