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College student went social media-free for 3 years. Here are the 4 surprising ways she 'missed out.'

A bit of counter-programming for those of us feeling guilty about our time spent online.

Photo credit: Canva

Social media, when used wisely, can have a lot of benefits.

We've heard so much about how detrimental our collective reliance on social media is. How it robs us of our mental health (not to mention our joy) by making us compare ourselves to others, adhere to advice that is trending rather than what comes from a verifiable source, hyper-fixate on political issues in the name of staying “informed”…the list go on and on and on.

With these factors in mind, it’s understandable that many folks opt out of social media altogether. That’s what college student and TikTok creator Billy (@1ilyp00h) decided to do for three whole years.

However, after coming back to the apps, she was surprised to learn she felt like she genuinely missed out on some pretty good, life-improving things.

For starters, the motivation that comes from seeing other people’s lives.

@1ilyp00h just my thoughts from my own personal experience :) #socialmediadetox ♬ original sound - billy newspaper

Sure, not being inundated with content showing other people living their best lives (or at least curating it to look that way) helps you be “content” with yourself, which Billy admits is a “good thing,” but it can also pave the way to stagnancy.

However, “When you’re on social media, you’re constantly challenged,” she said, noting how it’s inspiring to see people starting businesses, doing a career pivot, or even "crazy" things like climbing Mount Everest.

Going without that kind of exposure, it became “very easy to convince myself that I was doing enough,” said Billy. But being back on, she’s reminded what other things are “possible.”

There’s also the connections she missed out on with friends who remained on platforms like Instagram, X, or TikTok, and did a lot of communicating through there via DMs. Not to mention, the memes brought up that she had no idea about.

“There will be social situations where people bring up something that is viral on social media…and you’re like, hey guys, I actually didn’t see that, but I would like to be involved in the fun.”

social media, digital detox, instagram, snapchat, tiktok, x, memes, college, mental health A group of friends looking over the same meme. Photo credit: Canva

Not being able to “mindlessly interact” in this way is usually seen as a good thing, Billy noted, since it encourages intentionality. At the same time, “There’s something to be said about how nice it is to just sometimes see something that reminds you of your friend and just send it off to them and that’s starting a conversation between you.”

Then, Billy mentioned losing the impetus to capture memories. A common complaint against a social media-driven society is how people miss out on the actual experience of an event because they’re too busy trying to record it. But in Billy’s experience, she regretted not doing it.

“There’s a huge chunk of my life where I just don’t have photos of what I did and it’s sad because I remember now what I did in that time, but 50 years from now…it’ll mostly be gone.”

social media, digital detox, instagram, snapchat, tiktok, x, memes, college, mental health A couple taking a photo of their hike. Photo credit: Canva

Lastly, Billy said she missed out on ways to stay in touch with peripheral connections, such as acquaintances or people she met in a brief moment, like at camps or during summer internships.

Without something like Instagram, these types of people “fall out of your life completely,” which Billy says is a loss.

Down in the comments, other folks also stood up for the potential benefits social media has given them.

“Positive things TikTok has influenced me on: owning dairy goats, canning my own foods, learning how to sew, going to engineering school at 34.”

“Ive learned so many new hobbies and am so influenced by cooking and fashion on there.”

Others agreed that maintaining certain friendships seemed impossible without it.

“It became so hard to keep those people in my life and all of those friendships really suffered the second I deleted social media.”

There is certainly good reason to be wary of social media, but what we garner from Billy’s story is that with balance, we don’t have to miss out on any of the aforementioned benefits that social media does provide. Of course, this is easier said than done, what with the very addictive nature of the apps. But what a reminder to engage in digital detoxes from time to time. Maybe not all of us can do it for three years. But three days? That sounds doable.

It might be difficult to go offline for any extended period of time. And just like Billy did, we’re sure to miss out on some things, since it is such a constant backdrop in daily life. However, doing so helps ensure that when we do come back online, we’re able to do it without losing a bit of ourselves.

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Parents who grew up in the '70s and '80s share the experiences that modern kids can't believe

People weren't very healthy back then, but they were free.

via Wikimedia Commons

Island School Class, circa 1970s.

Parents, do you think your child would be able to survive if they were transported back to the '70s or '80s? Could they live at a time before the digital revolution put a huge chunk of our lives online? These days, everyone has a phone in their pocket, but before then, if you were in public and needed to call someone, you used a pay phone. Can you remember the last time you stuck 50 cents into one and grabbed the grubby handset?

