I deleted TikTok and Instagram from my phone for all of December.
No big announcement, I just took them off my phone and figured I’d see what happened.
Why?! Well, I’m a mom of two young girls, December is easily the busiest time of the year, and by doing this I was hoping to create more mental space for myself and my family.
And for a gal who has been (chronically) online for work and otherwise in the last six years, I was prepared for this to hurt a little bit. 😬
It’s January 2nd now, and as I consider what I want my online life to feel like moving forward, I’m noticing how this past month has felt.
The first thing I noticed was that I took fewer pictures, and definitely less videos. I still wanted to remember things, I just didn’t feel the need to capture them immediately or prove that they happened. The moment could just exist without me doing anything with it.
I also stopped having that low-grade background thought of, “Could this be something I turn into content?” That question is sneakier than I previously realized. It pops up everywhere, even for me whose online presence is much less lifestyle content and almost entirely teaching/singing/mentorship content. Without that drive to mine my life for content, I felt more present. Like I could just be inside an experience instead of half outside of it, narrating it for an imaginary audience.
Another shift I didn’t expect: I started wondering more and checking less. Instead of immediately searching for opinions, takes, or validation, I sat longer with my own thoughts. I found myself asking, What do I actually think about this? and not rushing to resolve the answer. There was more pondering and unfinished thinking.
I also did more things! Not big, impressive things—just… life things. Stuff around the house and projects that had been sitting half-done. I finished sewing the cafe curtains that had taken over my dining room table for months! I had more energy for the unremarkable parts of my days, which turns out is where a lot of satisfaction actually lies.
And when I did want to spend a little time on my phone? My Wordle streak has never been higher!! Also, Connections is my favorite of the NYTimes games, come at me.
This all made me think about artists and singers, because I see this constantly in my work.
So many of us are deeply attuned—to feedback, to trends, to comparison, to whether what we’re doing is “landing.” That sensitivity can be a gift, but it can also crowd out our own quieter, intuitive voice underneath it. The voice that already knows what it likes! The sense of self that already is, without any external validation.
Stepping away from social media these past few weeks didn’t necessarily make me more inspired or productive or enlightened. But it did quiet a lot of noise in my brain and made literal room in my life for the things, and people, that are most important to me.
So this isn’t a call to delete anything, truly!
But if you’ve been feeling a little scattered or pulled in too many directions, here are a few questions you might sit with:
- How do I usually feel after I scroll—more connected, or more drained?
- Am I making things right now, or mostly reacting to other people making things?
- Do I trust my own taste and instincts, or am I outsourcing that?
- When was the last time I was bored enough to let a thought wander somewhere new?
Sure, art needs input, but it also needs space.
