How 30 days off social media changed me.

welcome to 91 coffee here in changai Thailand it's one of my favorite coffee shops and I came here to talk about five ways that my life has changed since I left social media 1 month ago a few of these are kind of expected and some were not so expected change number one the first thing that I do in the morning is read from my Kindle I actually purchased a Kindle specifically for this no social media challenge because I came up with the idea of tricking myself into reading in the morning I just put my Kindle on the nightstand where I'd usually put my phone and immediately upon waking up I would just automatically reach for my Kindle just out of habit it didn't make it as easy as I thought it was still tricky at times to resist the urge to put the Kindle back down and reach for my phone instead but I would say that that was a very good move and making it at least a little bit easier to to start reading every morning instead of scrolling through Instagram or honestly even just checking my email checking my text messages looking up stupid stuff on online it's just such a refreshing way to start your day with something that you intend to do rather than falling into like this infinite void of a you know a device change number two I've started to do push-ups every morning when I was in Middle School I had a pretty solid habit of doing push-ups every single day for some reason I was just really into it and seeing the progress was very satisfying to me as the years have passed since I have fallen out of that habit I've started to I guess feel disappointed in myself because I tried to pick up the Habit again and I would do push-ups for a few days and then I would just not do them anymore and I'd kind of beat myself up over it like how did I have such a solid habit Abit of doing push-ups every day in middle school and for some reason I just don't seem to have the willpower anymore once I started doing this Challenge and I started to read every morning I thought to myself huh maybe I really can you know build good habits maybe this is the perfect time to start doing the push-ups again so I just added that to my morning schedule after I would read on the Kindle for a while I would do as one set of as many push-ups as I could I would say that just being able to do those two things every morning uh reading from my Kindle and then doing push-ups has increased the confidence in my ability to build good habits significantly number three I feel less insecure in general I kind of underestimated how much social media affected my mental well-being looking back on it I think that social media definitely played a larger role in my eating disorder than than I thought it did for a long time and it's definitely contributed to a lot of just very common problems with comparison uh like whether it's comparing myself to how other people look or what they're doing with their lives and uh how many friends they have and just stupid stuff like that that I thought was not really as big of a problem to me as it really was and now that I've left social media and those influence are diminished significantly now that there's just less people to compare myself to it's crazy how much healthier my mental state has been don't get me wrong it's not like those issues don't exist in noral society I just feel like social media intensifies those feelings of of comparison and folo and uh feeling like you are behind everyone else I really think that social media makes that worse when in reality it's more manageable number four I have been less sleepy in general I feel like I have had issues with an inconsistent sleep schedule for most of my life I never really knew what it was like to wake up feeling refreshed my broggy mornings was kind of just normalized for me and I have been completely fixed my sleep schedule but I've just noticed that I don't have a super strong temptation to use my phone for a crazy amount of time before I go to bed like once I actually get into bed I can just like fall asleep without scrolling through Instagram or you know just staring at my screen in the dark even with a somewhat inconsistent sleep schedule I still wake up in the morning is feeling more refreshed than I used to I did a little bit of research into this and I think it has to do with blue light which I I heard a lot about but I kind of never really believed it or I thought it was just some kind of madeup thing to sell blue light glasses like I never really did the research on this but I found a really interesting study published in the Journal of Applied physiology where they took eight subjects and they had them sit in a dark room at midnight and blindfolded them for about 2 hours and then for an hour and a half they exposed them to white blue light what they found was that it actually increase the amount of melatonin in their bodies which is our sleep hormone that helps us fall asleep the study found that if we're using technology like your cell phone or laptop or TV uh before you go to bed it can make it harder for you to fall asleep it can decrease the quality of your sleep and it can lead you to feeling more groggy the next day and lastly number five I feel more connected to the people around me because I'm such a crazy introvert I had a lot of online friends in middle school and high school and that to me was something that was very special since I left social media I have realized how many of those online connections or even people in real life who I just moved away from I don't really keep in touch with without those platforms existing and I don't really think about it's led me to realize the relationships that are the most valuable to me both in real life and the online connections that I've actually been able to maintain without those platforms I've been encouraged to put more time into those relationships and I feel that just in the last month of social media I have gotten closer to People by cutting out the the mental energy that would go towards more superficial relationships on social media so I'm very happy about that Chang in my life now that I've shared five ways that my life has changed I wanted to also share some updates from other people who have left social media uh in the past month or so these updates are from members of the no scroll club which is a newsletter Community I launched in early January and we are close to 500 members now which is insane I was not expecting that video to reach as many people as it did so thank you to everyone who's joined the club and if you are interested in joining uh I will have a link to sign up in the description below but let's dive into some updates from our club members my phone usage before was over 8 hours per day but now I'm at around 2 hours per day I've also started to build Habits Like not using my phone after 9: going to bed at 10:00 waking up at 5:00 and doing a morning workout instead of instantly using my phone from someone who racked up an average of 64 hours per week on my phone I have so much more me time now and I love it I already read four books in the past 2 and 1 half months since I first joined the club I've been off all social media it's nice to be reminded of how happy life can be when you are by yourself and away from prying eyes I've been reading on my Kindle every night before bed instead of going on my phone and it's so refreshing my sleep has improved so much the past two nights I went to bed by midnight instead of staying up scrolling which I am very proud of wigging up refreshed is so nice without scrolling I've started to be more grateful and appreciate the little things I'm getting back on track with my studies and I feel so much more energized I now have time to do more of what I love making music hang with real friends and just enjoying my solitude I'll admit that I do get urges to go back but I love challenges and I'm proud of myself for taking this one head on if you haven't watched my video introducing the no scroll Club I will have a link in the description below so you can check it out I would love to have you on board and joining me and about 500 other people in leaving social media for the entire year of 2024 I think it's insane that we've had this many people sign up for a challenge like this I really did think that one year was far too much much to ask of people and it's so encouraging to know that people are up to joining this challenge with me and that I don't have to do it alone if you enjoyed this video please hit subscribe I'm going to be making more videos about leaving social media I'm working on something really cool called the red yellow green activity categorization system which is just a fancy way of saying uh I created a way to determine which activities are healthy and not healthy and neutral uh depending on a specific list of criteria I like to be analytical like that and I think it'll be fun to dive into so I will have a series videos on that coming out fairly soon thank you for watching and until next time farewell