Quitting Twitter? What People Say About Life After Social Media

When Twitter Inc. accepted Elon Musk’s $61 billion offer to buy the social-media company, many frequent tweeters vowed to deactivate their accounts. For a while, it seemed like everyone on Twitter was talking about quitting Twitter.

Not too long ago, people said they would flee Instagram. Before that, it was Facebook.

With every social-media controversy, people talk about shutting down their accounts forever. Few actually do it. Roughly 70% of Americans used social media in 2021, a level that remained steady for five years, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Meta Platforms Inc. in February reported Facebook’s daily active users fell for the first time in at least a decade, but it said Wednesday that population was growing again.

Social-media apps are crafted to keep people coming back. The dopamine rush that comes from other people’s likes can leave you feeling celebratory. But there is a downside. The constant exposure to other people’s lives can hurt your body image, sleep, anxiety levels and productivity.

“Those feelings drive people to consider how much time, if any, they want to spend on social media,” said Kate Rosenblatt, senior clinical manager at Talkspace, an online therapy company.

Many people who have left Twitter, Facebook and Instagram say they are happier because of it, but they also realized they miss some things. Here is what they want others to know—both the good and the bad.

Withdrawal fades quickly.

When you’re used to checking an app every day, or multiple times a day, you sometimes mindlessly open the app and scroll through your feed.

“I was so sucked into the negative memes, clapbacks and spirals of conflict I saw on Twitter that when I first left, my muscle memory told me to open the app and start scrolling,” said Kimberly Katiti, a 28-year-old artist in North Hollywood, Calif., who quit the platform in April 2021.

“I got over that within a week,” she said. “I would just put my phone away. And before I knew it, I wasn’t getting the urge to scroll and see what’s happening in the world.”

You’re still connected to the world.

Social media started as a way to connect with friends, but the platforms evolved to become places for companies and people to share news and politics—Mr. Musk called Twitter the world’s “de facto town square.” But with that increased role came misinformation and other issues. Cutting social media out of your life may nudge you to find other sources for news. And just because you’re not on Facebook doesn’t mean you’ll miss big cultural moments and trends.

“I got on Twitter in 2008 because it was a different and newer communication method,” said Christopher Britton, a 34-year-old who runs a marketing business in Inlet Beach, Fla. “At the time, I worried about not being so-called relevant.” He deleted his Twitter account in 2011, and now keeps informed via Reddit, Apple News and other sources.

“And my Messages app is just as good as any social-networking site when keeping in contact with people I know,” Mr. Britton said.

People are nicer.

You don’t have to be on social media for long to encounter Facebook rants or Twitter feuds where people you know communicate differently than they do in person. When you no longer see those posts and instead interact with people in real life, your views can change.

“It’s so much easier to post rude stuff when you’re behind a keyboard wall,” said J.J. Garcia, a 54-year-old business analyst in New Braunfels, Texas. “But in person, your neighbors seem less inclined to talk about that stuff. And you can get along with them better when you’re not seeing all their opinions online.”

You might have trouble sending or donating money.

On Facebook, you can add your payment information to buy and sell items on Marketplace, send money to family on Messenger and donate directly to causes. Leaving Facebook can make that more cumbersome, said Bobby Buchler, a 57-year-old retired high-school teacher from Las Vegas who ditched the social network in 2019.

“On Twitter, I follow organizations that rescue dogs. And they make posts saying to donate on Facebook, or they link to a post made on Facebook,” Mr. Buchler said. “But I can’t easily check it because I don’t want to go on Facebook.”

People don’t miss you—or remember your birthday.

Kristen Womack was active on Facebook and Instagram, running groups, sharing articles and operating a small-business account. But when she left Facebook in 2016 and Instagram in 2020, no one seemed to notice.

“Not one single person said, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t see you on Facebook or Instagram anymore. I miss you,’” said Ms. Womack, a 42-year-old product manager at Microsoft Corp. in Minneapolis. “Once you leave the party, it’s like you’re not missed.”

And those birthday reminders and comments on your Facebook wall? Say goodbye to them. Though doing so may not be a bad thing.

“On Facebook on my birthday, 300 people would pop up, and then you have to respond and like comments from random people,” said Verlin Campbell, a 42-year-old IT project manager in Los Angeles. “Now my interactions are more genuine. On my birthday, like 20 people texted me. I’m happier with that.”

You feel more productive.

Leaving social media gives you more free time—sometimes more than you know what to do with.

“I was surprised to realize just how much time I wasted on scrolling. You hop on your computer to write, and it’s easy to get sidetracked,” said Lindsey Zitzmann. The 39-year-old online life coach in Villard, Minn., quit Instagram in 2020.

“Now, in those in-between times when I have a few minutes, I read books, I’m more present with family, or I’ll cook without picking up my phone,” she added.

Friends drift away.

Social media can make you feel like you’re in touch with people just because you double-tapped a post, or because someone commented on one of your photos. Once you leave, some of those relationships fade.

