How one can Break Social Media Dependancy (Glenn Sanford's Plan)

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When success-driven leaders fall into the identical digital habit affecting an estimated 210 million individuals worldwide, the answer isn’t going chilly turkey—it’s constructing higher methods.

The irony wasn’t misplaced on me. Right here I used to be, CEO of eXp World Holdings and writer of SUCCESS® journal—a publication devoted to serving to bold individuals obtain their highest potential—and I couldn’t cease doomscrolling via my telephone at 2 a.m.

It began innocuously sufficient: a fast verify of social media between conferences, a scroll via trade information throughout lunch. However over a number of days, I discovered myself diving deeper into rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, outrage content material and the form of clickbait that may hijack your mind’s reward system.

The dopamine hits stored coming, however so did the anxiousness. My sleep suffered, my focus fractured and I used to be in a relentless state of agitation—all textbook social media habit signs.

That’s after I knew I had an issue and, extra importantly, that it wasn’t simply private. This was a part of a world disaster: Among the many billions of social media customers on-line, some estimates have indicated that as many as 210 million are battling social media habit. Dependence on social media can have far-reaching penalties, together with elevated isolation and loneliness; larger probability of hysteria, melancholy, and social anxiousness dysfunction; sleep disruption; poor work efficiency; discount in empathy; and decreased bodily exercise, which might negatively have an effect on total well being and wellness. And, when your well being is at stake, taking a break from social media isn’t elective; it’s important.

For prime-achievers, the entice cuts even deeper. Our drive for the subsequent edge or perception is the very factor these platforms exploit. What appears like productiveness leaves us drained and unfocused. That’s why studying how one can break social media habit is so essential—particularly for leaders and entrepreneurs.

The numbers are staggering. One examine reported that 56% of customers reported feeling anxious with out entry to their social media profiles. However what makes this notably harmful for leaders and entrepreneurs is the way it can masquerade as productiveness.

In 2024, the New York Metropolis Well being Division launched a report declaring social media “a risk to youth psychological well being.” The U.S. surgeon common has known as for elevated transparency and for corporations to prioritize person well-being over income.

But most enterprise leaders I do know deal with their social media habits as a essential evil reasonably than recognizing them as a real risk to their cognitive efficiency and decision-making capability.

As comic Invoice Maher put it in a quote that Cal Newport highlights in his ebook Digital Minimalism: “The tycoons of social media must cease pretending that they’re pleasant nerd gods constructing a greater world and admit they’re simply tobacco farmers in T-shirts promoting an addictive product to youngsters. As a result of, let’s face it, checking your ‘likes’ is the brand new smoking.”

The comparability to tobacco isn’t hyperbole. In keeping with analysis printed in Cyberpsychology, Conduct, and Social Networking, 24% of TikTok customers and 28% of Instagram customers studied qualify as “addicted” utilizing scientific diagnostic standards.

Why high-achievers are particularly vulnerable to digital habit

Success-oriented people face the next distinctive vulnerabilities that make social media habit extra probably and extra damaging.

1. Data habit masquerading as analysis

We inform ourselves we’re staying knowledgeable, networking or researching our markets. However “an limitless bombardment of reports and gossip and pictures has rendered us manic info addicts,” Newport observes. “Incessant clicking and scrolling generates a background hum of hysteria.”

2. FOMO amplified by aggressive nature

Excessive-achievers are naturally aggressive. Social media exploits this by creating synthetic urgency round each replace, each pattern, each competitor’s transfer. “The urge to verify Twitter or refresh Reddit turns into a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to assist the presence essential for an intentional life,” Newport warns.

3. Validation looking for regardless of success

Even profitable leaders crave exterior validation. “Tech corporations encourage behavioral habit via intermittent constructive reinforcement and the drive for social approval,” creating what Newport calls “digital slot machines” that hold us scrolling for the subsequent hit of engagement.

4. At all times-on mentality

James Clear, creator of Atomic Habits, identifies senseless telephone scrolling as “the best interruption” to productiveness. For leaders who satisfaction themselves on being all the time obtainable and all the time studying, this creates an ideal storm of distraction disguised as diligence.

The popularity part: Figuring out your digital habit patterns

My very own wake-up name got here after I acknowledged the bodily and psychological signs that mirrored different addictive behaviors I’d noticed in myself and others through the years. Listed below are main indicators to search for that will help you conduct your individual sincere evaluation.

