Wake up! You’re late for the rest of your life!

How getting off social media changed my perception of myself, others, and every magnificently ordinary day.

costa brava

One day I woke up and realized I had absolutely no idea who I was or how I got here.

When you wake up every day of your life in a siloed house filled with constant chatter–about who you are meant to be, what you are supposed to look like, what music you should listen to, how and who you should love, how your body should look, what issues you should care about, what other people are doing, what they think of your new post, where you should travel, how you should spend your time, how successful you should be, how many friends you have, how cool those friends are, how cool you aren’t–there is no beginning to who you are and end to who others think you are.

The best part of living inside the confines of a screen is that one day, you can simply wake up like it is any other day and choose to do things completely differently.

It started with getting rid of Snapchat. Where thereafter, I was able to choose who and how I loved–how I showed up for those I loved. I was able to let go of the relationships that life had been asking me to accept I had naturally grown out of. I could let go of the pressure to keep up with everyone and just be there for the ones who matter. There is a magical duration in people’s lives where they are meant to know and love and care for each other. Social media gave me an inexplicable ability to mess around with life’s timing. Predicating the strength of my relationships on the length of a Snap streak was like someone else setting an alarm clock for me on a super important day where I knew I had to be up early. And it’s like, who is this guy, Snap, and how do they know what time I need to be up? Only the super important day is every day of my life, and the event I had to wake up for was being there for the ones who matter and loving them on the timing life asks of me. They will never have to wonder if I’ll be late again.

So on the day I finally woke up on time, I had to actually figure out what I wanted to do differently that day. This meant walking out of the house and putting on a new pair of rose-colored glasses. And, wow, everything I had missed was just there waiting for me.

solo museum day in san francisco

The amount of extraordinary things that happen on any given day are dependent on what you notice. When I got rid of TikTok, I took back my ability to give notice to my time, my voice, my opinions, my values. So now, when there is nothing to do on my phone while I am waiting in line, I notice that the person next to me also doesn’t know what to order and so I talk to them. When I notice myself regurgitating rhetoric from years of for-you and explore page dogma, I stop and ask myself if these beliefs are really my own or just what my algorithm told me I should believe. This noticing has encouraged me to open-mindedly engage with those in my community. It is imperative that I am consciously a part of the change I want to see in my community and in this country; that starts with noticing the way others think and live and seeking to understand them. The ability to extend compassion to others by noticing them for who they are–not who I believe them to be–drastically changed the way I notice the world. This compassion was also long overdue to myself. Now, when I am uncomfortable with the thoughts in my brain, I notice them too, and I thank them for being here, and then I send them gracefully on their way out. This noticing made me seek the extraordinary in every plant, person, place, and thing–besides myself.

The hardest part of all of this was having to do something about the fact that every morning I woke up, checked my phone with indolence, and I began to hate almost everything about the way I looked. This sounds super serious, but it isn’t. Because, well, everyone kinda does. At least, mostly everyone I know hated their thighs and their smile lines and compared themselves to others in the same way, but we all do, so we all just keep doing it. And you know what, it actually is super serious.

We weren’t ever supposed to live this way. We are not born hating our bodies and believing we will never be worthy–we are taught this. When I got rid of Instagram, I woke up on this day, and I took back my body. Not only as a young girl, but also as a model, each measured inch of my entire body along with every picture taken of myself exists online. The way I viewed my worthiness of desire, success, and love were contingent on others’ interactions and engagement with my curated aesthetics and images.

w/ TIMOTHY F (@timothyfernandezphotographer)

When I took back my body, my world changed for myself and the other women in my life. When my body no longer existed on the hierarchy I built in my head based on who was on my feed that day, I was able to set myself and others free. I set myself free in a way that no amount of likes or comments ever could. My constant vying for proof of my worthiness of desire, success, and love was a fallacy that I thought only others’ engagement with my life could one day resolve. But they couldn’t. So on this day I woke up and finally decided I had enough–enough desire, success, and radical love for the body and world I want to live in. And it was this day and every day since then that I wake up and–even when it’s hard–choose to know that I am enough.

So, every day since that one day I woke up on time for the life I wanted, I have the time to do things differently. When I first got rid of social media I had no idea how my life would change. And while it took over two years to finally delete everything (besides LinkedIn which is still up for debate), everything has changed. I will spend the rest of my life waking up and choosing the life that is right in front of me over and over and over again.

And by the way, it really never is too late to be on time for these kinds of things. Life takes no offense to our lack of punctuality. So, let this article shake you awake lightly and slightly open the curtains, because my dear, it is time to get up. The sun is starting to rise and the rest of your life is waiting for you.

Founded in 2025, Reconnect Stanford is a Stanford student-led movement & non-profit dedicated to helping people step away from addictive platforms and toward meaningful connection, time, and attention. We build community around social media sobriety through stories, support for students who delete, peer-to-peer mentorship with middle and high schoolers, and events where peers disconnect together.

To learn more and support our cause, visit reconnectstanford.org. To submit a guest piece, email reconnectstanford@gmail.com

About the author: Mahalia Morgan is a founding member and Chief Financial Officer of Reconnect Stanford. Raised in Novato, California, she is a third-year economics student at Stanford University. She deleted her social media accounts in 2025.