“It makes me sad to think about it,” said Oliver Murray, 18, of Fayetteville, Ark. The freelance digital artist says he lost contact with some online friends when he deleted his Instagram account in 2019. He now shares his artwork on Tumblr and Twitter, where he doesn’t feel pressure to post constantly.

“I got annoyed with all the superficial vanity posts,” he said. “The only way I’ll go back to Instagram is if Elon Musk ruins Twitter.”

As a competitive rower in my long-ago prime I sometimes used a racing strategy called fly and die. Sprinting to an early lead often yielded a fast overall time, even if I couldn’t hold my torrid pace through the finish line.

Some professionals take a similar approach to their desk jobs, starting their workdays with a 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. shift. They are up before the sun—and, more important, before their co-workers—to get a jump on the workday and impress the boss.

Nothing screams go-getter like a predawn email! Getting stuff done early allows them to clock out midafternoon and still look like stars, even if their routines require Ben Franklin-esque sleep schedules and vats of caffeine.

Melissa O’Blenis rises by 4:30 a.m. for prayer and Peloton time before starting her job at the digital consulting firm Argano.

“I just love checking things off my list,” she says. “I need that focus time away from Teams messages, email notifications and text alerts.”

A mother with two sets of twins, O’Blenis, 48, often breaks for her kids’ afternoon sports without feeling guilty or judged. Colleagues jokingly call her Granny because her 9 p.m. bedtime makes the early starts possible. But Granny got the last laugh when she was promoted to a director-level role in March.

More than 90% of knowledge workers want to flex their hours, according to surveys by Slack’s Future Forum . In the pandemic many of us got in the habit of handling personal commitments during standard business hours, then catching up on work tasks later .

Now that the office battle is largely over, fighting a return to rigid, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedules might be workers’ last stand. But managers complain about afternoon dead zones when employees are out of pocket.

The solution for more workers is starting sooner instead of finishing later. Workflow software maker Asana reports that 21.4% of users are logging on between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. this year, up from 19.8% in 2021. About 12% of work tasks are completed before 9 a.m., the company says, compared with 10% before the pandemic.

Early-bird bosses

Gibran Washington and his basketball teammates at Hofstra University used to run at 6 a.m. He maintained his early wakeups while climbing the ranks in food-and-beverage management.

By 9 a.m. meetings, he had already exercised, meditated and put in a couple of hours of work.

“I always found myself more prepared than my colleagues who hadn’t had their first cup of coffee yet,” says Washington, 40, who doesn’t drink coffee. Now he is chief executive of Ethos Cannabis, a chain of 12 dispensaries in three states, and rises as early as ever.

Waking and working ahead of the pack is a common CEO habit, from Apple ’s Tim Cook to General Motors ’ Mary Barra . Even if your ambitions are less grand than the corner office, starting early could help you stand out for one simple reason: The boss is probably up, too, and taking notice.

Matt Kiger says being the first one into the office helped him catch his manager’s eye and advance after changing careers from education to media sales. He would set his alarm for 5 a.m., hop a train from Connecticut to New York and be at his workstation before 7.

“I thought, ‘What is it going to take to break through?’” he recalls. “‘It’s going to take being there when my boss comes in, already at my desk making phone calls.’”

Now a senior vice president for digital sales at Townsquare Media , Kiger, 47, says much of the daily communication among company leaders happens by text and phone from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. It’s possible to succeed as a night owl, he says, but people who sleep in risk missing a window when many executives are awake and accessible. While some working parents can’t swing early-morning meetings, others like Kiger say they are the key to being present at kids’ after-school activities.

Getting the worm

Matt Sunshine—whose surname surely predestined him to be a morning person—wakes at 5:30 a.m. to read the news. Then he cycles or takes a Pilates class and is on his computer by 7.

Sunshine is CEO of the Center for Sales Strategy in Tampa, Fla., which helps healthcare, media and professional-services companies generate leads. He doesn’t expect his 55 employees to follow his schedule but says it becomes progressively harder to get his attention as the day goes on and his calendar fills up with meetings. He also tries to log off by 5:30 p.m. for family time, so working after hours won’t necessarily make an impression.

“If you want to get my attention, a good time to get me is first thing in the morning,” Sunshine, 55, says. “Because people know I’m an early riser, I think that does influence other people to do the same.”

Elvi Caperonis’s morning routine is next-level organised. Her alarm rings at 6 a.m. She goes for a run at 6:30. At 7 she showers and eats breakfast. At 7:30 she opens her laptop and sets a timer for 25 minutes. That’s her first block to focus on the most important task of the day before a five-minute break. She repeats the on-off work pattern throughout the day.

Caperonis, a technical program manager at Amazon , makes a daily to-do list with nine items. She rates one critical, three medium-level and five lower-priority. This helps her work efficiently and in the right order.

The 41-year-old works from home in Florida and often picks her daughter up from school at 2:30 p.m., freedoms she has preserved partly by being highly productive early in the day, she says. Much of her job involves identifying potential risks to a project’s success, and when she sends an early-morning alert it arrives really early for company leaders in the Pacific time zone.

“They appreciate having that information first thing when they open their email,” she says. “In my experience, leaders are also early birds.”