I'd say my social media use was pretty typical.

Up until that point, I didn't place any limitations

or boundaries on how I used it.

I'd wake up looking at Instagram,

spend much of the day posting to Twitter,

and I used Facebook to see my high school classmates

fight over politics.

You know, how it was intended to be used.

(Matt laughing hard)

Then, I saw my friend Jason Zook make a post on Instagram

saying that he was taking the month off.

He was deleting social media from his phone

and logging out of all accounts on his computer for 30 days.

- [Jason] My identity entire identity was tied to who I was online

and I felt like if I didn't post or I wasn't there,

it was like, I wasn't even doing anything interesting.

I wasn't an interesting person.

It's like, that is such a messed up thought.

When you get to that place, you're no longer

in control of how you're using that platform,

that platform's controlling you.

And I was like, I have to take the power back.

- [Matt] Jason's post piqued my interest but I couldn't help

but think that he was making a huge mistake.

You see, Jason like myself, runs his business online

and relies on social media to keep that engine running.

I looked at what he was doing and thought,

oh my god, all your followers, all these people

that have been waiting to hear from you year after year

are gonna forget that you existed.

And I also thought, oh my god, you're also gonna miss out

on all these inspiration and value and connections

that you get through social media.

My reaction was similar to the first time

I heard about minimalism.

That's great for him but I would never be able to do it

because of, fill in the blank.

The excuses and rationalizations worked for a bit.

It would put my life's work in jeopardy, I told myself.

I'd stop making money.

I'd digitally fall off the face of the earth.

But then Jason quit social media, came back and well,

the world kept turning and his business was fine.

As it turns out, he's been doing it for years.

Twice a year, in fact.

- It is the most clarity of thought during those times.

It's like everything re-calibrates for me.

I get this whole refreshed creativity.

It's like, I was talking about re-charging those batteries.

I'm itching to get back to stuff by the end of 30 days

but I'm also really excited because it's like,

I've taken control of these platforms.

And then I can go back and go, yeah, I didn't, it's fine.

I did, I missed some stuff, I didn't post things

and guess what, everybody's still here.

You know, nothing really changed.

- It's one of those things that's so simple

yet we often never think about it.

It's like switching up a gym routine

that we've grown bored of

or ending a relationship that's toxic and negative

or maybe even quitting a job

that you've been dragging your feet to.

A lot of times we do things because that's the way

that they've always been done but the truth is

that is a horrible reason to do anything.

So, I begin to think about it some more.

I mean, really, how bad could it be?

What could really go wrong by committing to 30 days?

And come to think of it,

Instagram had really been stressing me out lately.

And as much as I enjoy the drama every once in a while,

Facebook seemed like a complete waste of time.

And I keep accidentally offending people on Twitter.

Okay, maybe intentionally.

I wondered how my days would change without it.

How much more productive I would become?

How much more peaceful my mornings and nights would be?

And then, I did it.

I quit social media for 30 days and I made a video about it.

(keyboard typing)

(mouse clicking)

There's a sense of clarity that you get

when you take a step away from the compulsive checking.

It's really hard to explain.

It's really impossible to quantify.

But I can tell you that I simply felt better

by being away from it (mouse clicking).

So, I saw a ton of benefits in that 30 day period

that small window when I did the social media detox.

But what was most surprising to me were the changes

that occurred after, that would be the 400 days

since I went on that detox until today.

And some of those changes still stick with me to this day.

To begin with, it was the first 30 day challenge

I completed on this channel which led me to do

another 11 in the year that followed.

As I experimented with everything from cold showers

to counting calories and quitting coffee,

that alone was a great take away.

To feed my curiosity for experimenting with new things

and pushing myself further out of my comfort zone

and leaning more into my own self-development

that had in years but I didn't realize just

how impactful it would be on how I used social media.

A lot of times we try experiments and challenges

and we attempt to build habits only to inevitably fall back

into our old patterns and routines.

This is probably the most frustrating thing

about trying to build a habit

yet something about quitting social media for 30 days

just clicked something in my head.

It woke me up to the problem that social media

had become in my own life.

And I realize just how much of a distraction it was,

how little I needed it and how little I missed it

once I left.

And so, there were changes that stuck beyond that 30 days

that I have continued to uphold since then.

First, I haven't kept any social media apps

on my phone consistently.

Instead, I install them when I wanna use them.

Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a day

and then I delete them.

These days the only app that I do that with is Instagram.

Your self-restraint might be a little bit better than mine

but I personally find that I quickly

and compulsively default to checking Instagram

when it's installed on my phone.

The challenge you'll likely find is that

once you delete social media from your phone

you'll immediately replace it with something else.

Whether it's reddit, the news, a video game,

another distracting app, it's like whack-a-mole for apps.

And so, to prevent this from happening,

the best thing that I found to do

is to actually increase your distance from your phone.

Leave your phone in your bedroom.

Leave it in your car.

Leave it at home.

Whatever you do, just don't leave it on you.

After my social media detox,

I also decided to stop using Facebook.

I deleted my public Facebook account

and only use my private account for Facebook messenger

which I rarely use at that.

As much as I love sitting back

and watching the high school drama unfold,

it just wasn't worth holding onto.

My favorite change since I slowed down my time on social,

I compare myself to others much less often.

I'm reminded every time I login to Instagram

just how much that little voice in the back of my head

starts to talk shit.

That person's a better filmmaker than you.

Wow, they're much further along in their career than you.

And hey, that guy's got bigger biceps than you.

No matter where you're at in life,

it's difficult not to have these kind of thoughts.

And I find that that constant scrolling

only helped to support them.

On and on the voice goes.

Making comparisons and accusations against my worth.

Yes, there are ways to this voice like through meditation

but I find that not feeding it to begin with helps the most.

So, I don't.

And hey, side note, I think that sometimes

distractions are actually a good thing.

Sometimes we have bad days.

We're frustrated.

We just wanna go browse Netflix, click on something

that's gonna allow us to turn our brains off.

We wanna scroll through social media

and see what our friends are up to.

We just want a distraction from a shitty day

and I think that's completely okay.

I think what I'm talking about here is more so

when these problems become so big

that we start to overlook other areas of our life.

We're not going to the gym as much.

We're maybe feeling like we're in a negative spiral

because we keep comparing ourselves to others.

Now, that's where I think the changes really need to happen.

- [Jason] When I come back to it,

I then get super intentional about how I use it.

So, then I go, okay, I check Instagram twice a day.

Cause man, I would love to scroll through Instagram

all day long, cause it's great!

It's a curated feed of beautiful things.

It's really awesome.

It's really interesting.

But I don't want it to control my life.

I want the time that that's taking up

to be creating things of my own,

to be exploring, experimenting other things.

And so, you really do just become intentional.

You take that break and then you'd come back and you go,

I don't want that stuff anymore to happen in my life.

I don't wanna feel like I'm not in control

of my usage of these things.

And so, that's why these social media detoxes, man,

they're just been so helpful for me.

- Now, here's the part where I throw it back to you.

What if you quit social media for 30 days.

Don't worry the world's gonna keep turning

and we'll be here when you get back.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.