What Happened When I Took a Break from Social Media for 24 Hours — This Really Surprised Me

It started with a scratched cornea and a very serious-looking doctor who said, “You’ll need to reduce your screen time by 80 percent.”

Eighty percent?

That’s not screen moderation — that’s a lifestyle change. That’s taking away the thing I use to scroll, stalk, shop, soothe, laugh, cry, zone out, zone in, and check the weather in Reykjavík for no reason. I stared at her like she’d asked me to give up oxygen and sarcasm.

But she wasn’t joking. “No Instagram, no X, basically no social media,” she said, scribbling on her prescription pad like she hadn’t just wrecked my entire digital identity. No late-night scrolling while marinating in existential dread? She may as well have told me to give up gravity.

But for how long? Forever? A week? Until artificial intelligence takes over? “Start with a day,” she said. “One full day. No Instagram, no scrolling, no bright screens.”

I blinked (carefully). And just like that, I was sentenced to a day in the real world — raw, unfiltered, and terrifyingly offline.

So I did the only rational thing left; I announced to my friends (via text, of course): “I’m going offline tomorrow. Like, fully. No reels. No memes. No lurking. Just vibes and eye drops.”

One replied: “Are you possessed?”

Prep mode: Detaching from the matrix

The night before the detox, I staged a breakup with my phone. I deleted Instagram, pushed my Gmail app to Page 5 of the home screen (the digital equivalent of Siberia), and created a survival kit:

• A novel I’ve owned since 2018 and never finished

• Eye drops every four hours (my new religion)

• One pen, one notebook (for my inevitable spiral)

• And the emotional strength of a damp Marie biscuit

I texted my closest friends: “Going offline tomorrow. If I disappear, avenge me.”

One replied, “Weird flex.” While another was more considerate and said, “Why? Who hurt you?”

Hour 0: The ghost thumb syndrome

At 8:05 a.m., I woke up, stretched dramatically, and reached for my phone like muscle memory demanded. I unlocked it. My thumb hovered… and froze.

Where was the dopamine? The dancing cat videos? The ‘Pretty Little Baby’ reels?

Instead, I opened the calculator app by accident and sat there, stunned, doing mental math:

24 hours without social media = 1,440 minutes of staring at the wall.

In a state of mild grief, I opened my photo gallery and scrolled through memes I’d already seen.

Then, like a true addict, I typed into Google: “What to do when you have no phone?” The irony was obvious.

Hour 2: The spice rack redemption

Cut to 9 a.m. — I found myself making my usual cup of coffee and subconsciously alphabetising my spice rack.

Not for fun. Not for Instagram. For survival.

That’s when I discovered a bottle of ajwain that expired during the first season of Sacred Games. I held it up like Simba in The Lion King. Aged, noble, forgotten.

My mother walked in, saw the rack, and then looked at me like I had finally lost the plot.

“You okay?”

“Digital detox.”

She nodded with the unease of someone standing next to a live wire.

Hour 3: Dining without distractions

For lunchtime, I sat at the dining table like a Victorian child in a Jane Austen novel. No phone. No video playing in the background. No K-drama subtitles. Just me and the sound of chewing.

Now, I didn’t cook — scratched cornea and knives are one more emergency I did not need — but I usually eat with something playing in the background. The silence made the rice taste like regret.

When I served my parents their food, they were deeply alarmed.

“You’re not watching anything while eating?” my mother asked.

“Did you….. quit your job?” my father was worried.

When I explained the detox, my mom shrugged it off like a true-blue Indian parent of a millennial child, knowing very well that the detox won’t last long.

Hour 5: The odd hobbies that I picked

By 3 p.m., I decided to lean into my personality and read a book. I’m a reader — the kind who owns too many tote bags and emotionally hoards bookmarks. Reading would surely bring peace, right?

Wrong.

