The Purpose

“In October 2020, I decided to take a break from social media for a month.

At the time, it wasn’t some big life decision or productivity challenge. I just felt like I needed a reset. Without really realizing it, social media had started taking up a lot more space in my life than I was comfortable with.

Earlier that year, the world had changed in ways none of us expected. With COVID, everything suddenly became more digital. Work meetings moved to Zoom, events were cancelled, travel stopped, and many of us were spending most of our time at home. Friends and family weren’t visiting the way they used to, and screens became the main way we stayed connected to the outside world.

Like many people, I found myself on my phone more and more. At first it felt normal given the circumstances, but over time I started noticing how much time I was actually spending scrolling. I would check my phone in the morning, again during the day, and then late at night before going to sleep. What started as a quick check would turn into long stretches of scrolling through news, opinions, and other people’s lives. The more time I spent on social media, the more overwhelmed I started to feel. Even though I knew most of what we see online is curated, it was still easy to fall into the trap of comparison. I was consuming constant information, headlines, and opinions, and it started to feel like my mind never really had a break. I also realized I had fallen into the habit of doom-scrolling. I would open my phone for a moment and suddenly twenty or thirty minutes had passed. It wasn’t even something I was enjoying anymore it had just become automatic.

That’s when I decided to step away for a full month. The first few days were harder than I expected. I would instinctively reach for my phone without even thinking about it. It made me realize how deeply the habit had formed.

But after a little while, something started to shift. My mind felt calmer. I felt more present in conversations. I had more time in my day and more clarity than I had felt in a long time. I was reading more, spending more time outside, and feeling more connected to the people and things around me. It ended up being one of the best months I had experienced in years. When I eventually returned to social media, I saw it differently.

I realized that while these platforms can be incredibly useful, they can also quietly take over more of our attention than we realize. I also had to face the reality that I couldn’t simply avoid it forever. Social media is part of my work, and like many people today, my career involves being online. Marketing, communication, and staying connected with clients all live on the same platforms that can sometimes feel overwhelming.

So instead of trying to remove it completely, I had to learn something more important: how to create balance. Learning when to log on with intention, and when to log off for my own well-being. Once I became more aware of my own habits, I started noticing the same patterns everywhere around me friends feeling overwhelmed by social media, family members constantly checking their phones, and younger people growing up in a world where screens are always within reach.

Phones and social media aren’t the problem on their own. They are powerful tools. But many of us have never been taught how to step back and reset our relationship with them.

That experience is what led me to create Offline.

Offline isn’t about rejecting technology or disappearing from the internet. It’s about becoming more aware of how we use it and making space for the parts of life that happen away from a screen. This journal was created as a simple guide to help people pause, reflect, and reconnect with themselves even while living in a very digital world. Because sometimes the most valuable thing we can do for our minds is simply take a step back and log off for a little while.”

- Ashley Coleman (Founder)