On 10 January 2022 I thought I was going a bit mad.

Or maybe, after everything that had happened over the past two years and with the country in the grip of yet another Covid surge, I’d just had enough. If my social media feeds were anything to go by, so had everyone else. Every time I opened Instagram or Twitter I felt caught up in a maelstrom of anger and hopelessness.

After reading one self-righteous rant too many, I made the snap decision to step away from social media. I didn’t announce it. I just disappeared. I was curious to see what might happen and, more importantly, whether it would help.

As virtual dust settled on my profiles, I realised this decision had been building for some time. I didn’t know whether social media was the problem or whether I was. All I knew was something had to give.

Within a week, my screen time was down a whopping 81%. And it wasn’t just time I had regained. I felt as though I had my brain back. I had the ability to focus, to think clearly and deeply. I had more energy. I was sleeping better. I felt more creative and confident. My fear of missing out had vanished.

As the weeks passed, I noticed how much more relaxed I was, despite everything going on around me. It felt rebellious, thrilling even, to have vanished into thin air. My Fitbit reported the lowest resting heart rate I’d had in months.

Initially I decided to see if I could make it through a week. Then two. It’s now been 16 months and counting.

Every time I consider returning, the case against it is stronger. I don’t want to go back to feeling anxious, sad, inadequate or in need of external validation every time I pick up my phone. Of course I haven’t stopped feeling those things but there’s been a drastic reduction. I notice those feelings faster and, because they’re not being fed, they don’t linger as they used to.

Stepping away from social media also made me take my work more seriously. Instead of channelling my creativity into captions, it went into my actual writing – my PhD thesis, a novel. Without the ability to tab elsewhere, I stayed in my chair when I hit writer’s blocks and then pushed through them. I wrote more in 2022 than I ever have. I applied for fellowships and entered competitions, and won some. Social media, it seemed, had not been the bolstering place of inspiration I thought.

I also discovered a community of people who had done the same thing and I found great comfort knowing it wasn’t just me. Where did I find them? Good old-fashioned blogs.

I began writing online nearly 20 years ago, when the word “blog” was still unfamiliar to many. I loved blogging and built a strong community without any of the platforms at our disposal now. When blogs became unfashionable, that energy was transferred into social media. So last year I stepped back in time and started blogging again. Some people came looking for me there – that was heartening.

Trying to keep up with friends has been a bit trickier. Some friendships have flourished during my social media absence. I’m grateful that most happily transferred over to text or email. I’ve even become old-fashioned penpals with several interstate friends. But there are a few whom I considered very good friends whose communication has dropped off, too. This has been the only real downside of the whole experiment. I’ve tried not to take it too personally – it was my choice to step away. But I wasn’t stepping away from those friendships, nor asking them to do the same.

I lamented over a friend’s silence to my husband. “Have I upset them?” I asked, a little panicked. He shook his head. “They still like and respond to everything I put on Instagram. I don’t think they’d do that if they were upset. It’s just, to some people, if you’re not on socials, you don’t exist.” Weirdly, that made me feel a little better.

Social media exploits a primal human need – connection. And it is harder to find when you don’t want to hang out where everyone else is. But now when I open my phone I rarely come away feeling lost. Rather than letting an algorithm dictate my life, I’m living it on my own terms.

• Philippa Moore is a Hobart-based writer who is completing her PhD in creative writing and colonial history. You can follow her blog here