[yepguy]

I would encourage people to consider permanent solutions to use social media more intentionally instead of taking a month off here and there. Two things that the apps really want you to do, but that you should resist as much as possible, are doomscrolling through meaningless content and compulsively checking apps or websites in case you miss out on interesting updates.

For myself, I've decided to direct anything and everything possible to my email (with plenty of filters to keep my main inbox tidy). For apps that don't offer email notifications, I use MacroDroid to forward Android push notifications to email. There are also plenty of ways to forward RSS to email.

I batch process my email 1-3x/day, and anything I don't want to see during this time is not worth seeing at all. It gets ignored, filtered out, or unsubscribed from.

[MisterTea]

I have been off social media completely since 2016. Only have a Facebook left for family and the occasional marketplace browse. When I do check it I only log in via browser and spend maybe 5-10 minutes on the site. I posted a few times that people should contact me via email if they want to chat though so far no one has taken up my offer.

[yepguy]

If it works for you, great! I've tried that before and it didn't work for me. I like the stuff I find on Hacker News, and I need Instagram to keep up with my friends, so this was the solution I came up with mostly to keep myself from compulsively checking both of those in an unhealthy way.

[port11]

30 days is long enough to form a habit, so it might be a good way to see how you can live without social media. My life is unquestionably better without Meta/Twitter/etc., but I have a hard time convincing anyone that that is the case.

[coffeefirst]

Yeah. I will say, the best place to start is just deactivate one for 30 days and see whether you miss it.

It turns out I didn't actually like any of these apps. If I did, they wouldn't need to play all these dumb games to keep me engaged.

[yepguy]

Nothing wrong with that. One thing I like about my approach though is that I can get what little value there is out of platforms that rarely ever serve up anything useful to me.

Facebook, for example, hardly ever gives me any value, but sometimes it does. If I used Facebook like most people, I would have to check it regularly for that one time I get something valuable from it. The downsides would far outweigh the upside, so it would make sense to delete it. But instead I can go months without ever opening Facebook, and then get notified when there's a post I actually care about, and give it my attention on my own schedule.