I’ve had an off-and-on relationship with social media over the years. I’ve had to take breaks from platforms when it felt like my relationship with them had become unhealthy, which helped reset my brain habits and my perspective on how I want to engage with that platform.
During the pandemic, I started spending way too much time on reddit. Whether it was memes, pop culture updates, or debates in AITA, there was always new content for my brain to latch onto when I wanted to avoid the bleakness of the present moment.
As much as I enjoy reddit, I recently came to the realization that it was time for a break.
What, what’s reddit?
If you haven’t heard of it before, reddit is a set of interconnected internet forums where you can share and discuss a variety of topics. Reddit self-describes as a “network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies and passions.”
A subreddit is a dedicated page/forum for a particular topic. If you have a reddit account, you can customize your reddit homepage by “following” or subscribing to subreddits for topics that interest you.
For example, here are a few subreddits I subscribe to, along with things are usually posted there:
- r/popheads and r/kpop for posts about new music, interviews with artists, and discussions about the pop music industry as a whole
- r/sanfrancisco and r/bayarea for discussions about local news, events, restaurants, and more
- r/hobbydrama for interesting longform write-ups about conflicts brewing in various hobby communities (this legendary post is a great example of what’s often posted)
There are many, many more to choose from. The most popular subreddits are highly active, with hundreds of new posts each day, while smaller, niche reddits might only see one new post every few days or weeks.
It’s dangerously easy to get sucked in and start spending too much of your time participating (or lurking) on the site, constantly refreshing for new content. Which is why I had to be intentional about stepping away.
Day 0: The game plan
Though I’d been contemplating the idea of taking a break from reddit for a while, I hadn’t come up with a plan. In late October a friend mentioned a “no ___ November” challenge they were doing, which sparked me to consider abstaining from reddit as my challenge.
The plan was simple: For the entire month of November, I would not go to reddit at all. No eventonce. No excuses. Starting at 12am on Oct. 31st and lasting until 11:59pm on Nov. 30th.
Leading up to my start date, I took the following steps to curb any possible temptation:
- Installed a browser blocker extension which redirected reddit.com to youtube.com
- Uninstalled the reddit app from my phone
- Installed a browser extension to track my time on various websites (I was curious what my surfing would look like before vs. after this experiment)
On 11:59pm on Halloween night, I closed reddit one more time, and the clock began.
Day 7: Clarity and renewed productivity
The first week was the hardest. It’s also when I was the most productive during my new “free time” aka time that I most likely would have spent on reddit.
I found myself missing and craving the temporary amusement of reddit multiple times a day. I woke up wanting to check it to see the news. When I was sad or upset, I wanted memes to laugh at. At night, I wanted to scroll while lying in bed.
It was embarrassingly difficult for me that first week; it shocked me how hardwired my habits had become. However, it gave me even more resolve to complete this challenge.
I attempted to fill my time with more productive habits. I did a deep review of my French lessons in Duolingo. I cleaned and reorganized parts of my apartment, and my Notion boards. I went for more walks. I got into deep DM conversations with friends.
However, it wasn’t all society’s definition of “productive”. I also looked at Instagram reels, my Facebook feed, and watched YouTube videos. I played all the games in the NYT Games App and got back into Pokemon Go. I got back into playing Tears of the Kingdom. (The last two still felt like a higher quality use of my brain, at least.)
The best part of that first week is that my creative spark came back. I journaled every day, which let me access my inner voice. I worked on drafts of blog posts like these. Since I’m trying to get back into making music, I listened to music deeply. I listened to whole albums, thought about their structure, watched analysis videos and read interviews with artists. It felt really, really good, and I was so happy with that.
Here are web stats from day 7. Note that this browser doesn’t include work time; I use a different browser for work. (Also, yes, I still use Livejournal for personal journaling, like the true millennial I am.)
This “honeymoon” period of being productive didn’t last all that long, though.
Day 14: Finding new ways to waste time
By week 2, I started taking notes on times when I craved reddit, and thought about what a suitable replacement use of that time could be. At the same time, I found my desire to look at reddit happened less and less, as my brain adapted to my replacement activities.
However, I found that I wasn’t able to keep up the momentum of “productive” brain habits. My brain craved simple, non-challenging moments of pleasure – I found myself spending more and more time on Instagram reels, a new habit that I now need to carefully manage. I opened Facebook too much, then exited when I didn’t find anything interesting.
Still wanting community discussions, I found several equivalent forums for some of the subreddits I used to browse, such as a kpop forum for all of the chatter I’d previously gotten from r/kpop. Though they weren’t nearly as active as the subreddit, scrolling through it partially filled my void for sassy, passionate commentary on the latest in kpop.
