How to get rid of social media addiction? Break the dopamine hook like this

A brain that is used to fast dopamine spikes doesn't get pleasure from slow things.

The pleasure comes from fast "brain candy", such as notifications, entertaining, fast-paced content and constant interruptions of concentration on purpose and by accident.

This naturally impairs concentration tremendously, and I've heard the term "self-induced ADD" mentioned in various sources.

Now I won't speculate on this scientifically, but I think it's clear that constantly poking the concentration with a stick weakens it.

The good news is that this lost focus and concentration and dopamine addiction caused by social media can be broken - quite quickly.

It does require self-discipline, but for a shorter time than you might imagine.

We live funny times. Everything is better than before.

And before you disagree, hear me out.

World is more equal, safer and peaceful than ever before. Life expectancy is longer than before and globalization and internet bring loads of opportunities regardless who you are and from where.

I know it’s all not that straightforward and black and white, but let’s just keep it at this to get to the point of the article.

Anxiety, depression, adhd and other mental imbalances seem to be at their peak, regardless of the “better world” we live in.

I find it interesting. We just have too many opportunities and too much comparison, too much short-term dopamine, too much screen time.

If you are reading this article, I believe you might have either read books like Dopamine nation, High on Life by David JP Phillips, or at least watched the Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix.

So we all know the negatives of daily browsing, or at least if we don’t rationally know, emotionally we feel it.

Yet why do we ignore it? Why do we keep on voluntarily harming our mental health day after day.

Why are we so addicted?

That question can be easily answered for example by the books I referred above.

But if you decide to break free from all of this, what’s left?

Why would you actually dedicate on leaving social media?

The reason why I focus on this first: If you don’t have WHY, it will be hard af.

This year I’ve had to confront some big personal life events that have forced me to question everything, including how do I want to spend my days.

Do I actually want to browse those funny tiktoks, read the dooms day news and do I actually need to see “how friends are doing” on Instagram (in quotation marks as you actually won’t know how your friends are actually doing by checking their stories on IG).

So due to my questioning of it all I distanced myself from social media for a while. But if everyone else is there and constantly browsing, it’s also kind of alienating not to browse, right?

You have no idea what they’re talking about and you’re in touch with even less people. (which in my case means quite antisocial life :D).

So I got back using Instagram and sometimes even browsing tiktok for fun.

Just to come to this same conclusion that I want the f*ck away from there again.

I used to love writing. I wrote almost every day as a form of free therapy.

Getting my thoughts organised with black letters on white Word document is just so cleansing.

And if I had continued social media as I used to, I would have never gotten back to writing, and writing this very article.

So simply put, you will get back you natural tendencies, towards the things you actually like doing.

And you’ll have more time to spend your life the way you actually want to spend it.

Here are some commonly known negatives of excessive social media usage.

Would you say you’ve actually been social when you’ve been browsing social media?

Yup, didn’t think so. Yet constant browsing can replace real-life interactions, leading to feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Browsing through a feed of acquaintances, friends and random people surely makes you feel boring and like nothing happens in your life.

But don’t worry, everyone else is feeling the same from this same reason.

It’s not just you, it is common to feel that way after seeing dozens of updates and consciously or at least subconsciously comparing yourself daily to others.

Now that I hopefully got you hooked into learning to stop or limit your social media time, let’s get to the beef – how to quit social media.

Simply - by closing social media and turning off notifications.

This is where I recommend setting clear boundaries, because unclear boundaries work here just like in any other addiction – the boundaries slip even wider and soon disappear.

It is often easier to change routines in places where they change anyway. The perfect place for this is, for example, is a yoga retreat, where others are more present and less at the screens.

The environment, people and energy make the change easier and it is easier to continue after the experience.

Check these digital detox retreats:

At first, reducing screen time feels like you're just sitting on the edge of the bed wondering what the hell to do with all this time.

When you're bored, it's hard to resist the temptation to pick up the phone, and the brain still longs for easy and pleasant stimuli, so it's good to be ready and think about replacement activities beforehand.

They can be activities like reading, cleaning boxes, walking, painting, writing or any other activity that resonates with you and is easy to implement in everyday life.

We humans are simple mammals, and the screen time and checking the mobile phone is drastically reduced simply by not having the phone always in the field of vision or within arm's reach.

Put the phone, for example, in a dresser drawer or store it, for example, at the entrance of your house. Not so long ago landline phones (and even cell phones) were kept like that when not in use.

You don't have to be available all the time. But at the same time, I don't want to claim that in 2024, especially if your job involves being available in any way, you could put your phone on airplane mode for a week.

I recommend that you set aside a certain moment of the day when you go through notifications and messages with intention and respond to them right away. Many times during aimless browsing you will read many messages, but it is not a good time to reply to them.

That's how answering a message comes back to mind when it's time to fall asleep.

Don't look at notifications when you can't respond to them.

Yes, when reducing screen time, you inevitably miss out on something.

You can no longer scroll through all the posts that come to the feed, the funny animal videos recommended by the algorithm, and not even those brilliant tiktoks that everyone should know and which are simply awesome content.

Think of it this way: does it really matter?

Do you really claim that browsing gives you ideas and inspiration - just think about what kind of intrinsic inspiration can arise in you when you don't throw everyone else's ideas on the main projector of your brain.

In order for this to be a longer habit after 1-2 weeks of fun, calming experiment, and not to slip back into the old routines little by little, you should realize what kind of distraction you cause yourself by constantly browsing.

Other disadvantages caused by constant browsing can be, for example, dissatisfaction with one's life, feelings of envy, inadequacy, the feeling of not having enough time, passiveness, forgetfulness and the inability to perform everyday tasks, such as studying for an exam, writing an essay, a work project or planning a meaningful trip.

Experiences of disappointment can be more common in the social media age than before.

I haven't done any scientific research on the subject, so I'm only speaking for myself in this article, and maybe you'll find something to relate to.

Excessive expectations, from yourself and others, such as how certain experience should feel, is partly due to, for example, social media, which addicts the brain to a dopamine hook.

Some people create so many ideal images in their heads that it would be strange if there were no expectations associated with certain things when they happen in reality.

Vacation pictures only show Bali's tropical beauty, coconut water and beaches, while garbage in the sea, food poisoning, poverty and jetlag are not visible.

Social media image of ​​a vacation is just an ideal image, and does not correspond to reality in any way – as in reality even an ideal vacation can include jet lag, fatigue of traveling, and cultural differences.

It may sound strange, but social media gives such an ideal image of many things that it is so easy to be disappointed in reality, because in reality there are always shades that have been nicely cropped out of social media.

So it's not a failed vacation if you also have to experience unpleasant things because of it – getting out of comfort zone is actually a great part of traveling.

Nowadays, I sometimes even feel disappointed by having a flu, because I optimize so much for my health that it feels unfair to catch a cold.

I know I will recover from the flu, but I would like everything to happen quickly. We want health right away, even though the body heals itself at exactly the right pace.

Things in life improve at a much slower rate and with much smaller dopamine rushes than what the social media addicted brain expects.

A brain used to these quick dopamine spikes doesn't get pleasure from slow things, but from fast "brain candy", such as notifications, entertaining, fast-paced content, and constant interruptions of concentration on purpose and by accident.

How about you give it 4 weeks, and just see what happens?

You can also take this 4 week course to detox from social media with 33€, or another good idea to consider is a digital detox retreat, I can recommend this one.

Browse more digital detox retreats