After Jesse Waits realized that his bond with social media was turning into something resembling a Fran Drescher laugh, he used his addiction recovery vocabulary to express it. Having conquered marijuana, the 39-year-old who works at a tech repair counter in Cincinnati was equipped to bid adieu to behaviors that didn’t bring him joy. Waits lives in a house and has friends, thank you very much, but his digital connections are rarer than a unicorn after he quit Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter last year during a virtual colon cleanse. (He does occasionally use Instagram on his desktop to promote his side gig, but that’s it.) He’s happier and more in the moment, he says, though not everyone understands his choice. Some tease, sarcastically saying “Well, good for you,” or share their own social media woes like he’s an unpaid therapist. “Addiction is the wackiest of diseases,” he says, “because it’s a disease that convinces you that you don’t have a disease, right?” While many think social media is as useful as a chocolate teapot, most folks keep up with it. About 64% of US adults consider social media a majorly negative presence for society, yet 72% have at least one account, according to Pew Research Center. It’s been blamed for increasing anxiety, depression, and loneliness among Americans, but people of all ages continue to use it for entertainment, news and cats playing piano. Amid complaints and distrust, social media acts as a modern public square, enabling users to forge potentially lifesaving connections. But for some, life on social media feels like an episode of Black Mirror. In interviews, social media dodgers said it made them feel uneasy or alienated. As the boundaries between online and offline life blur, many unplug completely because the pitfalls—like being overwhelmed by apps and endless streams of content—seem insurmountable. Social media wasn’t exactly staving off loneliness, either. The unpluggeratti often find themselves receiving the same admiring (or annoyed) responses as someone who declares they don’t own a TV. As the social media cost-benefit debate reaches a crescendo, these selective Luddites remain unplugged, listening to Luddite tunes. Thomas, a 28-year-old teacher in Cleveland who uses only his first name to protect his secret identity as an educator, left social media in 2018 when he found himself staying up too late, arguing with relatives about politics and reading unreliable news sources. Cue existential dread. But life without social media is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get. For some users, quitting feels like relief. For others, it’s a steaming pot of anxiety soup. Some studies have compared internet gaming disorders to social media use, citing withdrawal and preoccupation as signs of addiction. But quitting social media isn’t automatically a ticket to happiness. Many find solace and friendships online, research has shown. Whether being logged in feels like heaven or hell depends on various factors. Some of us can be prone to compulsive behavior, while others are sensitive to tragic news or interpersonal interaction. Cutting out social media could be compared to quitting junk food, says Jordan Shapiro, an associate professor at Temple University. True, leaving might feel great and potentially even alleviate some of the nation’s gadget-induced dissatisfaction, but it won’t suddenly empower us to save society from its daily onslaught of poisonous content. Still, despite Shapiro’s warning, Waits doesn’t miss the digital doppelganger he left behind. Social media, he says, feels like a hazy dream that he’s forgotten. Thanks, but no thanks, he quips. “I just choose not to tune into that channel.”