The 12 Best resources to help you quit social media

The 12 Best resources to help you quit social media

Here is a list of the best resources to help you quit social media including podcasts, books, Ted Talks from those in the industry, and more.

• Catherine Price  – How to break up with your phone
• Oliver Burkeman – Four Thousand Weeks
• Cal Newport – Digital Minimalism
• Cal Newport  – Deep Work
• The Life Not Likes Podcast
• Leonie Dawson Podcast– Why Me and My Business don’t Do Social Media Anymore
• Marketing without Social Media Workshop by Leonie Dawson
• The Life Not Likes Membership Community
• ‘Why You Should Quit social Media’ – Cal Newport. TED Talk
• ‘How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every single day’ – Tristan Harris TED Talk
• The Social Dilemma – Movie and Website
• You!

When I first quit social media I took a break for about a week to see how it felt and to work out where I needed extra support and accountability. In that first week I downloaded a couple of books and listened to some podcasts which I’ll share below.

Since quitting social media for good in February of this year I have slowly begun building even more resources from books to podcasts, movies and Ted Talks, to help me stay social media free and feeling good about it.

Let’s dive into the 12 best resources to help you quit social media and stay quit, in a little more detail

Books

When I first took a break from social media, I saved 11 hours in that first week. One of the things I loved was taking time out to read a book again! It was in that first week that I discovered some great books to help me with my choice.

Catherine Price  – How to break up with your phone

This is the very first book I downloaded and immediately recommended it to all my friends. It made me laugh, nod my head, feel outraged and want to throw my phone out of the window. (I didn’t) Catherine Price is a scientist but the book is clear, funny, jargon free and down to earth and while aimed at helping us to put down our phones, the information and advice totally applies to social media, as much of the problem with our smartphones is the social media apps on them.

Also available as a course on Catherine’s wonderfully supportive website, Screen/Life Balance, The book is made up of two parts, the ‘wake up’ where all the problems of smartphone use is presented, included problematic social media use and then the ‘break up’ part which is a step by step 30 day plan to help you, plan and prepare for a whole weekend of no smartphone use at all!

While you might want to throw your phone out of a window when you’ve finished reading, the real aim of the book is to create awareness, understanding and help us to take back control, and freely choose how and when to use our smartphones again, should we so wish.

Oliver Burkeman – Four Thousand Weeks

Not specifically related to social media use, but this book was recommended to me by a friend when I told her about my social media break. I’m so thankful for this book and to British journalist, Oliver Burkeman for writing it.

This book presented me with so many light bulb moments and has helped me realise that I am indeed doing the right thing by not wasting my precious time being sucked into the drama and fakeness of social media and all the stress and worry that goes with that. 

“Social Media is a giant machine for getting you to spend your time caring about the wrong things – Oliver Burkeman. Four Thousand Weeks”

This book is essentially a time management tool but not in the way you would expect. So much goodness in here, not least a clear and much needed reminder that life indeed is precious (we only have on average four thousand weeks on earth) so we should spend it doing things that bring us joy, light us up and are meaningful.

Cal Newport – Digital Minimalism

This is more than a set of rules or helpful tips, Digital Minimalism a way to use technology with more intention and purpose. The  book gets us to really understand what we are using technology for, or if it is using us and how to scale right down and ditch everything that doesn’t align with what we want our lives to look like.

The book will help you declutter your digital life without FOMO, build healthy habits around any technology you do want to use and leave you feeling calmer and more peaceful with more time to do the things you love in the process.

Cal Newport  – Deep Work

This was the how I first discovered the work of Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University and a New York Times bestselling author who as it happens, has never had a social media account!

The book, while not specifically focused on social media, contains lots of anecdotes and a whole section dedicated to why social media is one huge distraction tool that takes us away from doing work that is deep and meaningful, and of course challenging (which is a good thing!).

“social media fragments your attention, which has a detrimental effect on your concentration.” – Cal Newport

This book explores why deep work is so important in a world of fast paced superficial shallow work and how we can begin to train ourselves to be more focused, more productive and engage in deeper, more rewarding experiences, whether that be work or something else.

Podcasts

The Life Not Likes Podcast

Bringing you real conversations with real people who share their experiences of living life and doing business without social media. Interviews, inspiration and motivation to help you live life social media free too. Listen Here

Leonie Dawson – Why Me and My Business don’t Do Social Media Anymore 

The extended version of an earlier podcast where Leonie deep dives into why she took her initial 21 day social media break, how she did it, what happened and why she left social media for good. This is a fabulous podcast (you can read it as a blog too) Listen Here

Courses 

Marketing without Social Media by the one and only Leonie Dawson   This is a workshop style course delivered in Leonie’s unique style which is pretty quick to complete. This is a springboard I would say to exploring the possibility that, you can indeed market your business without social media. This course had me laughing, and feeling outraged and inspired in equal measure.