Bodily warning indicators

Checking your telephone inside minutes of waking up
Feeling phantom vibrations out of your telephone
Nervousness when your telephone battery dies otherwise you lose sign
Neck and shoulder ache from “tech neck”
Sleep disruption from late-night scrolling

Cognitive warning indicators

Issue concentrating on single duties for prolonged durations
Psychological fatigue regardless of not doing mentally demanding work
Decreased consideration span for books, articles or deep conversations
Racing ideas or feeling mentally “wired” even when drained

Emotional warning indicators

Irritability when interrupted whereas in your telephone
Evaluating your self to others primarily based on social media posts
Temper swings correlated with social media engagement
Feeling empty or unhappy after spending time on social media

Behavioral warning indicators

Routinely reaching in your telephone throughout any second of potential boredom
Checking social media whereas in conversations with others
Utilizing social media as a procrastination device
Mendacity to your self or others about how a lot time you spend in your telephone

Recognizing the fact of our reliance on social media is a essential first step. Most of our social media consumption is pushed by anxiousness about future eventualities that will by no means materialize. The stoic strategy promoted by Ryan Vacation, creator of The Impediment Is the Manner, gives a strong reframe: “Deal with the second, not the monsters that will or is probably not up forward.”

The intervention framework: Techniques over willpower

When you acknowledge the issue, the temptation is to depend on willpower to easily “use much less.” This fails as a result of habit rewires your mind’s reward system. As an alternative, you want systematic adjustments that make the specified habits simpler and the undesired habits more durable. Clear’s Atomic Habits framework offers the proper construction for breaking digital habit:

1. Make unhealthy habits invisible

Take away apps from your property display: Clear says, “If I’ve my telephone in entrance of me, I’ll verify it each three minutes simply because it’s there.” Create friction by shifting social media apps off your property display and into folders buried deep in your telephone.

Use grayscale mode: Make your telephone much less visually interesting by switching to grayscale. The brilliant colours and crimson notification badges are designed to draw consideration and will even set off dopamine responses.

Create phone-free zones: Clear’s “one house, one use” precept means designating particular areas the place telephones should not allowed. I established my dwelling workplace as a phone-free zone throughout deep work periods.

2. Make unhealthy habits unattractive

Perceive the true value: Analysis has proven that youngsters and adolescents utilizing social media for 3 or extra hours every day can face double the danger of melancholy and anxiousness signs. The price isn’t simply time—it’s cognitive capability, emotional regulation, and decision-making high quality.

Reframe social media corporations: Newport suggests viewing social media corporations as “consideration retailers” reasonably than expertise innovators. “These addictive properties of recent applied sciences should not accidents, however as a substitute fastidiously engineered design options.”

3. Make unhealthy habits tough

Delete apps completely: Throughout my restoration interval, I deleted social media apps from my telephone completely. If I needed to verify them, I had to make use of an internet browser, log in manually and take care of clunky cell interfaces.

Use app timers and restrictions: Set every day closing dates on social media apps. Whenever you hit the restrict, the app turns into inaccessible for the remainder of the day.

Change your surroundings: “The fundamental thought right here is you need fewer steps between you and the specified habits and extra steps between you and the undesired habits,” Clear explains.

4. Make unhealthy habits unsatisfying

Observe your utilization: Use your telephone’s built-in display time monitoring to confront the fact of your utilization. Most individuals underestimate their display time by 2-3 hours per day.

Share your targets: Public accountability will increase the social value of failure. I advised my government crew about my digital detox, making it more durable to backslide with out shedding credibility.

Newport emphasizes that “digital minimalists see new applied sciences as instruments for use to assist issues they deeply worth—not as sources of worth themselves.” The important thing isn’t simply eradicating social media—it’s changing it with actions that present real success.

For info habit:

Curated publication subscriptions: As an alternative of scrolling limitless feeds, subscribe to 2-3 high-quality newsletters that ship curated info weekly.
Bodily books and magazines: Newport notes in his ebook Deep Work that “idleness isn’t just a trip, an indulgence or a vice; it’s as indispensable to the mind as vitamin D is to the physique.” Studying bodily books forces you to decelerate and suppose deeply.

Voice calls over textual content: “The place we wish to be cautious is when the sound of a voice or a cup of espresso with a good friend is changed with ‘likes’ on a submit,” shared Holly Shakya, Ph.D., an assistant professor of worldwide public well being. As an alternative, schedule precise telephone calls or espresso conferences.
In-person networking: In keeping with sociologist Sherry Turkle, “Face-to-face dialog is probably the most human—and humanizing—factor we do. Totally current to 1 one other, we study to hear. It’s the place we develop the capability for empathy.”