Soon enough, I found myself opening forums like these, Instagram reels, and YouTube multiple times a day. Thus, new bad habits started to form.
On the flip side, I also got more involved with Discord and Slack communities. On reddit, I’m a mostly-silent lurker, reading and voting, but never really talking. In Slack and Discord, I joined in on the conversations; rejoicing at new music releases, giving advice, and commiserating about difficult situations I could relate to.
I ended up posting in one Slack channel about my “no reddit November” and requested advice on how to curb a social media addiction. I received a lot of supportive and insightful replies, including this wonderfully insightful comment by Suzanne F about the importance of quality consumption.
I’d already been thinking about the quality of my “replacement activities” so this comment sparked some new ideas for how I could make better use of my time. The same user also shared some thoughts about “dead time” that influenced the way that I proceeded with the second half of this month.
Reading this, I realized I’d been unnecessarily stigmatizing my “dead time” to an extent that was taking away chances for my brain to rest. Whenever I was too tired to do a “productive” brain activity, such as language lessons, but not quite tired enough to do to bed, I became frustrated with myself.
I believed that I had to fill all of my waking time with productive activities, or else I was a failure. This comment was a turning point for me to change not only my habits, but my attitudes about my habits.
Here are my web stats from day 15. Kprofiles, allkpop, and omonatheydidnt is where I started to go for discussions about the upcoming releases of my favorite groups.
Day 21: My “new normal” without reddit
By week 3, I’d (mostly) forgotten the appeal of reddit. The small voids it had left in my schedule and my habits were filled with other things. I woke up every day and opened Slack, Discord, Instagram, and YouTube to check for the latest updates and hobbies in my communities. I also checked those during those small slices of time between meetings, and was better about opening my DM apps to continue ongoing conversations .
I also began using my “dead time” in a way that felt restorative rather than depleting. Instead of reading endless internet arguments between usernames like PM_ME_POTATOES and JediRage529, I watched deep dive YouTube videos on interesting topics, participated in meaningful Slack and Discord convos, and played video games.
At this point, I found my brain had started rewiring itself to crave these new habits instead. I would start thinking about video games at the tail end of my workday, knowing I was likely going to play one after work. When I opened my phone, the first few apps I was drawn to out of habit were the NYT Games App, Pokemon Go, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
I also discovered some new apps that suited my routine and hobbies. Since I live close to SFO, I took pleasure in using Flightradar24 to look up the planes that fly over my apartment each day. I downloaded AllTrails to support my 2024 goal to do more hiking. I explored samples on BeatStars for inspiration for my own music.
It turns out when I’m not letting the same few apps take up 90% of my attention, I get to discover a whole world of other interesting, inspiring apps.
My home screen as of mid-December, which is remarkably different from November (littered with unused apps + reddit).
Best of all, I found myself habitually opening my journal app first thing in the morning, wrote little micro-entries throughout the day to process my thoughts and emotions, and saved the entry at night. This is my very favorite habit that I formed out of this whole experiment; it’s got me in better touch with my inner self than anything else has so far.
Here are my web stats from day 21. I was on LinkedIn a lot that day spiffing up my LinkedIn profile amid layoff rumors at my company.
Day 30: Finished!
By the final week of my experiment, I had fully settled into a new routine, with minimal cravings to go back on reddit. At times, I forgot I was even doing a “no reddit November” challenge, except when I remembered something that I wanted to look up.
When the clock struck midnight on Nov. 30, I celebrated my success – I’d stayed off reddit for 30 full days! Huzzah! 🥳
Then, I asked myself… what now? Though I initially contemplated extending the challenge for longer, curiosity got the best of me, so I opened the app. It was incredibly anti-climactic. I didn’t feel a rush of “oh my god, I missed this so much”. Eventually I went “okay, that’s that”, played more Tears of the Kingdom, then went to bed.
Here are my web stats from day 30, during which I spent time drafting this blog post in Google docs 🙂
The next day, I went to my favorite subreddits and sorted by “top month” to see what I had missed. I’d expected to spend hours reading every post and comment, and that there would be a ton of compelling updates. It turns out that was not the case; I would say 80% of what I saw in the “top month” filter didn’t interest me at all. Though there were some discussions that were interesting, after reading the top 5 or so threads, I found myself closing the app out of boredom.
The habitual connection to reddit was TRULY broken! Huzzah once more! 🎉
One interesting insight from all this: apparently, reddit had a major redesign while I was away. When I first opened it, I thought there’d been an error during installation, because the app was unrecognizable to me. Studies have shown how interfaces and design elements embed themselves into peoples’ brains, and I suspect the redesign is part of why reddit no longer held that same appeal for me. It just wasn’t the same app I’d left behind.
