Social Media Detox: A Tale of Two Addictions
Updated: 3 hours ago
One of the darkest skeletons in my closet is that I used to smoke cigarettes.
Gasp! I know. I hardly believe I am willing to admit this shame in the public square. Even typing the words makes me feel dirty and tar-stained.
The night I smoked my first cigarette I was 17 and my friend and I stole a few smokes out of my mom’s pack. We snuck out to the side yard of my house and lit up under the cover of darkness. I watched both my parents smoke my whole life and probably wanted to peer behind the curtain to see what all the fuss was about because there was fuss, believe me–my parents’ lives revolved around access to cigarettes and smoke-friendly spaces. I gagged on that first drag, felt dizzy, laid in the grass, and vowed to never smoke another cigarette again.
Well, I did smoke again, and ended up smoking until I quit when I was 35.
My smoking habit was a train that left the station, probably in utero (my mom smoked when she was pregnant with me…it was the 70s!) and was powered by the inconveneint truth that I met most of my college friends at the smoking benches outside my dorm, and most of my boyfriends (and my husband!) by asking for a light at a bar. My smoking was social at first, light and fun, and periodic. But somewhere along the years nicotine got its hooks into my brain, and I grew into an addicted smoker.
I tried to quit a few times. I would make it a day or two and then fall to that old conceit that I could have “just one.”
I finally quit for good in December 2014, a few days after my dad suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side. I woke up and said, that’s it, I’m done, and I quit cold turkey. Seeing my dad so sick scared me, and I was angry at him, myself, and cigarettes.
So I understand addiction and the bargaining that happens when you know you need to make a change, but you are controlled biologically and emotionally by a drug that is not natural to the human body and psyche. But for many folks, addiction means a Twelve Step program or a dramatic disease, and they are hesitant to use the label on themselves.
Working with teenagers, I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say, kids today are addicted to social media. I mean, they are not wrong. Humans, and children in particular, are susceptible to becoming hooked on the dopamine hits we enjoy from the positive rewards of “likes” and hearts. Social media is addictive, on purpose.
Adults who parent or work with children often use the term addiction as a catch-all to describe a phenomenon we observe, primarily that young people’s phones are always in their hands. I once saw a photo of a bunch of people crossing a New York City street while looking down into their phones, and it was titled “Zombie Apocalypse.” The image was rattling; I think the author went on to say, this is what being controlled by aliens could look like. It reminded me why we have a “no-phones in the hallway” rule at my school–if we don’t, then students looking down at their phones run a physical risk by bumping into each other in the hallways.
But I have found myself growing increasingly annoyed at adults, myself included, as we struggle to understand technology use in kids. Studies that make headlines frequently talk about the mental health crisis in young people and that social media is a major culprit, which can be true. Yet a piece seems to be missing, and I have only to look in the mirror at my own deteriorating sense of attention to realize that, maybe, that piece is me.
One of the best pieces of teaching advice I have ever received was to do the work I am assigning my students. This advice has become a kind of mantra for me over the years and was the inspiration for why I wanted to start writing in a blog space, and also why I am always taking classes myself–I want to remember what it is like to be a student writer. Students love to see you struggle with the writing process alongside them, probably because it makes you a human and them less self-critical, both good things.
So in August, I decided to log off all social media indefinitely as professional research, but also as a personal attempt to clear my brain fog and limit my exposure to visual stimulation, noise, and other people’s lives. I wanted to see what would happen if I did what I am asking my students to do: confront my addiction to my phone. Maybe by doing the hardest thing, I could expand my understanding of our relationship with social media and therefore think more deeply about how we, as humans, but also as educators, can create healthier, but also workable, limits to our technology use.
I present to you a few findings.
Finding #1: Withdrawal
When I quit smoking, I anticipated a lot of habits to linger, like grabbing my purse to look for a light, or even twiddling my thumbs to do something with my hands. But I mostly just felt physically poor for about two weeks and then moved on. I counted myself lucky.
However, when I went cold turkey on Instagram, I kept track of my phone pickups as data and noted that I replaced one addiction with another–my thumb needed to move up and down on the screen, so I began to “scroll” through my photo app instead. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until about a week into my withdrawal, and once I connected the dots, I was disgusted. I had replaced the physical need to scroll and also be visually stimulated with another app, proving that my body and brain were seeking a fix.
Finding #2: FOMO and the loss of “community”
While in physical withdrawal from social media, I began to fill my extra time with more than usual doses of non-social, independent activities, like walking my dog, reading, watching a show, or hanging out with my husband. Sounds nice and healthy, right? It was, but I was used to the illusion of community on Instagram and so I began to feel an unusual loneliness.
When I smoked, I found community among fellow smokers. I remember many nights in my late 20s when I lived in Washington, DC, braving the freezing temps outside a bar to smoke a cigarette with my friends, and the bonding that ensued over something so small, and so ridiculous, like being the only idiots on the empty sidewalk at 1am. But it was fun. And we laughed and braved the winter together.
