What If Social Media Disappeared for a Year?
- Brainz Magazine
- May 16
- 6 min read
Written by Kelli Binnings, Brand Expert & Entrepreneur
Kelli Binnings is a multi-disciplined creative who loves talking and writing about brands, psychology, and leadership. She is the founder and chief brand strategist at Build Smart Brands and is the soon-to-be author of The Breakout Creative, which is set for release in late '25. She is also in the process of completing her Master’s from Goldsmiths University in London in the Psychology of Arts, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity.
Imagine you wake up and every single social media website is down globally. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc., were all unavailable for the foreseeable future. No one to contact about it or estimate when it’ll be live again; you have nothing to do but wait and wonder what the rest of the world is doing to manage the mess.
Soon after you read about all the conspiracies, listen to the problem-dominated news stories, learn about the trickle-down effect of businesses closing, extremists preparing for the next phase of problems to arise, and the mental effects of withdrawal from people’s “social worlds.” Bear in mind that everything else in life continues; you still go to work, have access to the internet, listen to music, and interact with family and friends. All cafes, gyms, clubs, restaurants, you name it, are still open.
Life, as we know it, is the same, physically speaking, only our virtual worlds have disappeared.
What would you do? FaceTime your friends? Meet up in real life, start reading again, get back in the gym, maybe spend more time with your family? How long would it take for the world to go from feeling lost to feeling grounded in reality again? To experience freedom in a world where comparison at scale didn’t exist and having weekend plans were shared only with the people you experienced them with, not the whole world. Where judgment was based on reality, not a curated version of it, and your self-view was influenced by the things and people that matter, not distilled into the number of faceless likes you received on a post.
Our drift from reality
We are now 5 years post the Covid pandemic, and it got me thinking about a silent pandemic we’re all willingly infected by, our own, what I like to call, “MetaSyndrome” or psychological drift from reality, and its global effects on our physical and mental health. You can’t deny the technological benefits social media has given us: globalization, access, and perceived connection at scale, but are we blind to the slow devaluation of meaning it generates in return?
Are we self-aware enough to know the difference between following and ‘knowing’ someone? Do we understand that we’ve, in many ways, dehumanized connection as a whole, making real, authentic connections nearly impossible to find outside of this context? When did we trade social decay for access?
I know this all sounds very dystopian, but how far off are we really?
I think we all see social media for the masterful storyteller it is, the access it brings, the twinge of validation it creates, and the illusion of connection that it promises. Paradoxically, this is also why we all play the game, for the exact reasons I just mentioned: storytelling, access, validation, and connection. The paradox of promise found within this carefully packaged social technology is hard to process, categorize, and manage, but again, we all do it.
57% of Gen Z’ers wish social media didn’t exist
A study just last year, found that 86% of Gen Z social media users have tried to reduce their social usage, with 26% attempting a complete digital detox to improve mental health balance and proactively pursue more authentic social experiences.
It’s not surprising to learn that 57% of Gen Z’ers wish social media had never been created.
A study from Sprout Social showed millennials as the most active demographic on social media at 69.2%. While entertainment, educational, and professional-based content seemed to be the most relevant for this age group, the sub-level influences on our buying habits and mass lifestyle comparisons have and are clearly being felt.
With such frustrating numbers and emotional concerns around mental health, the increase of adolescent and adult depression, the decrease of self-image and life satisfaction, and sheer consumption of content and overwhelm, how have we not considered this “MetaSyndrome” as a very real and present pandemic?
User Growth: ~5.24B people are currently using social media, which has more than doubled since 2015 (~2.07B)
Average Time Spent: 2 hours and 21 minutes per day (US)
Worldwide: 63.9% of the world is on social media, with an average of 6.83 platforms in rotation.
While it seems Gen Z’ers are feeling the pressure more than any other generation, they are not alone in the struggle to imagine or long for a world without social media. What used to feel like a pastime has become a full-time job (literally and figuratively) for some.
For us Millennials, social media has directly impacted our communication habits, social patterns, and, you guessed it, our mental health. With social media content triggering negative feelings around life timing, perceived success, and anxiety around realistic aging, it’s become both a reassurance-seeking tool and a self-worth monitor (albeit a sh*tty one) at the same time.
So again, I ask what would happen if our time, money, relationships, opinions, and mental wellbeing weren’t impacted by social media for a year?
Is behavior change possible?
COVID may have physically shut us down, forced us inside, limited our physical connection with others, and demanded we all press pause, but it also allowed us to change our perspective and not take life’s pleasures for granted. It challenged us to redefine connection (for better or worse) and showed us that our time is our time to prioritize.
Why should it take something physical to happen before psychological and behavioral change is made possible? How can we learn to prioritize forming our own opinions, actively validate ourselves, and support our own mental wellbeing habits?
Twist: You commit to doing the inner work by actively shaping your life, activities, and relationships around your true self, not your ideal self.
Captain or autopilot, you decide
I want to make it clear, I’m not anti-social media. This isn’t hate mail for the social sphere, but I am anti-auto-piloting your life and living through a screen. Maybe all this came out of watching The Last of Us, or maybe it’s from navigating COVID while living in LA, either way, I’ve accepted the perspective shift it’s given me.
Whether you’re a business owner or casual user, if you’re in the 18-49 age range, you likely feel the pressure to routinely produce content for ‘audiences’ to engage with and react to. I challenge you to ask ‘what for?’ If what you produce brings you joy, amazing, you’ve unlocked the paradox, but if you’re doing it to check a box or feel better about who you are, you’ve missed the mark.
It’s not unrealistic to one day imagine that social media experiences a shutdown, and when that day comes, your entire existence needn’t shut down with it.
Invest in the people and things that matter, get out and make real connections, create content for you, and let it attract an audience that fits, not the other way around.
What’s next?
I’m honestly not sure what’s next. I’d love to see a “social” experiment or global study performed that spans across age, culture, gender, and geolocation, offering a true social media detox and its trickle-down effects on localized economies, social communities, and psychological well-being reports. The idea isn’t entirely feasible, as the social media web runs far and wide, but I believe it would be eye-opening. I don’t think any of us anticipated COVID happening, yet we mostly responded accordingly in an effort to self-preserve, so this wouldn’t be unheard of.
Regardless of what the future holds or how you feel about social media, we can all benefit from a perspective shift and go from blind consumption to proactive and purposeful users.
If you liked this article (and the irony is not lost on me here), I’d love to connect or visit Build Smart Brands to read more of my thoughts and learn about my unique take on leadership, brand, psychology theory, and behavior.
Connect with me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or visit Build Smart Brands.
Read more from Kelli Binnings
Kelli Binnings, Brand Expert & Entrepreneur
Kelli Binnings is a fearless thinking, multi-disciplined creative who loves talking and writing about brands, psychology, work culture, and leadership. As a life-long learner and "design your life" believer, she thrives on bringing ideas to life and joy to others through her work. Outside of her brand business and love of writing, she’s a published music photographer, wellness athlete, and soon-to-be author of her first book, titled The Breakout Creative, set for late '25. She is also in the process of completing her Master’s from Goldsmiths University in London in the Psychology of Arts, Neuroaesthetics, and Creativity. Her mission is to reframe the way people think and apply positive psychology to their professional lives.
