Virat Kohli of India interacts with his phone following victory after the ICC Men's T20 Cricket World Cup West Indies & USA 2024 Final match between South Africa and India at Kensington Oval on June 29, 2024 in Bridgetown, Barbados

Virat Kohli has opened up about his evolving relationship with social media, revealing why he no longer posts personal content.

Speaking at the RCB Innovation Lab's Indian Sports Summit, Kohli revealed that he is "consciously" trying to cut down his time on social media. He feels that the reactions posts on such platforms generate are "quite intense."

'Felt like it was taking a lot of my energy away'

"The kind of attention you get and the kind of traction you receive when you put something out there on a platform is quite unbelievable to be honest. It's quite intense. Luckily I was born in a time where I didn't work with this thing [my phone] in my pocket," Kohli said.

"So for me to just keep it on the side is pretty easy. Hence I don't engage in posts a lot these days. A lot of people are not happy about that but that's something that I've consciously tried to do.

"Because as I said, to keep up with that stream was just way too much. I just physically felt like it was taking a lot of my energy away from me which I would absolutely apply to my game, to my life, people around me. And I didn't want to waste any of that."

Kohli: I'm disconnecting the personal and professional lives

Kohli, the most followed cricketer on social media, with over 270 million Instagram followers, admitted that his posts these days largely consist of brand commitments he agreed to in the past. However, he is now making a conscious effort to draw a line between his personal and professional life.

"A lot of the things that I still have to do on social media are the things that I've kind of agreed to in the past," he explained.

"But if you ask me today, I'm making a conscious effort not to include my social media handle which is private to me. In terms of whatever I'm doing next in my life, I'm kind of disconnecting the two. And I wanted to be able to do that because what happens is if you only see branded content on your platform, then people are like, oh, there's nothing being posted apart from this here. And it just becomes too complicated."

Kohli then opened up on why he refrains from posting on social media, even after winning tournaments, for example.

"So I didn't want anything to do with it. And yeah, for me, posting about, for example, us winning the championship, it's not going to increase the happiness in my heart. They all know we've won the trophy. So me posting about it is not going to give us two trophies. The reality stays the same," he explained.

He concluded: "I think when you are at a stage for a long period of your life, when you perform and people get used to your performances, they start feeling for you more than you are sometimes. I might not have an Australia tour again in me, in four years' time, I don't know."

Having scored 218 runs at an average of 54.50, Kohli was a vital cog in India's third Champions Trophy title recently. Among his notable knocks, the standouts were the hundred against Pakistan during the group stage and a 98-ball 84 in a tricky run chase in the semi-final against Australia.

Follow Wisden for all cricket updates, including live scores, match stats, quizzes and more. Stay up to date with the latest cricket news, player updates, team standings, match highlights, video analysis and live match odds.