Are my social media friends just a new group of beloved fellow idiots on the sidewalk at 1am? Probably so. (See Finding #4). But the space of time in which I would typically scroll through my friends’ photos online felt empty and like loneliness, maybe because I knew people were posting updates and sending each other memes, and I was missing out.
I have a few friends and family members that I talk to regularly on the phone, which is a subversive act in a time of texting and DMs. These calls are sacred to me because they require effort but also because there is simply no replacement for hearing someone’s voice on the line when you miss them and they live in another state. I would not have the time to call every person I am friends with on social media, despite wanting to connect with them, so I felt my sense of community shrink. Because I know the feeling of connection I make with my regular phone dates, I do wonder if this sense of an online community was all in my head; why do I need so much stimulation? Doesn’t too much communication water it down and inevitably make the connection surface level? Living offline, what relationships am I really missing out on?
Finding #3: Where do I shop? Saying yes, over and over, to targeted advertising
I have been to the mall maybe three times since 2020. Shopping for clothes online was a great pandemic distraction, and I have never looked back. Like so many of us, the dressing room was never a happy place for me, and I had many meltdowns looking in the mirror. By shopping online, I can try on a dress in the less judgmental comfort of my own home and not feel so physically drained by finding a parking spot in an overcrowded garage.
Today, if I had to ballpark guess, I would say that 80% of the clothing and lifestyle brands I currently purchase I discovered through Instagram advertising. My sense of adventure by exploring brick and mortar stores around town just simply cannot compete with an algorithm designed to pitch looks and aesthetics designed just for me. When I see a candle that smells like the “Bronte moors” or the “library at Pemberley” appear out of nowhere (!!) on my feed, it seems the algorithm knows me better than I know myself.
So when I went offline, one of my nagging thoughts was, where do I shop now? Do I just keep returning to the same five brands I know from the past year(s)? How is this going to limit my style and creative expression? Will I actually have to go back to reading fashion magazines? How will I know what edgy haircut to request in 2025?
We all like to think we are unique and have a sense of style like no other, but what I learned during my social media fast is how much we all absorb from the zeitgeist, and how reluctant I am to put in the shoe leather required to cultivate my own style. Imagining myself getting in the car and bopping around a strip mall is simply not as appealing as ordering a fisherman’s sweater from Ireland.
For me, this is not great news, and I am now grappling in a more personal way with the effect my online shopping has on small businesses. I do not want to ever buy all I own on Amazon and I love to support my community; I like to believe I am voting with my dollar. Now I am rethinking my consumption patterns and questioning my American habit of buying just because I can and what I want is just a click away.
Finding #4: We are all in this together
So how long did I stay offline? About three months.
And it’s December now, and I am back on Instagram. I know, I know.
Once I broke my fast, I checked Instagram once a day, and was fine with that. In fact, for a few weeks I didn’t even try to log in because I loved how I felt off it. I felt present and more focused, and also less worried, which makes me want to do more thinking and researching about how my own anxiety is tied to social media. Like when I quit smoking, I felt I could breathe better.
Over the past few weeks, I am now back to checking it multiple times a day and have fallen off the wagon.
How did Instagram reel me back in? And now what? What does the rock bottom of social media addiction look like? I am wondering if it looks like a lack of focus, a shortened attention span, and a sense of general dissatisfaction that leaves me susceptible to easy fixes like buying clothes or hitting up a friend with a meme, when I would rather meet them at the park for a walk.
And if I feel this way, what is happening in the not yet fully developed brains of our young people?
Next steps
I teach Jane Eyre with my sophomore students and Jane’s short and simple line that opens Chapter 2, “I resisted all the way,” is by now a personal mantra. For now my goal is to resist. I am not 100% sure what I am resisting, but I need to say no more often, and for now, maybe that looks like saying no to myself when I want to pick up my phone and mindlessly scroll Instagram. I am trying to do some little things every day that can help me embody the state of mind I wish for for my students. For example, I am handwriting in my journal as much as I can and have picked up a strong doodling habit.
I have far more questions than answers as usual, but I know two things for certain: I am addicted to my phone and social media. And, we are all in this together. My next step is to apply these two insights to my teaching practice.
In early October I wrote about my teaching goal this year and included a list of research I hope to do:
A social media fast and the impact on my time and attention
Replacing time online with time working with my hands
Self-advocacy and saying no when it is quite hard to say no
Writing as prayer and the impact on my teaching of writing and reading
Navigating OCD as an educator
Re-examining what makes a classroom community in 2025
As I reflect on my social media fast, I am asking how my self-awareness of my own social media addiction can be part of my advisory conversations, my curriculum planning, and how I present myself on campus and in my classroom. Also, what can I daydream and imagine during the time I would have been online?
Maybe destigmatizing and owning our own addiction can open more candid conversations with young people and model for them how to treat addiction: in community, and with a lot of honest, loving conversations. I am hoping an awareness of my own adult addiction can help me reimagine how we support our young people who are inevitably following our lead and learning from us. Stay tuned!
Kate Schenck is currently reading The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter and asking for a new cell phone case for Christmas.