For dopamine and stimulation:

Bodily train: Common train offers pure dopamine whereas bettering cognitive perform and stress resilience.
Inventive hobbies: Partaking in actions that require ability growth (music, artwork, crafts) offers the satisfaction of progress with out the hole rewards of social media.
Nature publicity: Common solitude in nature helps handle what Newport calls “solitude deprivation,” the state of spending “near zero time alone with your individual ideas.”

The stoic mindset: Staying centered in a world of distraction

Vacation’s stoic philosophy offers essential psychological frameworks for sustaining digital wellness: “Select to not be harmed—and also you gained’t really feel harmed. Don’t really feel harmed—and also you haven’t been,” he writes in The Impediment Is the Manner. This is applicable on to social media triggers. You can’t management what others submit, however you may management your response to it.

“In a world of distraction, focusing is a superpower,” Vacation observes in Self-discipline Is Future. The chief who can preserve sustained consideration whereas others fragment their focus throughout a number of platforms positive aspects monumental aggressive benefit.

Key stoic practices for digital wellness

Morning reflection: Begin every day with intentional planning reasonably than reactive scrolling.

Night evaluate: Finish every day by assessing how your expertise use aligned together with your values and targets.

Acceptance of FOMO: In keeping with Newport, digital minimalists “don’t settle for the concept that providing some small profit is justification for permitting an attention-gobbling service into their lives and are as a substitute concerned about making use of new expertise in extremely selective and intentional ways in which yield massive wins.”

My 30-day digital detox: The system that lastly labored

Right here’s the particular system I used to interrupt free from my social media habit:

Week 1: Consciousness and elimination

Used display time monitoring to determine baseline utilization
Deleted social media apps from telephone
Knowledgeable my crew concerning the experiment for accountability
Changed telephone with ebook throughout standard scrolling instances

Week 2: Alternative habits

Established morning routine: train, studying, planning (phone-free)
Created night routine: reflection, gratitude, bodily ebook
Scheduled two in-person espresso conferences to switch on-line networking
Began taking walks with out telephone for pondering time

Week 3: Systematic reinforcement

Put telephone in airplane mode throughout all centered work periods
Established “communication home windows”—particular instances for checking messages
Practiced being much less obtainable over textual content to paradoxically strengthen relationships
Added meditation observe to enhance impulse management

Week 4: Integration and calibration

Slowly reintroduced essential platforms with strict closing dates
Established clear standards for what constitutes “useful” on-line exercise
Created methods for normal digital detox durations
Constructed assist community for ongoing accountability

The enterprise case for digital wellness: How leaders achieve an edge by disconnecting

The influence on my management and enterprise efficiency was quick and dramatic.

Improved decision-making: With out the fixed enter of competing voices and synthetic urgency, I might suppose extra strategically and make selections primarily based on knowledge and rules reasonably than reactions.

Enhanced focus: Recounting the analysis of communication professor Clifford Nass, Newport notes in Deep Work, “As soon as your mind has grow to be accustomed to on-demand distraction, it’s onerous to shake the habit even if you wish to focus.” Breaking this cycle restored my skill to have interaction in what he calls “deep work.”

Higher relationships: Reducing your availability over textual content has the potential to strengthen relationships whereas concurrently leaving you (barely) much less obtainable to your family members.

Elevated creativity: With psychological house free of fixed info enter, I discovered myself producing extra revolutionary options to enterprise challenges.

Decreased stress: The fixed state of partial consideration created by social media use was changed by centered consideration and real relaxation durations.

Superior methods for sustained digital wellness

When you’ve damaged the preliminary habit cycle, these superior methods assist preserve long-term digital wellness:

The digital sabbath

Schedule common durations (weekly or month-to-month) of full digital disconnection. Newport recommends in Digital Minimalism to “spend a while away out of your telephone most days. This time might take many kinds, from a fast morning errand to a full night out.”

Worth-based expertise audit

Repeatedly assess your expertise use in opposition to your core values. Newport’s framework outlined in Digital Minimalism requires that expertise ought to “serve one thing you deeply worth” and “be one of the best ways to make use of expertise to serve this worth.”

Consideration coaching

Follow sustained consideration via meditation, studying or different actions that require centered focus. “The flexibility to pay attention is a ability that should be skilled,” Newport emphasizes in Deep Work.