I stared at the same sentence for 12 minutes. It looped like an error message. The protagonist’s existential angst mirrored my own. I put the book down and reached for my journal instead in a final act of desperation. I opened to a fresh page, uncapped a pen like I was about to change the course of my life, and wrote: “Day 0. Detox diary.”

Then it promptly followed with: “Why does time move slower without Instagram stories?”

And then I spent 20 minutes drawing angry little clouds in the margins. Eventually, I gave up and stared at the ceiling fan. And the ceiling fan stared back. We shared a moment. If it were Bollywood, we would’ve been eloping by now.

Hour 7: Existential popsicles and balcony monologues

By 5 p.m., I was spiralling hard. I needed purpose. Or ice cream. The cart jingled down the street like salvation on wheels. I ran to it like I was chasing the last chopper out of Saigon.

“Do you have mango?”

“No.”

“Give me anything. I just need to feel alive.”

I took my orange popsicle and sat dramatically on the balcony, legs up on a stool, eyes squinting into the sunset like I was the main character in a heartbreak montage.

Usually, I’d click a picture. Caption it something poetic like “orange skies, orange ice cream, healing slowly.” But instead, I just sat there. Slowly melting, much like my popsicle and sense of self.

I imagined what my caption would’ve been. Then imagined the comments. Then spiralled because nobody was actually going to comment and this moment and this deeply aesthetic, mood-board-worthy sunset would disappear undocumented.

Hour 10: The loneliness hits… but so does the clarity

By 8 p.m., I wasn’t exactly lonely. I’d chosen this, after all. But I was beginning to feel the kind of silence that isn’t peaceful — it’s… echoey. I had cleaned my room, tried on two sarees for no reason, and briefly contemplated cutting my bangs before remembering I had no depth perception right now.

I glanced at the wall clock. Two hours till bedtime. I’d made it this far. But this last leg? This was the boss level.

Usually, by now, I’d be deep in a loop of watching videos titled “10 Things You Missed in Harry Potter,” followed by 37 meme shares, two comment wars, and one very niche shopping cart full of things I’d never buy.

Instead, I just sat there. Thinking. Not even deep thoughts — mostly: Do I blink weird now? Should I get into sourdough baking? What if I became one of those people who say “I don’t use social media” with quiet smugness?

It was unnerving. I’d run out of distractions. And somehow… I was still fine.

Hour 13: It was weird but nice

Around 10:30 p.m., I lay on my bed and looked up. The ceiling fan was still spinning. Loyal and constant. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, my thoughts weren’t in all-caps. There was no mental noise, no “ding!” to interrupt. My mind, for once, wasn’t trying to swipe on life.

I didn’t have some dramatic epiphany about the universe or decide to become a forest monk. I didn’t delete my accounts or vow to only communicate via handwritten letters. But I did feel a quiet sort of okay-ness. Like maybe my brain had finally unclenched.

And let me tell you — the bar was low, but that felt profound.

The morning after rebooting 

I woke up on a detox feeling like I’d been rebooted. Not transformed into a better person or anything extreme — just… slightly more intact.

When I reinstalled Instagram, it felt like bumping into an old friend you’ve outgrown a little. Familiar. A little annoying. Still kind of fun.

I checked my direct messages!. Responded to two reels. Sent a raccoon video to a friend. Then, and here’s the part I’m genuinely shocked by, I closed the app.

No spiral. No FOMO. Just a sense that I didn’t need to scroll the void immediately.

Did I rush back into my regular digital chaos later? Of course.

But now, every once in a while, I stare at the fan. And remember that a quieter brain isn’t a boring one.

A one-day social media blackout didn’t fix my life. I didn’t start journaling with a quill or replace dopamine with morning jogs. But it gave me a pause. A reset. A reminder that my brain, when it’s not constantly marinating in algorithms, is actually kind of nice to hang out with.

So maybe, next time your eyes hurt or your brain feels like a shaken soda can, go offline for a bit. Not forever. Just long enough to hear your own thoughts.

Edited by Saumya Singh; All images courtesy Srimoyee Chowdhury

News