According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, roughly 100,000 pay phones remain in the U.S., down from 2 million in 1999. Do you think a 10-year-old kid would have any idea how to use a payphone in 2022? Would they be able to use a Thomas Guide map to find out how to get somewhere? If they stepped into a time warp and wound up in 1975, could they throw a Led Zeppelin album on the record player at a party? Another big difference between now and life in the '70s and '80s has been public attitudes toward smoking cigarettes.

cigarettes, smoking, hand smoking, smoke, ash, smoking habit, health, '70s, '80sA hand holding a lit cigarette.via Canva/Photos

In 1965, 42.4% of Americans smoked and now, it’s just 12.5%. This sea change in public opinion about smoking means there are fewer places where smoking is deemed acceptable.

But in the early '80s, you could smoke on a bus, on a plane, in a movie theater, in restaurants, in the classroom and even in hospitals. How would a child of today react if their third-grade teacher lit up a heater in the middle of math class?

Dan Wuori, senior director of early learning at the Hunt Institute, tweeted that his high school had a smoking area “for the kids.” He then asked his followers to share “something you experienced as a kid that would blow your children’s minds. ”A lot of folks responded with stories of how ubiquitous smoking was when they were in school. While others explained that life was perilous for a kid, whether it was the school playground equipment or questionable car seats.

Here are a few responses that’ll show today’s kids just how crazy life used to be in the '70s and '80s.

First of all, let’s talk about smoking.



Want to call someone? Need to get picked up from baseball practice? You can’t text mom or dad, you’ll have to grab a quarter and use a pay phone.



People had little regard for their kids’ safety or health.








You could buy a soda in school.

Things were a lot different before the internet.


While it was fun to call into a radio station and wait with your ear by the radio to hear "Careless Whisper" by Wham! in 1984, you have to admit that kids have it a lot easier these days. All they have to do is jump on YouTube or Spotify, and they can hear it instantly. But that begs a big question: With music being so easy to access these days, does it become more disposable than it was when you had to wait all day to hear a song or drive downtown to the record store and pay $6.99 for an album (in 1982 money)?


Remember pen pals?


Many people bemoan the fact that today's children aren’t as tough as they were a few decades ago. But that’s probably because today's parents are better attuned to their kids’ needs, so they don't have to cheat death to make it through the day. But just imagine how easy parenting would be if all you had to do was throw your kids a bag of Doritos and a Coke for lunch, and you never worried about strapping them into a car seat?

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Snooping mom who thought she caught teen babysitter smoking a cigar was hilariously wrong

"Keep your habits private from the kids!"

via Sarah Holderr/ Twitter

Sarah Holder looking at her phone.

Anyone with a Nextdoor account knows that some neighbors are terribly nosy. There are also a lot of folks who love to complain … about everything. These looky-loos can also be especially suspicious of what the local teenagers are doing.

Sarah Holder, a teenager from Overland Park, Kansas, babysits for her neighbor, Amy. One day, Amy texts Sarah saying that her husband, Randy, caught her smoking while driving her car. First, Randy should have minded his own business. Secondly, if he has a problem with her smoking, he could have talked to her about it personally. There's no need to narc on her to his wife.

Amy's big problem was that there were a lot of children on the street, and she didn't want Sarah to set a bad example for them.

smoking, teenagers, nieghbors, babysitters, driving, text messages, A text sent to Sarah Holder.via Sarah Holderr/ Twitter

]In the text, she refers to a "a cigar of some sort," which seems like she was accusing Sarah of smoking a blunt—a cigar with marijuana rolled into it. This makes sense because it's rare to see a teenage girl smoking a cigar, especially these days when teenagers are a lot more fond of vaping than smoking cigarettes.

Even though Amy was accusing her of an illegal act, Sarah responded with good humor, admitting that, in fact, she was only eating a taquito, which from a distance, could look like a cigar. "Hey, it was just a taquito, no bad habits here," she responded to Amy with a happy face emoji.

taquitos, sarah holder, x, cigars, funny texts, kansas, habitsSarah Holder showing a half-eaten taquito.via Sarah Holderr/ Twitter

"I feel bad because in my opinion [my neighbor] is crazy nice and I get where she's coming from," Sarah told BuzzFeed News. "She hasn't responded, I'm assuming out of embarrassment."