Environmental design

As Clear writes, “You don’t rise to the extent of your targets. You fall to the extent of your methods.” Design your surroundings to assist digital wellness reasonably than counting on willpower.

When failure occurs: The restoration protocol

Digital habit restoration isn’t linear. “Motion and failure are two sides of the identical coin. One doesn’t come with out the opposite,” Vacation reminds us. Whenever you slip again into previous patterns:

Acknowledge with out judgment: Discover the sample with out self-criticism.
Analyze the set off: What state of affairs or emotion led to the relapse?
Regulate your system: What environmental change might forestall this sooner or later?
Restart instantly: Don’t wait till Monday—start once more proper now.

“It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to stop,” Vacation writes. The purpose isn’t perfection—it’s aware, intentional engagement with expertise.

The aggressive benefit of digital self-discipline

In a world the place, on common, individuals spend over 2 hours every day on social media, the chief who reclaims this time and a focus positive aspects an unlimited aggressive benefit.

“The flexibility to focus is turning into the scarcest commodity of the twenty first century,” Newport observes in Deep Work. Whereas others fragment their consideration throughout a number of platforms, you’ll develop what he calls “the power to shortly grasp onerous issues” and “the power to provide at an elite stage, when it comes to each high quality and pace”—two of the core talents for thriving within the new economic system.

Focus isn’t nearly productiveness—it’s about presence, creativity, and the standard of your pondering.

My 7-day digital detox problem to assist reset your thoughts

Prepared to interrupt free from social media’s psychological well being stranglehold? Right here’s your day-by-day motion plan:

Day 1: Audit and consciousness

Set up display time monitoring on all units
Doc your present utilization patterns
Establish your prime three digital triggers (boredom, stress, FOMO)

Day 2: Atmosphere design

Take away social media apps from telephone dwelling display
Arrange phone-free zones in bed room and workspace
Swap telephone to grayscale mode

Day 3: Alternative actions

Select two-three high-value actions to switch social media time
Schedule particular instances for these actions
Buy bodily books or supplies for brand spanking new hobbies

Day 4: Communication boundaries

Set up particular instances for checking messages (e.g., 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 6 p.m.)
Flip off all nonessential notifications
Follow delayed response—wait at the very least one hour earlier than replying to nonurgent messages

Day 5: Solitude observe

Schedule half-hour of solitude: time by your self with out enter from exterior sources, simply you and your ideas
Take a stroll with out your telephone
Follow what Newport calls “productive meditation”—pondering via an issue whereas strolling

Change two digital interactions with voice calls or in-person conferences
Deal with being an individual in others’ lives “who really talks to them frequently, forming a deeper, extra nuanced relationship than any variety of exclamation factors and bitmapped emojis can present”

Day 7: Integration and planning

Evaluate your week’s expertise
Establish which methods have been best
Plan your ongoing digital wellness observe
Arrange accountability measures for continued success

The trail ahead: Residing with intention via digital minimalism

“Digital minimalism is a philosophy of expertise use wherein you focus your on-line time on a small variety of fastidiously chosen and optimized actions that strongly assist stuff you deeply worth, after which fortunately miss out on the whole lot else,” Newport defines.

This isn’t about turning into a digital hermit—it’s about turning into intentional together with your expertise use. “Digital minimalism definitively doesn’t reject the improvements of the web age, however as a substitute rejects the best way so many individuals at present have interaction with these instruments.”

The leaders who will thrive within the coming decade gained’t be these with probably the most followers or the quickest response instances. They’ll be those that can suppose deeply, focus intensely and preserve real human connections whereas navigating an more and more distracted world.

Social media promised to attach us, but it surely’s been isolating us. It promised to tell us, but it surely’s been overwhelming us. It promised to entertain us, but it surely’s been exhausting us.

The time to reclaim your consideration—and your psychological well being—is now.

Your future self, your loved ones, your crew and your online business will thanks for selecting depth over shallow engagement, intention over habit and real human connection over digital simulation.

Essentially the most profitable leaders aren’t all the time related—they’re purposefully disconnected when it issues most. In a world of infinite distraction, your centered consideration isn’t simply a bonus—it’s your superpower.

Photograph by Benjamin Sow/Unsplash

Prepared to hitch the ranks of digitally disciplined leaders? Begin with Day 1 of the problem above, and uncover how reclaiming your consideration can remodel each your private well-being {and professional} efficiency. For extra methods on peak efficiency and intentional residing, subscribe to SUCCESS® journal’s publication at SUCCESS.com.