The Day I Unfollowed Everyone

The Day I Unfollowed Everyone

By Hasnain Shah

It started on a Tuesday morning, sometime between my first sip of coffee and the sinking realization that I’d spent forty-three minutes scrolling through other people’s breakfasts, gym selfies, and vague complaints about work. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but I was hungry for something I couldn’t name.

The endless scroll gave me nothing back.

I noticed my thumb moving on its own, flicking upward, pausing just long enough for me to glance at a caption, then flicking again. By the time I caught myself, my coffee was cold.

That was the moment the thought landed: What if I just unfollowed everyone?

At first, I laughed. No one does that. Social media without people is like a library without books. But the more I thought about it, the more tempting it became. I was tired of living on a diet of other people’s highlights and heartbreaks. My brain felt crowded with lives that weren’t mine.

So, I started.

Click. Unfollow.

Click. Unfollow.

Click. Unfollow.

High school friends I hadn’t spoken to in a decade. Former coworkers whose children I’d never meet but whose birthdays I knew better than my cousins’. Influencers with spotless kitchens and smiles that never cracked. Click, click, click.

It took two hours, and when I was done, my feed was empty. White space where there used to be noise.

At first, it was exhilarating. Then it was terrifying.

That night, I opened the app out of habit. Nothing. Just a blank screen and a polite message: “Follow people to see their updates.” It felt like walking into a party and realizing you were the only one invited.

But then something unexpected happened.

With no feed to drown in, I looked up. Literally. My living room window framed a sunset I’d never noticed before — streaks of tangerine and violet spilling across the sky. I stood there longer than I meant to, watching the colors fade into night.

The next morning, instead of scrolling, I called my sister. We hadn’t had a proper conversation in months; we’d been liking each other’s posts as a stand-in for real connection. We ended up talking for an hour about her new job, about Mom’s garden, about nothing and everything. When I hung up, I realized I felt lighter.

Over the next week, little gaps began to appear in my day — spaces that used to belong to the scroll. At first, they felt uncomfortable, like missing teeth. But soon, I filled them with things I hadn’t made time for in years. I started reading novels again, the kind with dog-eared pages and coffee stains. I went for walks without documenting the trees. I cooked dinner and didn’t take a picture of it.

One Saturday, I left my phone at home and wandered downtown. Without the distraction of a buzzing pocket, I noticed details that would have slipped by me before: a chalk drawing on the sidewalk, a musician playing violin outside a café, a little boy laughing as bubbles chased him across the square.

I stopped at a bookstore, and instead of snapping a photo of the display to “remember it later,” I talked to the clerk about their favorite authors. We swapped recommendations like old friends.

Something had shifted.

I realized that social media had been giving me the illusion of connection, but not the substance. I knew who got engaged, who bought a house, who had a baby — but I didn’t feel connected to any of it. I wasn’t living alongside these people; I was just spectating.

By unfollowing everyone, I’d unfollowed the noise, the comparisons, the low-grade anxiety of keeping up. And in that silence, real connections had room to grow.

Don’t get me wrong — it wasn’t all enlightenment. There were awkward moments. Friends asked why I hadn’t liked their posts. Some thought I was mad at them. I had to explain, again and again, that it wasn’t personal. It was the opposite of personal. I wanted more from them than a filtered snapshot.

And surprisingly, many of them understood. A couple even followed my lead.

Now, months later, I still have no one in my feed. My apps are quiet. But my life is louder: filled with conversations, with books, with sunsets, with the sound of my own thoughts.

The day I unfollowed everyone was the day I started following myself again.