Lorde Says Quitting Social Media Was 'Horribly Difficult:' My 'Brain Wasn't Working Well Anymore'

Lorde rid herself of social media to help her mental health.

In a new interview with James Corden on The Late Late Show, the singer revealed that she completely blocked social media sites from her phone because of the effects she says they were having on her brain.

"I did it because I felt like my brain wasn't working very well anymore," said Lorde, 24, who recently released her album Solar Power. "It was horribly difficult, the hardest thing I've ever done. It's still horribly difficult every day. It would be like stopping eating sugar for me like I still eat tons of sugar. And if I don't have sugar, I feel insane."

"And the first little while of not being on social media was totally like that. I was so crabby," she said. "I felt so disconnected. But it's how my life is now."

Lorde says she's gotten rid of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, but instead, she uses New York Times' cooking app and looks at the comments instead.

"That's become a source of community for me," she said. "You get all these weird little stories. 'Someone's like, 'I make this for my husband when he gets home from work and he does this.' Every once in a while you get some kind of detail. You'll find something and you'll make it into that."

Corden said he, too, has taken social media breaks but they last no longer than a month. Lorde explained that her assistant has "all my passwords" now and that she even found a way to block search engines from her phone.

"This was next level sort of crazy," she said, before adding, "I can't Google on my phone. I can't have Safari or anything like that. I kind of love it. You actually don't need to Google as many things as you think you need to — just do it at home on your computer!"

She also explained that she has always avoided reading articles and stories about herself, instead it was just "the experience of reading about the world all the time" forced her to not even decide "how I felt about anything."

"It's fun to actually enjoy the maps," said Lorde. "You have a thing in your phone to tell you where you are and where to go?"

During the interview, Lorde also teased her upcoming tour, saying that fans expect a "transcendent experience at her shows."

"I just want to be as connected as possible and I'm trying to do it without relying on a ton of screens," she explained. "I'm playing intimate venues, theatres, which is cozy. I really like doing small shows. You should see me in arenas, I'm not at ease."