Remove social media from your phone for a better year of 2026

What if I tell you that there is one thing you can do this year that will improve your productivity, help you regain clarity, boost your self-esteem, reduce your anxiety and improve your ability to focus? Yes, you can get better at 5 things by doing just one thing. And it’s not something you have to be doing regularly. You can make a decision once and just stick to it. January of 2026 is the best time to do it. I did it a few months ago. Now it’s your turn:

• Get rid of the social media algorithm
• How about using screen time instead? How about limiting it?
• What if I need to post to social media?
• Log in to social media in a browser on your computer
• Make your phone boring again… and creative!
• Benefits of the Kindle app - the Kindle device before going to sleep!
• Mastodon as an exception? Maybe, but maybe not…
• The benefits of removing social media from the phone…

Get rid of the social media algorithm

All major social media networks are governed by an algorithm these days. Gone are the days that you would follow only a few people or brands and get content only from them. One exception is the geeky open social protocol called Mastodon, but other than that, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Threads… and all other networks are serving you content based on an algorithm that automatically decides what would keep you engaged, motivated and scrolling these apps as long as possible.

Yes, you can try to be brave and use as much willpower as possible to resist the algorithms, but you’ll ultimately fail.

The engineers from these companies are too smart for any of us.

We have no fighting chance. They are tweaking the algorithm constantly to make sure we keep losing and coming back for more content tailored to us. The only viable option is to give up.

And this is what I propose. You can win against the algorithm by not succumbing to it. By rejecting it completely. By getting rid of it.

Here’s my challenge for 2026 - remove social media from your phone.

How about using screen time instead? How about limiting it?

The point of this challenge is to change your relationship with your phone. Now, by having social media apps installed, it’s a source of dopamine. It’s an addictive piece of technology that’s always in your pocket ready to give you a boost of empty short-term joy or anxiety. It’s your source of stress.

Even if you set a ScreenTime limit for yourself, you’ll always be able to override it. I know. I tried that. And even if you’ll let someone else set the ScreenTime code for you, you’ll be like this addict craving more and figuring out ways to override the limit. Your phone will remain your source of addiction.

That’s why there is no other way.

Social media apps must be removed completely from your phone and you should log out of them in the browser, too.

What if I need to post to social media?

If you really need to post from your phone, you can still set it up to do it. I’m logged into Buffer app which lets me post right away or schedule posting. I have also several Shortcuts configured that let me post content anytime. No problem with that.

You can post from your phone, but you cannot browse algorithmically served content on it. That’s the point of the challenge.

Log in to social media in a browser on your computer

Now, if you need social media for work, you can set up an additional profile in Safari or Chrome and log in to all of your socials there.

I actually have several profiles in Safari. On one I’m logged in to my private social media, on the other I’m logged in to the official Nozbe channels. And I only use social media when I’m at the computer in a browser. This way I can schedule time to interact with my followers, check replies and verify my posts.

Social media is still a thing I do, but as part of my work. Not part of my phone-as-dopamine-source addiction.

As you know, my main computer is an M4 iPad Pro, because I’m #iPadOnly, so on it I use stage manager and have all social apps on one separate stage configured. This way when I need to “do social media work” I can switch to that stage and interact with the apps. Later I can just switch stages and get back to work.

Make your phone boring again… and creative!

I’ve rearranged my Home Screen so that I have apps like Kindle or Reeder there. I read books on Kindle and I read long-form content like blogs or watch YouTube videos by subscribing to them via RSS in the app called Reeder.

There is no algorithm on my phone. When I pick it up I can continue reading a book or catch up on the blogs from my favorite bloggers. Or watch the latest video from my favorite YouTuber without all the suggested videos below it. Or I listen to audiobooks or podcasts on it with my new AirPods Pro 3.

My phone is still interesting. Just less so. It’s more… boring.

Benefits of the Kindle app - the Kindle device before going to sleep!

Having the Kindle app on my phone not only changed my relationship with it, but also improved my going-to-sleep routine. Now, instead of browsing the phone before falling asleep, which is not healthy for me, I just use the phone to write my evening journal and I put it away on a MagSafe charger. No browsing social media, no reading the news, no dopamine shots. I pick up my Kindle device which is a simple eBook reader and I read a book on a black-white e-ink screen and when I notice I’m falling asleep I put it aside and drift away.

Mastodon as an exception? Maybe, but maybe not…

Until today the one and only social network I had still installed on my phone was Mastodon, because this is an old-school timeline based social feed. I follow people and when they post stuff I see it in chronological order. There is no algorithm. However, I noticed that it was still a kinda source of a dopamine rush for me. People I follow post news. They post comments about current events. I get sucked in. I get emotional.

So today, as I write these words, I decided to also remove the app Ivory (which I use for Mastodon) from my iPhone and keep it only on the iPad so I can check it when I decide I do social media stuff.

The benefits of removing social media from the phone…

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I’m not challenging you to remove social media from your phone because I want you to become a zen monk. There are 5 actual benefits to doing it:

• It will improve your productivity as you’ll find more creative ways to use the phone than just a dopamine-shot-providing-device
• It will help you regain clarity as you’ll more consciously will pick up the phone to perform a certain task and not just to distract yourself.
• It will boost your self-esteem as you won’t waste time following other people’s lives and feeling sorry for yourself and thinking what you’re doing is less exciting
• It will reduce your anxiety as you won’t be bombarded with all the news from all over the world all of the time.
• And finally it will improve your ability to focus as you won’t be mindlessly scrolling quick-bite information but you’ll switch to long-form reading and content consumption.

Seriously, what’s not to like? 😜

I encourage you to make this change with me and remove social media from your phone for 2026 as an experiment and see how you feel and if the benefits I’m mentioning will materialize. Cal Newport, the author of “Deep work” is a best-selling author with practically no social media presence and he’s still successful and he’s preaching the very same thing.

I’ve removed social media from my iPhone. Have you?