Disconnect to Reconnect Challenge!
The Story Behind it All
My freshman year, I challenged myself to delete social media for a month. At the time, I was spending way too many hours on my phone and wanted to see what life felt like without constant notifications and scrolling. What started as a personal experiment quickly turned into something more meaningful. I found myself spending more quality time with family, feeling less stressed, procrastinating less, and thinking more clearly. The following year, I invited friends to join me, and to our surprise, the “cleanse” became an experience we all benefitted from. Now, through LiveRealFebruary, I’m sharing this challenge with a larger community. It’s an opportunity to step back, break free from the cycle, and discover what life feels like when you’re living more intentionally offline.
Want to join? And, if it all seems too scary, there are other ways to participate. You can always modify the challenge to fit what feels right for you.
The Ultimate Unplug
This "package" involves fully deleting all social media apps for the entire month of February. It may sound scary, but I was able to do it without any problems:)
The Reset
The Reset does not require you to completely follow the rules. Modifications such as reducing the duration of the challenge or doing it in weekly intervals fall into this “package”. Preferably, participants would still delete all social media for as long as they can handle, but there is some leeway.
The Sampler
If you are not comfortable with the full challenge but still want to participate somehow, The Sampler is a gentle introduction that could involve scaling back on social media use for reduced time, or even just deleting certain social media apps. Of course, I recommend that you challenge yourself a little more, but you can 100% ease into it at your own pace! Challenge yourself one day at a time!
FAQs
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Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram, VSCO, BeReal, Facebook, and Twitter are the most popular social media platforms that fall into the “Social Media” category. So, deleting all (if you have them) would be following the rules of the Ultimate Unplug.
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That's awesome that you already have a time limit set! But the challenge is more than just limiting time—it’s about completely stepping away from the pull of social media and seeing how it feels to unplug for a while. You might be surprised at how much clearer your mind feels or how much more present you are with the people around you. And, you can still be addicted, no matter how long you use social media each day.
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I get it! Not everyone has the money incentive, but the challenge is about more than that. It’s a chance to see how life feels without social media, have more time for other things, and maybe even feel more focused. Plus, taking on a challenge like this can show colleges that you're capable of stepping away from distractions and focusing on what matters, which is a pretty great skill to demonstrate.
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I totally get that! Snapchat is a big part of staying connected. That’s why there are different ways to participate, and you don’t have to delete everything. If you feel like Snapchat is essential for communication, you could always keep it and just limit your use of other apps. When I did the challenge last year, I was still able to stay connected through school and regular text messages. Plus, I found that Snapchat often added unnecessary communication that didn’t really make a difference.
Join Me
Interested in participating? Fill out some info to sign up and begin your unplugging journey. I can’t wait to hear from you!