This course will take you on a journey as to why you might want to leave social media for business, some success stories, and the all important section containing information on the many ways you can market your business without social media. I really enjoyed this course, it helped me understand that I was doing the right thing.

A great starting point to get you inspired and motivated to do something about marketing your business in ways that are not social media. **This is an affiliate link and if you buy the course using my link, I will receive a commission.

The Life Not Likes Membership Community

The membership community space is a really powerful resource for you! It’s one thing to read the books, take the courses, listen to the podcasts and watch the videos, it’s quite another thing to commit to doing the thing you really want to do. If you’re looking to leave social media or cut own and just can’t seem to make it stick, we’re here to support you.

We’re here to guide and support you through the fear and anxiety of leaving social media, as well as how to market your business without social media. We’ll help you choose a different path with confidence, work in alignment with your values, find the right strategy for you that feels good. 

With our support you work through your challenges, ask questions, try out new things, fall in love with marketing your business and above all get the all important connection and community. 

Ted Talks

‘Why You Should Quit social Media’ – Cal Newport.

With over 8 million views, Cal Newport initially did this Ted Talk to promote his book ‘Deep Work’ and had no idea just how much of an impact it would have. This Ted Talk has been the inspiration for many, including me, to quit social media. Unusually, Dr. Newport has never had a social media account, yet (in his own words) he is okay. More than okay in fact, he is hugely successful and very well known, strange huh?

In this talk, Dr. Newport shares his counter arguments to the main excuses we have for keeping our social media accounts open, not least the fact that social media is addictive, distracting and getting in the way of you doing more meaningful things.

‘How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every single day’ – Tristan Harris

You may have seen Tristan Harris, former Design Ethicist at Google on ‘The Social Dilema.’ Tristan is the co founder of The Centre for Humane Technology which is dedicated to “reversing the digital attention crisis and realigning technology with humanity’s best interests“.

In this Ted Talk he talks about how our thoughts and behaviours, time and attention are indeed manipulated by a few very powerful people who are all after our time and attention, which is so precious to advertisers and to making money, they will do just about anything to get it – and they do.

If you think you’re immune and are in total control of your thoughts, action an emotions think about how you are persuaded by autoplays on YouTube and Netflix, Facebook notifications and Snapstreaks to name but a few examples.

Further Watching

The movie and accompanying fabulous website, The Social Dilemma which won’t help you quit social media or put down your phone as such, but it might make you think twice before logging onto Instagram or Facebook.

I loved the interviews with people who used to work in the industry and we’re talking big names in the world of tech here like Jaron Lanier, Tristan Harris, Tim kendall,  most of whom, interestingly, are no longer in those positions. And perhaps even more interestingly, are hardly on social media themselves, if at all and they don’t allow their own children to be on the platforms. Do they know something we don’t?

This movie outlines what I think most of us already know: social media is addictive, and it’s been engineered that way on purpose, we are indeed being manipulated on a large scale. How do they do that?  What are the consequences of that and most importantly, what are we going to do about it?

The last of the 12 best resources to help you quit social media is you!

You know what you want. You know how social media is making you feel and only you can decide if you want to carry on feeling this way or if you want to try something new. Some important questions to ask yourself are:

• If Facebook and Instagram crashed tomorrow and disappeared, what would happen to my business?
• If Facebook and Instagram crashed tomorrow, how would I feel?
• What scares me about leaving social media
• What scares me about staying on social media?
• What support do I need to help me with my next step?

Much of the struggle and the stress come from wanting to do one thing, yet not quite being able to do it for whatever reason. If you really want to try business without social media, then commit, right now to trying. Commit to taking a proper break where you will explore and experiment with support and then see how you feel afterwards.

I want to end this post with another quote from Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman:

“The renunciation of alternatives is what makes our choice a meaningful one in the first place. This is also why it can be so unexpectedly calming to take actions you’d been fearing or delaying”

In other words, the fear and doubt you’ve been feeling about whether or not to quit social media, will only go away when you take the leap and do the thing that’s been going round and around your head. Life will become so much clearer, simpler and calmer. And we’ll be here to support you every step of the way.

Join life not Likes – Your best resource to help you quit social media and feel good about it

I’d love to hear from you. Which of the 12 best resources to help you quit social media will you try? Do you have something else that you’ve found helpful when it comes to clarifying your thoughts and feelings around quitting social media?