Sarah told the Daily Mail that she was quick to defend herself because she didn't want people to think that she was a smoker. "'I didn't want all my neighbors and friends to think I was setting a bad example. I do not smoke," said. "'My family does know and my mother was excited about my 'fame.' My neighbor has not replied and I have not seen them since."

Sarah posted the interaction on a since-deleted Twitter post, which completely blew up, earning over 280,000 likes. And, of course, the folks on Twitter had a lot to say about Amy and her nosy hubby. A lot of people in the comments thought that Amy and Randy need to butt out of other people's business.


All in all, the story is a great reminder to all of us to be careful about making assumptions about people, especially when we see them from a distance. Sometimes, what seems like a nefarious act—a teen smoking a cigar—is really just the neighborhood babysitter enjoying a delicious snack.

This article originally appeared six years ago.

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Irish hitchhiker reacts to learning he's a big reason why Dave Grohl started the Foo Fighters

For nearly 30 years, no one believed his story.

via FoosDublin/Wikimedia Commons and

Dave Grohl preforming in Dublin, Ireland and Lorcan Dunne.

When Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, the world lost a songwriter who was one of the most important artists of Generation X. The surviving members of Nirvana lost their friend, band and sense of purpose.

“When Kurt died and it all ended, I didn’t know what to do with my life,” Nirvana’s drummer, Dave Grohl, told “The Graham Norton Show” in 2021. “I couldn’t listen to music anymore because it hurt too much so I tried to escape and went to Ireland to soul search.”

To grieve his friend's death, he visited the Ring of Kerry in Ireland and disappeared to the “most remote place on Earth.” There, a chance encounter with a young Irishman would change the trajectory of his life and career.



Why did Dave Grohl start the Foo Fighters?

“I was driving around in my rental car on a country road and I saw this hitchhiker kid. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll pick him up’. And as I got closer to him, I saw that he had a Kurt Cobain t-shirt on,” Grohl said. “It was Kurt’s face looking back at me…in the middle of nowhere!”

The drummer had traveled to the other side of the world to get away from his grief and realized his past was inescapable.

“I realized like, ‘Oh. I can’t outrun this’. So I need to go home and f**king get back to work. And so I did,” Grohl recalled. When he returned home, he started recording the first album of his new band, the Foo Fighters.

Who was the Irish hitchhiker who inspired Dave Grohl to start the Foo Fighters?

Nearly thirty years after Grohl encountered a stranger in a Kurt Cobain t-shirt who would change the trajectory of his life, the hitchhiker, Lorcan Dunne, has come forward to share his side of the story. His cousin, Eoin Tighe, shared a video on Twitter of Dunne telling his story, which his sister, Claire Tighe, edited together.

“We were down on the Beara Peninsula on a holiday and we hitched up to this place to go swimming. I was running and I saw a car there, so I thought I’d run up and hitch. When I was hitching, I looked into who was sitting in the passenger seat – but it was David Grohl,” Dunne shared in the video.

Tighe told Upworthy that his cousin was 15 years old at the time.

“I didn’t recognize him firstly, but I saw this look of shock on the guy’s face… and I had a Nirvana t-shirt on with Kurt Cobain on it,” Dunne continued. “It was black tie-dye, the one with Kurt where he has the mascara on his face. I saw the look of shock and the next thing, the car just tore off, away. And I turned round like, ‘That was David Grohl, lad!’ Nobody believed me!”

Two weeks before the video was filmed, Dunne came across a video of Grohl talking about his experience in Ireland. Dunne had no idea that he had played a role in the birth of the Foo Fighters and finally had confirmation from Grohl himself that he met the drummer all those years ago.

“So you made the Food Fighters!” a friend of Dunne’s screams at the end of the video, to which Dunne responds emphatically, “Yeah!”

Grohl released the Foo Fighters' eponymous debut album on July 4, 1995. He played every instrument on the album save for one guitar part by Greg Dulli of The Afghan Wigs. The album would go on to be a hit, selling over 3.3 million copies, and now, as a Foo Fighter, Grohl would go on to enjoy one of the greatest second acts in rock history.

As of the time this article was published, Tighe told Upworthy that Grohl has yet to respond to the tweet.

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