3 Teens & 1 Editor Quit Social Media for a Week — And All of Us Would Do It Again

We spend so much time on our phones, sometimes it’s hard to remember what life was like before them. I’m 31, so I can actually remember what it was like to open my Facebook account in high school, and to download Instagram and Snapchat in college — well after most of my peers, because I’ve always been a little wary of social media. And while I use social media less, on average, than most people my age, I’m still basically chained to my notifications. I fall victim to mindless surfing and doomscrolling as much as anyone else. On a bad week, I’ll spend around six hours a day on my phone, the vast majority of that on social media.

Of course, for our teens, tweens, and younger kids, there was no life before smartphones and social media. Facebook turns 24 in February; the first iPhone came out in 2007; Instagram dropped in 2010 and Snapchat followed suit in 2011. The world our kids have grown up in is saturated by social media, and a big slice of their social lives takes place online. The research reflects that, with a 2022 Pew Research Center survey finding that 35 percent of teens use social media “almost constantly.”

Research has also shown us that spending so much time on social media isn’t good for any of us, teens especially — and they’re well aware of that. On the other hand, reducing social media can work wonders. Late last year, a study in JAMA Network Open found that quitting social media for a week had the power to “significantly” reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and insomnia in young adults.

That gave us an idea. In the spirit of New Year self-improvement, we asked three of our brave Teen Council members to try a social media detox. We asked them to stay off of TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for one full week — and, just for fun, I decided to join in. Here’s what we learned from our week away from (some of) the apps.

Why Are We Detoxing?

We asked our teens to run their social media detox from Sunday, January 4 to Sunday, January 11 — the first week of the year, in true New Year’s resolution spirit. For Alyssa, 21, this coincided with her first week back at college after winter break. That threw an extra challenge into the mix (as we’ll talk about below), but it was also a reason why Alyssa wanted to detox in the first place: to “set myself up for success this semester of school by creating more sustainable relationships that weren’t based on social media,” she told SheKnows. She also wanted to prove to herself that she “wasn’t addicted” to social media, and this was one way to do it.

Meera, 17, was drawn to the detox because she wanted to “better understand how social media affects my focus and mood.” Clive, 16, also wanted to explore his relationship with social media. “I have, for a long time, hated my tendency to constantly check my phone for texts/notifications,” he explained. “This reflex has been ingrained in my head over the years of having a phone with social media on it. So I thought it might be fun to try to unlearn this habit.”

1-Week Social Media Detox: Screen Time Results, Challenges & Wins

At the end of a week with no social media, our teens unanimously agreed that the social media detox was a positive experience — though it wasn’t without its difficulties.

For Meera and Clive, the hardest part was simply fighting the urge to open their apps. “The most challenging part was breaking the habit of automatically checking apps when I was bored,” Meera said.

“I kept catching myself doing this routine action whenever I had a second free or started to become uninterested in whatever else I was doing,” Clive added. “Throughout the week, I would randomly start scrolling on Reels and realize five minutes in that I was supposed to be doing a detox and frantically throw my phone down. This happened many times.” I shared this experience, and it was one of the more jarring discoveries of the detox — realizing just how thoughtlessly I turn to these apps when I have a moment’s pause.

Alyssa was starting school again this week, and said not being on social media presented a challenge when meeting new people. “I returned to my college campus from winter break as the detox was starting, so it was hard not to ask for people’s social media handles when I met classmates for the first time.” I had a similar experience at a concert during the detox week, and had to briefly go on Instagram to exchange handles with someone I’d met — after explaining that I was off social media for the week, so wouldn’t be able to return any messages until then.

But this also came with a bright side. Instead of exchanging socials, Alyssa said, “I got to get their numbers and have deeper conversations with them!” For my part, I may not have even struck up a conversation at this concert if I’d been scrolling on my phone between bands.

While my screen time decreased by an average of two hours a day, our teens had a different experience. Alyssa’s screen time actually increased over the course of the week — but she was spending it differently. “I spent more time messaging people one-on-one through iMessage instead of scrolling on social media, so even though I was on my phone more, the conversations I was having were more intimate,” she said.

Clive had a similar experience. “I honestly didn’t see a dramatic change in my overall screen time,” he explained. “Instead of going on TikTok or Instagram, I would watch TV on something like Netflix when I had downtime. So while my screentime only went down slightly, the way I used and saw my phone for the week changed significantly.”

As for the positive outcomes for this detox, both Alyssa and Meera noticed that without social media, they spent less time comparing themselves to others. “I was less focused on comparison and more present in my daily routine,” Meera explained. For Alyssa, it was about not being able to access the “highlight reel” of social media. “Since I wasn’t seeing everyone’s highlight reel, I was able to feel better about myself on bad days,” she said, “instead of wondering why my life couldn’t be as good as those of the people I follow. “

Clive also experienced a “decrease in stress around texting people,” especially when it came to checking notifications. “I’ll text someone on Snapchat, and it’s like we’re playing chess,” he said — they leave him on Delivered for a few hours, so he does the same thing. “This has become such a habit for all people my age that texting someone has become such a stressful task of potential rejection at every message,” he explained, noting that he’d get “pulled back in” when he finally would get a text back. “It trains us to be so reliant on the good feeling you get from someone texting you back or liking your post, that we constantly feel the need to check our phones for that hit of dopamine.” Stepping away from that cycle for a while brought some relief.

Meera said that overall, she felt “calmer and less overwhelmed,” and had fewer distractions and more uninterrupted time during the day. Alyssa’s favorite part of the challenge, meanwhile, was that “it forced me to be more intentional with my time.” Instead of doomscrolling before bed, for example, she would read and chat with her roommates. The shift “helped me be more present and feel more fulfilled at the end of the day,” she said.

Teens’ Takeaways on the Social Media Detox

We all left the detox with our own conclusions, many of them to do with intentionality. For me, it was surprise at the amount of time I usually spend on social media, and how mindlessly I’ll click into Instagram or TikTok when I have a spare moment. In the absence of those options, I found myself spending my phone time doing slightly more productive things, like sorting through email, or more enjoyable things, like reading longer-form articles on topics I actually enjoy (rather than random posts an algorithm serves to me).

Alyssa had a similar experience. She realized that the time she usually spends keeping up with people on social media can be better spent diving into activities that bring her joy, and “being fully present with those I care about.”

Meera gained awareness “of how often I use social media out of habit rather than intention” and found that forcing herself off of it “encouraged me to be more mindful about how I spend my time online,” while Clive realized that “I have to start thinking of my phone as more of a tool. I shouldn’t open it without intent to complete a task, because that’s when I start mindlessly scrolling or check random notifications.”

Would We Do It Again?

One surprise from this experiment: all of us, Gen Z and millennial alike, would opt into a social media detox again. While I’ve slowly sunk back into my Instagram-scrolling ways (albeit with more awareness of how long I’m on and whether I’m actually enjoying myself), Clive has kept up with the detox guidelines since it ended. “I found it to be unobtrusive to my daily life and helpful as a reminder to be more intentional when I pick up my phone,” he said.

If Meera did the detox again, she said she’d implement even firmer boundaries, like deleting apps temporarily instead of just limiting time. On the other hand, Alyssa would relax the rules just slightly, allowing for DMing people and exchanging social media handles with new friends.

For all of us, the experience was eye-opening — and something that I would recommend to anyone, of any generation, if you find your social media impacting your mood. Some intentional time away from your apps might be exactly what you need.