 If you're like me and tons of other people around the world, social media is taking its toll on your life and that's why we are constantly hearing about more and more people leaving social media and this is part of something called digital minimalism. I have personally been doing that for this last month or so and in this video I want to discuss what my experience has been like as well as some of the benefits to getting rid of social media. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and what I like to do is sometimes use my own personal experience or things going on in culture to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. So for any of that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah, this has been going on for a while now. I recently just came back to YouTube and I started seeing more and more YouTubers talking about leaving social media and this is something that I started doing like a week or two before I came back to YouTube and I want to discuss it a little bit. So I took a mental health break not too long ago and for an entire week I was completely shut off from social media. So what was my life like before that? So I'm a YouTuber, I'm on social media, I stayed engaged with my audience and everything like that. And a lot of my day like no joke was spent just doing what a lot of us do, just refreshing, refreshing and scrolling, right? As a YouTuber I was constantly refreshing my feed, other new comments, other new subscribers, I was refreshing Twitter, I was refreshing Instagram, I was getting DMs from everybody, some of it was business, some of it was fans DMing me and all that. I was constantly on social media when I would go out to dinner or wherever it was. Social media was right there in my face and leading up to me leaving social media it came to this point where just I had this break where I was like no I cannot do this and a lot of it came from negative comments and videos being made about me and all sorts of stuff and I'm like I have to stop this, right? So before I actually deleted social media off my phone and things like that I picked up a book by Dr. Cal Newport and it was recommended I'm subscribed to a monthly reading list from an author named Ryan Holiday, he makes some amazing books like Ego is the Enemy, The Obstacle is the Way and other books like that. So anyways I was reading Digital Minimalism and Cal Newport he was he was saying some things that really connected with me, they really fascinated me especially because part of what I do on my YouTube channel or just in life in general I'm constantly just like looking at you know society my own behaviors I'm just fascinated without how our minds work and you know the behaviors that we do and everything like that and he was he was spitting some good stuff in that book so by the way I'm gonna link his book down below it's called Digital Minimalism and like if you're interested in this and want to learn the benefits some studies behind this you know and some great stories in there as well like make sure you check that book out it's it's phenomenal all right so one of the things that he brought up was this thing called solitude deprivation all right and I was like oh my god like you're absolutely right so they they talk about studies where even though we're more connected than ever before more people feel lonely than ever ever before and Cal Newport in this book he talks about like conflicting studies and he kind of analyzes why they conflict with one another but for example I believe it was NPR who did a study where or they made a they wrote an article about a study where they talked to people who were on social media and found that people felt lonelier they struggled with more depression more anxiety but you know they had all these friends and followers and everything like that so anyways one of the things that he brings up is solitude deprivation okay so we are deprived of solitude we are never just alone with our thoughts and what's even more fascinating is I remember another study that I actually was able to find again where like check this out okay so this university I believe it was the University of Virginia so this experiment went in stages so it says this the researchers then decided to take the experiment a step further for 15 minutes the team left participants alone in a lab room in which they could push a button and shock themselves if they wanted to the results were startling even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity 67% of men and 25% of women chose to inflict it on themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think the team reports online today in science we went into this thinking it wouldn't be that hard for people to entertain themselves Wilson says we have this huge brain and it's stuffed full of pleasant memories and we have the ability to construct fantasies and stories we really thought this thinking time was something people would like he suggests that the results may be mixed science of boredom and the trouble that we have controlling our thoughts I think our mind is built to engage the world he says so when we don't give it anything to focus on it's kind of hard to know what to do like how bananas is that okay like think about that for a second people said they would pay money to avoid being shocked but you sit them in a room by themselves and 67% of men 25% of women hit the button to shock themselves like think about that for a second so when I think about this I think about you know how when wherever we are like if you if you get stuck in line at like you know a coffee shop or the DMV or even when you go out to dinner with you know friends or family or whatever it is like just our reaction to pick up our phone like we are people who just don't like having our own thoughts and this is one of the reasons that a lot of people don't like meditation right a lot of people do not want to meditate because then they are stuck alone with their thoughts and that's one of the reasons why I promote meditation so so so much because I had a brain that would never stop and meditation has taught me how to sit there and watch the movie rather than being stuck in the movie I can watch these thoughts and just be like huh that's interesting like our brain is constantly going during my first week of just completely getting rid of social media off my phone I noticed a few things one of them was this automatic response I have to just pick up my phone and check it right constantly checking to see if there's notifications if there's not notifications then maybe I don't know maybe it's Glitch or maybe I need to go check the app and refresh that and all these other things and I noticed I was doing that a ton that first week and then like I would be like oh yeah I deleted all social media apps and I would just kind of stare at my phone for a minute and be like oh I don't really have anything to do on this and I'll just set it back down I would just kind of be very mindful of my experience notice the sights the sounds what I whatever I was doing if I was with somebody you know maybe engage the conversation more and things like that but it's just interesting noticing how often we just automatically pick up our phone the other thing that I