The Seven Day Digital Detox: One Woman’s Diary Disconnecting From The Doom Scroll

What does it mean to really switch off? A week without doom scrolling and social media validation sees Mariya Bint Rehan break away from her dopamine dependency

It started on a Saturday, because I had to be strategic about it. The very thought of relinquishing access to the digital world carries a sweet, inquisitive sense of dread. Our phones are now an extension of us, seemingly no less important than a limb, and social media apps our gateways to endless information, connection and dopamine-flavoured joy. Giving up social media is like giving up so much of what makes us, us: our voice, our access to unfettered opining, our seat at the amphitheatre of culture, in all its pixilated glory. So seven days of social media detox had to be done with careful consideration…

Days 1 & 2

I cautiously reach for my phone with a purposefulness that is totally alien to both my weekend morning routine and my dysfunctional relationship with this prized tablet. I am very conscious of my straying thumb as I disarm the alarm and bring my heavy feet to the floor, careful not to press the pink square that waits expectantly.

My weekday ritual of using the intrusive blue light of my phone to prize open my eyes has, it quickly dawned on me, been a crutch that has got me through many a 4am wake up. The slower start to the weekend is a much better canvas for the beginning of this artistic journey into conscious, non-social media living, right?

Since the inception of the smart phone in 2007, our worlds have changed almost beyond recognition. Many studies define it as a watershed moment for decline in fundamental human attributes such as conscientiousness, tenacity and commitment, and an increase in anxiety and related issues such as neuroticism, lack of amiability and socialness – with all the inevitable implications this has on our social fabric. Our use of these devices – and crucially the 24-hour access they give us to news, entertainment and social connection – has fundamentally changed us individually, and collectively.

I instantly feel, potentially rather prematurely, that this sense of purposefulness that I’ve gained within the first few hours of my self-indulgent experiment is a win. Despite a few mishaps in the day, when I’ve idly reached over to Instagram or X, unconsciously, to check my feed, before panic-swiping out within a few seconds, the first few hours are a resounding success. The morning has certainly felt cleaner, with less brain fog. Breakfast
at our local favourite feels more breezy, I feel a warming sense of calm and liberation, like I am freed from the shackles of being constantly switched on. It is taking slightly longer for the muscle memory to catch up on this nascent success – I find myself scrolling up and down my home screen like an agitated ex-smoker that is trying to simulate the solid comfort of a cigarette. While the first day has given me a sense of achievement, I am conscious that a weekend brimmed with kids’ clubs, social activities and late evenings is camouflaging my social media reliance. The monotony of weekday routine will bear different feelings.

Day 3

It’s certain; 4am wake-ups are not the same without an X [Twitter]-discourse scandal to shock my senses awake. My early morning scroll before work is an absolute constant, and I begin to dread the evening without the pre-bedtime perusal that bookmarks the day.

Working in a busy environment means I am not much of a user (pun unintentional…) during the day. I certainly feel it more in the afternoon, in between the mundanity of post-work routine. A casual look in on my FYP as I wait for the pasta to boil. A broadcasted vent or two whilst I’m supervising homework. These transitory moments that social media has filled with noise and entertainment – that pepper my entire day – now feel strangely absent. I find myself yearning for that illusion of movement – that passive transmission between inane content and receptive, stupor self. If Beckett believed ‘waiting’ was the malaise of the modern world – what does it mean that we no longer feel the quiet and relative endurance in these interludes? It dawns on me that social media may be an emollient for the constant grind of contemporary living in a more literal way. My suspicions about the evening also hold true. The nights definitely feel longer without the glowing warmth of a screen to provide me with what feels like a cognitive release – what others might (more accurately) describe as brain rot. I’ve rediscovered an old passion for crosswords that I feel is already more productive, if less instantly rewarding. I am also able to find so much more time for life admin that previously overwhelmed me – the swimming schedule was organised for the month, and the school group chat updated. Major wins.

Day 4

By day four, I admit that the studies are right; I am unequivocally more present and therefore happier. There is a sense of begrudging in this, because of how personal and political it feels. As an elder millennial, I remember life before the hand-held tablet, and therefore I have an inbuilt sense of snobbery concerning social-media dependency, that enshrouds my everyday use of it in shame. It was during my maternity leave that I developed a reluctant acceptance of this daily pleasure, borne mostly from a resolute feeling that it was dismissed because it was deemed a ‘female’ past time. While the internet is an agender domain, one cannot deny the girlpower that’s engineered it into its current Goliath iteration. Beautytainment is a major driver, and female use of it is the subject of so much enquiry, while male corners of the internet have grown untamed and underscrutinised. There has been social panic concerning that which occupies women’s time and energy. Though it’s new media now, it was once the novel which drew dooming narratives concerning its impact on women.

Claiming my stake and space in social media at one point, felt defiant. As a mum with competing demands on my time and energy, I became jaded with those that saw it as synonymous with bad parenting, that it was stupefying, dumbing, or a sign of moral weakness or laziness – because when I was at my loneliest, it felt like a lifeline. As a woman trying to find space for yourself, social media feels like the perfect place to pitch a tent.

Day 5

Despite the faltering resulting from my atrophying attention span, my focus for long-form media is growing and I am able to get through a few essays in place of whatever slop I might have been consuming a mere five days ago. The day begins with a piece on communication as transmission, ironically. I read that the ‘communal’ in communication is no longer about the connection we feel towards others, rather it’s been clinically stripped to sole telegraphing – as our social connections become gamified into engagement. This puts much into perspective – especially as a new immigrant, I had invested a lot in digital tribes in my early stages of moving. Much, certainly not all of this, had the opposite effect on my sense of belonging and community. The flattened metrics of social media mean the interactions we have are in their very nature unsatisfying but addictive and frenzied.

In these past few days, I’ve felt more inclined to invest in those relationships that were more material and enduring. Despite feeling I was too busy to message friends and family back, I found myself wanting to do that far more without the constant, peripheral distraction of social media use.

Day 6

My memory is scarily stronger – I am able to recall the writing epiphanies that come to me like welcome guests throughout random parts of the day, without having to obsessively note them down. It feels like I am actually moving through time, and I am enjoying life without the dizzying brain fog and cognitive fatigue that occurs when stepping off the fast-paced treadmill of social media to a still, comparatively less gratifying, real life.

The one thing I’ve been consistently struggling with is this Victorian-era need to document. I am so accustomed to broadcasting minor inconveniences, or funny scenarios on my feeds throughout the day – and the validating engagement that comes with it – that I almost contemplate drafting my various reflections down so I can post them subsequently. These are as broad ranging as a bold declaration that people that pluralise with a ‘Z’ should be banned from using all letters of the alphabet, and that miss-calling after you’ve sent a message to hasten a response should be a punishable offence.

Day 7

The end of my experiment has me genuinely wanting to start all over again. As someone that has tried in vain to give up social media on a number of occasions, this is the longest I’ve been without use of it in over 10 years. The distance it has given me to contextualise my technological habits, has been really healthy. It’s given me an appreciation of time in a way that I feel social media obscures it. I can see how much more productive this unit of life has been, and therefore the likely accumulative impact of that. While I am disappointed that I haven’t replastered the house – internet lore suggested I might – my modest achievements are enough to nudge me in a more purposeful direction. I’ll continue to use my platforms to vent about minor inconveniences, but prolonged, mindless use will remain, I hope, a thing of the social-media past.

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia January 2026 Issue