As Analog As it Gets
Why I Quit Social Media in 2026—and Chose an Analog Life Instead
I mean, I’m here, on an iPad, writing a blog that I will eventually send out to hundreds of people on my email list…and minutes before this I put a Kroger order in on my phone that I will pick up at my convenience. In fact, I’ll avoid entering the store and the interactions that come with it all together thanks to my phone. So, “analog life 2026” feels like a bit of a stretch, but, this is as analog as it gets around here.
Many of you are here because you followed me as I attempted (and quite honestly, succeeded) to build an art business through social media. However, I could not deny the nudge that I continually felt to get the heck off of that scroll machine. It was taking my present moment from me over and over again. Creating underlying stress, anxiety, and irritation. I’ve never really struggled with comparison (and I thank the Lord because I’m not sure how I slipped out of that one), but even when I didn’t realize it I was in a constant state of comparison. Micro-comparisons. Comparisons that never hit me like a ton of bricks at the time, but after a while I could feel the mounting weight of them on my chest.
So—and I’m embarrassed to admit this, truly, I am—at about 10:30 on December 31st I sat on my couch weeping as I went to delete my social media. Now, you may read this and think “wow, weeping? Girl must’ve been realllly addicted, good thing she got off.” So I want to be clear. I was relieved to say goodbye to the scroll, I do not miss the constant news, noise, unsolicited opinions, and drama. Truly, BUH-BYE. Ultimately, I was very fearful for what this meant for my art business. Social media was how I made money. Point blank. Deleting it was deleting a pretty decent source of income for us. I’d have to figure out a brand new way, and I had/have no idea what that way is. You’re here, along for the ride, at least marginally interested in my work and life. The magnitude of that when I understand how much noise there is…is not lost on me, thanks.
THE ANALOG JOURNAL
I’ve kept a bit of a journal over the past month. Here’s where the analog journey has taken me:
Day 1: I spent over an hour during the girls nap time researching the history of Priscilla and Elvis Presley along with every other woman he dated. Why? I grayscaled my phone. This is going to be harder than I thought
Day 2: the most interesting and scrollable apps on my phone right now are Kroger and the Bible. Groceries are far less appealing in black and white, and yet, I now have a firm grasp on the full Kroger inventory. I’ve read 8 chapters of the Bible before 9am. Started scrolling the Costco app and that just felt like a new low.
In the first 36 hours I have scrubbed my floors, something I haven’t done in at least 9 months 😬
Day 4: finished my first book…4 days into the year. 1/5 of what I read for the entirety of 2025.
Day 6: finished my second book, one I had started in 2024…”the Flourishing Family”. It had wisdom in it I have desperately needed. Wish I would’ve just read it when I first started it.
Day 14: started and finished my third book, a fiction read, just for fun. Now 3/5 of the way to where I ended last year. Down to less than 2 hours a day on my phone, I was around 4.5 before.
Day 18: I’ve now read as many books as I read during all of 2025
Day 21: finished my 6th book, I was about 1/3 of the way into it when the year started. I initially started it in October 2025 // finished my “read the Bible in a year” reading plan I started mid January last year.
Day 22: finished my 7th book.
Day 23: set up my Brick, was bricked for the last 24 hours. Not a single message or email making its way to me. No notifications, nothing. It was a beautiful thing.
Day 28: finished my 8th book. How did I ever forget how much I loved reading?
A REVELATION THAT LEVELED ME
I had this revelation around day 10:
With my previous phone use at 4.5 hours a day, if I lived to be 80, I will spend 8.5 of those YEARS on my phone. So essentially, similar to passing at 71.5 instead of 80. I know the theory doesn’t really hold up because it’s spread out across a long period of time but those are years MISSED, spent in a phone. Present moments stolen. (And believe me, I spent a long time lying to myself that I could be present AND be on my phone, the brain science is clear - this is impossible).
In the last 8.5 years alone I have lived in Hawaii as a full time missionary, traveled around California for 3 months, traveled the fashion week circuit working backstage for major fashion designers, spent 2 months in Europe, worked in the non-profit, higher education, and corporate sectors, got an MBA, learned salesforce (lol), wrote a book, wrote a curriculum used in the public schools for the mental health of high schoolers, gotten married, had 4 children, and started my career as a full time artist. I don’t recognize myself from 8.5 years ago from all the ways I’ve healed, grown, and gained immeasurable freedom.
I consider, at 71, which of my great grandchildren would I not meet? How many of them would I never know? What weddings would I not attend? What major life changes in my children and grandchildren would I miss? What art would I not make? What travel would I not take? What in my marriage would I miss? What healing would I not experience? What freedom would I only get to experience in heaven? Heck, what would God be doing that I’d have no part of this side of heaven?
These considerations are too big to think my phone use as neutral at best at this point. As major silicone tech CEOs have said over and over - “the smart phone is like having the devil in your pocket” - and I can’t think of anyone more interested in stealing, killing and destroying life more than the devil.
So anyway, yeah, I’m loving this analog life. And I’m still working on it every day.
One last thing, and then I’m done. Brian went through this major tech change about 3 years ago. Had some similar epiphanies, exchanged his smart phone for a flip phone and went ALL in on analog. He would talk about it similarly to how I’m talking about it here - passionately and with conviction. Never once was he intentionally shaming or guilting me because of my phone use, but I felt shame about it often. I told him over and over “good for him, but I could never.” And I felt a lot of things because of this. Shame, guilt, condemnation, etc. etc. It had nothing to do with Brian, and everything to do with me.
SO, I pray when you read what I write you DON’T hear shame or condemnation. I hope it feels like hope if you need hope. I share for one reason - I thought I could never be the girl who said goodbye to these things in this way (gosh, especially when there was 4 figures cash money tied to it). I want the person who like me, sat there for years making excuses as to why I couldn’t (but deep down desperately wanted to), see that if I can do it, they can do it too. TRULY. Because lest we forget that I was the girl WEEPING while I deleted things. I’m the girl sitting here still trying to figure it out, still unsure of what this looks like. I write all of this and share all of this to let someone out there know that I’m out here whacking down the wilderness with a machete…just trying to clear a path for those to come. I share this with so much freaking love that condemnation has absolutely zero say here. Just wanted to make it abundantly clear that there is no judgement in my heart for those who either take a different path, or are simply waiting for this path to clear. Babe, I’m clearing it for you <3
xoxo, gg
