It started with a flick of the thumb; a motion so small, so practiced. It was like scratching your elbow or licking your lips. Harmless, automatic. I was lounging in bed at noon with the curtains still closed, phone tilted slightly against my knee, when I came across a girl’s photo dump on Instagram. She was in Paris, maybe Florence, smiling like the light inside her came pre-installed. I blinked, looked down at my blanket, then back at her: she had perfect outfits, a disposable camera glow, and a waist so cinched it looked like she was wearing an invisible corset.
I kept scrolling, perusing through “hot girl summer” gym routines, 19-year-olds who just signed modeling contracts, and college apartment tours that looked like Architectural Digest (and probably smelled like eucalyptus and generational wealth). But I didn’t feel inspired; I felt like withdrawing from society completely after realizing how much I seemingly “lacked” compared to everyone online. It was like each swipe opened a portal to a new girl, a new life. A new set of teeth or thighs or eyelashes to admire, to envy, to shrink beneath.
In minutes, I hated my body, my face, my life, and myself — all before I’d even had breakfast. I was disappearing into other people’s lives while avoiding my own, and it wasn’t new, it was just an average Sunday. I used to think social media was a mirror, a way to reflect myself back to me — stylized, sure, but authentic to an extent. After years of navigating different social platforms, I was accustomed to the way it made me feel, normalizing it day after day without even realizing.
For the first time, I was able to see how those platforms were truly making me feel. Opening social media felt more like a funhouse mirror than a regular one: stretched, warped, disfigured. Every time I opened TikTok or Instagram, I walked in wanting to be productive, to share something, learn something, and left 45 minutes later, hollowed out, like I’d been slowly scraped clean from the inside. Tired of feeling so disheartened, I did something that felt, in our generation, radical. I stopped scrolling.
I didn’t delete the apps; I’m not trying to be a saint or start a movement. But I stopped letting them own me and my time. I let go a little. And in that little gap, real life came flooding in.
I don’t think people realize how sticky the grip that social media has on your brain really is. I’d wake up in the morning and reach for my phone before I even reached for water. I didn’t realize that I was feeding something dark at the time, like comparison, shame, and the subtle ache of not measuring up. But it grew in me wildly and unchecked, taking up more space with every day that passed.
I’d sit in my bed and think, I want to read. I want to paint. I want to go outside. But then I’d open an app and watch an hour bleed out. The worst part wasn’t just the wasted time; it was the slow erosion of how I thought about myself. I couldn’t even remember what I liked anymore, what I sounded like, what I would say if there wasn’t an algorithm whispering in my ear.
The first time I tried to stop, it felt like I was trying to walk on air. I kept reaching for my phone like a phantom limb, twitchy and unsure, worried I’d miss something. There’s this bizarre pressure, especially in college, to always be on. If you’re not posting, are you even doing anything? If you didn’t share your night out, did it even count? Everyone I knew still lived on their phones, and pulling back felt like stepping into an isolated, lonelier world. I was fearful I’d walked out of a party too early and everyone else was still inside, getting famous, falling in love, becoming prettier than me.
At first, the silence was terrifying. But slowly — and it happened so discreetly I almost missed it — I stopped reaching for my phone completely. I turned off notifications. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb. Sometimes, I even started leaving it in another room for hours on end. Without the feed feeding me, I started remembering who I was.
I picked up a book, and for the first time in months, I read completely uninterrupted, without notifications dashing across my screen. I didn’t skim, or switch apps, or highlight quotes to perform intelligence. I painted, badly at first, and didn’t even think to film it. I let my fingers get smeared with color and I didn’t care about angles or lighting. I baked a loaf of banana bread with too much cinnamon and listened to music with my ears wide open. It felt like coming home, returning to who I really am.
Real life has texture. It smells like sugar in the oven, sweat mixed with sunscreen, and old books from the library. You have to wait for the cake to rise, for the page to turn. You aren’t instantly gratified, but when you’re satisfied, it doesn’t leave you aching. I didn’t realize how much I missed boredom: real, honest boredom. The state of nothingness that births creativity instead of killing it.
So, here’s the truth Gen Z doesn’t always say out loud: we want to feel connected, but we don’t know how to unplug. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that the pull is stronger than we know how to fight. It was designed to be that way, after all. So, when your kid scrolls for hours and shrugs you off when you say something, know that inside, part of them might want help. However, they have to be the one that wants to make the change, to take agency of their own life for themselves. What helped me wasn’t someone telling me to “just put it down.” It was feeling safe enough to try because I wanted to, not because I was forced to.
Maybe that means no-phone family dinners, a long-held family tradition of mine. Or maybe it looks like a casual Sunday stroll with no apps open. Maybe it means you show them what slowing down looks like through example, and remind them they’re allowed to do it, too.
Now, most days, my phone is on silent. It’s not dramatic, I just don’t need to hear from it all the time. I get to choose when I want to connect with others, not when it tells me to. Sometimes I go entire afternoons, an entire day, without checking anything. I listen to birds instead of beeps, I stretch my body in my room like no one’s watching, because thankfully, they’re not. I talk to people with my full face and range of micro expressions, not just my thumbs. I do things that I love for no reason like bake, read, write, and move.
And I’m still me, still 19, still plugged into the world, still able to laugh at memes and post when I feel like it. Although I still use social media, I’m no longer owned by it.
There’s something wild and tender about living for real again: not curating, just existing. Letting life be blurry and unposted and imperfect. Letting my joy be mine, not something to crop and upload. And now? I don’t miss the scrolling, the comparison, the lost time. I know now that I was longing for something that endless scrolling could never fix. I missed me. And now I’m back.
Before you go, check out these celebrities who have shared their technology rules for their kids.
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