December onward: returning to reddit (mindfully)
As of of this writing, it’s been two months since my experiment ended. Though I’m back to enjoying the humor, updates, discussions, and debates on reddit, I’ve found myself naturally spending less time than I used to on there, and more time in Discord, Slack, and on various other activities.
That said, returning to reddit has driven my overall “time wasting” time up. For comparison to my past behavior, here are my web stats from Dec. 15, only two weeks after my experiment ended.
As I navigate reddit, I’m always asking myself if there’s a better way to get the content I’m seeing here. In some cases, I noticed the majority of posts were from one specific blog, Instagram account, or YouTube channel, so I just subscribed to that instead. If it’s something visual, like bullet journal layouts, I subscribe to hashtags for the topic on Instagram so it gets surfaced in my feed.
Many subreddits have an equivalent Discord server, so I’ve been joining those when I see they are available. Discord has the benefit of focused channels, which I can selectively mute if they become too noisy or aren’t interesting to me.
For example, I joined a server for folks doing DIY manicures. I’m most interested in getting my newbie questions answered and seeing nail inspiration, though I’m not interested in gel or acrylic (channels I’ve muted). This makes me less inclined to visit, or have a need to subscribe to, r/Lacqueristas.
This is the sidebar of the lacqueristas server. The muted channel names are a darker grey, whereas channels with new posts since the last time I looked are white.
As I’ve navigated Discord and Slack conversations vs. reddit ones, I’ve noticed how drastically different they tend to be in tone and outcome. My belief is that this is a byproduct of the authenticity required to maintain accounts on these apps, which I’ve elaborated on below.
A note on authenticity online
Taking a break from reddit prompted me to reflect on all of the apps I’ve used to present myself and communicate online – spanning across the eras of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and more. On some apps, I use my real name and photo (ex. Instagram) whereas on others, I take steps to avoid being identifiable as who I am in real life (ex. I have multiple reddit accounts) so I can express myself freely without fear of being judged by people who know me in real life.
Here are my social profiles on LinkedIn (top-left), Discord (top-right), Instagram (bottom-left), and Facebook (bottom-right). I use different photos and bios based on what I tend to use that profile for.
As anyone whose used reddit knows, there’s a low barrier of entry for a reddit account – all you need is an email and a password. This benefits certain types of discussions, such as when someone wants to blow the whistle (ex. sharing bad behavior at a company in a safe, anonymous way) or to be more vulnerable than you would if your real identity was attached (ex. a closeted LGBTQ+ person seeking support for coming out).
However, as anyone whose spent time on reddit knows, it also allows people to be as snarky and cruel as they want without repercussions. This is, unfortunately, why some subreddits (ones I avoid) have become cesspools for racism, bigotry, ableism, and worse.
As I started to engage more with Discord and Slack, I realized that the higher level of authentication required to be a member of those communities – most require a phone number for 2-factor authentication, which most people only have one of – made users more invested in maintaining good standing in the community. If you know you’ll only ever get one account, meaning if you violate the community guidelines, you’re banned forever, you’re more likely to participate in good faith.
I use 2-factor authentication to sign into all these Slack spaces, meaning it would be very difficult for me to rejoin if I were to be blocked from them.
These requirements don’t necessarily contradict anonymity – since your email and phone # aren’t visible to anyone (except maybe the mods) you can just use a fake name and photo to avoid being easily recognized. On Discord, you can also use different names in different servers, which has the same feeling as having different reddit accounts.
That said, I’ve noticed a higher quality of, and more nuanced, conversations happening in Discord and Slack spaces than I usually see on reddit. I also noticed the positive effect it has on me to absorb (and engage in) these discussions versus reddit ones.
Wrapping up
There are already numerous thought pieces out there on the impact of social media, so I’m not going to get into that. I think it’s fair to say that most peoples’ relationships with social media are complicated and ever-evolving, and we all have different needs, boundaries, and approaches to using our platforms of choice.
Going off of reddit for 30 days benefited me in numerous ways, including:
- Allowed me time to evaluate and reset my boundaries with social media overall.
- Prompted me to rethink the quality of content I allow into my brain.
- Sparked important inner reflection on how I engage with online communities.
- Gave me new insight into how ways to use “dead time” that are restorative rather than draining.
- Motivated me to do less scrolling and more posting/replying across all platforms.
Moving forward, I’m be continuing to use the web tracker and browser blocker to stay mindful of how I spend my time online (I recently paid to upgrade to apremium version to get additional stats).
If you’ve actually read down to this part of this very long post (I edited it so much, but I still had a lot to say) I appreciate you very much. I’d love to hear about your own journey with social media consumption and the impact it has had on you.