noticed was what I think a lot of us struggle with with social media which is FOMO right fear of missing out like we we believe that if we're not on social media if we're not plugged in if we're not on Instagram if we're not on Facebook if we're not on Twitter we're not on these things like some crazy news is going to happen or something's gonna pop off on Twitter something's gonna happen and we're going to miss it all right let me tell you about my experience you're not gonna miss it and here's why because people are going to text you let you know what's going on and all those things so like we need to really recognize that and also this is not as much about quitting social media entirely it's being more mindful of how you're using it when you're using any things like that and I might do more videos in depth on like kind of how I've done that but anyways so the entire first week I was completely on social media but the second week I came back so I did this kind of like in stages and phases and things you know because I'm a youtuber this is my job so I can't just completely get rid of social media but I can tell you this I still do not have Twitter on my phone there's absolutely no reason for me to have Twitter on my phone even though I you know post new YouTube videos to Twitter I post you know updates and things like that as far as Facebook still do not have that on my phone all right so real quick hack for if you're trying to do this digital minimalism thing one of the tips is like keep it on your computer okay on your computer not on your phone because obviously you know when we're out and about and doing things like we don't need to be as plugged in and connected and all those other things like start getting into that solitude you know what I mean so those are two apps I still don't have on my phone Instagram I reinstalled on my phone just because the desktop version isn't that great but I don't really check Instagram all that much and even since coming back I think I've only made two posts and maybe a couple stories and that's just to say hey there's new videos up or this or this or this all right and then lastly like YouTube I actually didn't reinstall the YouTube app for I think two whole weeks and I'm a YouTuber I am a YouTuber and I did not have the YouTube app on my phone for two whole weeks now it's back on my phone I'm trying to be you know mindful of how often I check it I'm trying not to you know do that mindless thing I do where I refresh it and say okay how many views did this video get how many subscribers do I got how many am I losing you know whatever it is so I try to be very mindful for those of you who don't know there is also a YouTube studio app so for creators you can go in there you know check comments check your analytics you know check you know views and you can also check or you can edit videos and things like that I still do not have that app on my phone and that's an app that I spent a lot of time in so rather than the actual YouTube app I was spending more time in the YouTube studio app and that is still not on my phone all right and what's the results it's been about three three or I'm on week four now it's been great I've had to be very mindful because I'm the type of person where I'll find work arounds for my own things so I have to be mindful of that and you know I downloaded two apps this is not a sponsored video but two apps that were mentioned in the book that I ended up downloading one of them was called the moment app and that's for your phone and basically that monitors how many times you're picking up your phone it also monitors screen time for different apps basically for that you just like take screenshots of your battery usage it walks you through it they'll tell you how many how much time you're spending in specific apps you know each day or that week or whatever it is but mainly I use it for like how many times I pick up my phone in a day on average I think it says like most people pick up their phone like over a hundred times every single day I have my limit set to like 40 and every 10 like 10 20 30 40 it tells me it's like hey you've picked up your phone 20 times today and it it forces me to be more mindful of how much I'm actually picking up my phone all right and like for me it's a little bit difficult sometimes but it helps me be more mindful because for example I keep all my notes for videos like kind of like a little like talking point script I also put down you know video ideas because my mind's always going I'm like okay here write this down so that causes me to pick up my phone even more but I still have done extremely well not picking it up more than 40 times each day which is less than half of the average then the other app that I got which you can download on your computer and your phone that was recommended in Cal New Ports book it's called the freedom app and that will legit block apps on your phone or block websites on your computer okay so like that's been very beneficial I need to do some more research because I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I have like right there I have the audible app on my computer and there's something going on where like freedom is like interfering with audible so like even though I can't find the setting for it so I need to research that sometimes I just turn it off but I will tell you this now that I've limited most of my social media usage to my computer where I do my work you know I play video games and things like that like I have noticed that I've been using it a lot less I have the freedom app set so I can only use like Twitter for example for 15-minute increments and that's been working wonders you know what I mean I've gotten into you know some you know discussions and things like that but I limit my time the freedom app says no boom you're off of it and then I'm gone you know what I mean so it's been extremely beneficial for me if you have found that social media is taking its toll on your mental health I highly recommend you try some of these strategies or just at least pick up the book by Cal Newport like like what's the worst that's gonna happen like I am like this is my job and I was afraid to read that book because this is my job this is what I do for a living this is how I support my son this is how I pay my bills right and I was like I don't want you convincing me to get out right but it's actually been a very freeing experience I have read more books when you know my beautiful girlfriend Tristan and I we go out and stuff like that I'm not on my phone as much when I'm with my son I'm not on my phone as much and all sorts of things so anyways I highly recommend it I might do some other videos on like strategies or maybe apps or things like that anyways if you have any questions or comments about digital minimalism or if you've tried it yourself let me know and let's like have a discussion down below all right anyways that's all I got for this video if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel on patreon you're all amazing and the March Q&A will be posted this week so stay tuned and if you would like to get involved put your top on that patreon.com right there all right thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time