A little over a month ago, I realized that I was concerned more with other people's lives than my own. It wasn't blatantly obvious, but wasting time on social media got in my head in ways that I didn't even realize. It's not that looking at my feed made me unhappy, but I was angry at myself for all the time I was wasting. I picked up my phone and the next thing I knew, an hour went by and I hadn't done anything productive with my life.
I started to really think about the effect it was having on my mental health scrolling through feeds all day and, without even thinking, comparing my routine moments with other people's highlight reels. I realized that instead of working on myself, I was wasting time concerned with what others were doing.
I decided to go on a social media diet. No Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter. I told myself I would take notes of how I felt each day but after a couple days, I stopped doing that. The notes I did happen to jot down were just that I grabbed my phone on the first day trying to check something on Instagram, only to remember that I deleted it from my phone. There wasn't a withdrawal period like you would think nor was there a profound moment where I had an epiphany about my experience. It was just not a part of my life. Deleted just like that.
The experience has been liberating and I feel like I have more freedom. I don't have to snap a picture of what I'm doing or what I'm eating. I only take pictures of moments I really want to remember. I talk to all the people in my life who are important. The amount of friends I talk to through text or over the phone multiplied because we both communicated directly instead of indirectly via social media. I made some important life decisions because I actually had time to think about my own goals and take steps towards achieving them. I've been happier overall and a lot of it has to do with not looking at my phone all the time.
I wouldn't say I was addicted to social media.I never look at my phone when I'm with friends and usually do it when I'm not doing anything important. Well, I can't say 'never' because I know we have all been in a situation where everyone in the room is looking at their phone instead of talking to each other, so you look at your phone because you don't have anything better to do. It happens too often. I can guarantee it happened to you the last time you were in a group setting. Nevertheless, I wanted to see what life was like before we felt the need to troll through everyone else's lives all the time.
I returned to social media yesterday and felt like I didn't really miss anything. I don't know what Instagram was like before we were blessed with memes which is definitely what I missed most along with a few entertaining people on snapchat. Other than that, I didn't miss much because I kept in contact with everyone I wanted to talk to.
I challenge everyone to take some time away from social media and see what you discover about yourself. Whether you use it often or very little, it does have an affect on our psyches that we aren't aware of until we let it go.
The last thing I'll end with is just a thought that came to me a couple days after I deleted everything from my phone and I made a note of in my phone. It's funny how some people think they know you because of what you post on social media when you don't post everything about yourself on there. We all have interests and hobbies that we keep to ourselves and do not feel like we need to broadcast to the world. We should never think we know everything about a person because of their profile. We only know what that person wants us to know.
If you take away one thing from reading this, I hope it's the understanding to use social media as way to complement your life and not detract from actually living it.
I started to really think about the effect it was having on my mental health scrolling through feeds all day and, without even thinking, comparing my routine moments with other people's highlight reels. I realized that instead of working on myself, I was wasting time concerned with what others were doing.
I decided to go on a social media diet. No Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter. I told myself I would take notes of how I felt each day but after a couple days, I stopped doing that. The notes I did happen to jot down were just that I grabbed my phone on the first day trying to check something on Instagram, only to remember that I deleted it from my phone. There wasn't a withdrawal period like you would think nor was there a profound moment where I had an epiphany about my experience. It was just not a part of my life. Deleted just like that.
The experience has been liberating and I feel like I have more freedom. I don't have to snap a picture of what I'm doing or what I'm eating. I only take pictures of moments I really want to remember. I talk to all the people in my life who are important. The amount of friends I talk to through text or over the phone multiplied because we both communicated directly instead of indirectly via social media. I made some important life decisions because I actually had time to think about my own goals and take steps towards achieving them. I've been happier overall and a lot of it has to do with not looking at my phone all the time.
I wouldn't say I was addicted to social media.I never look at my phone when I'm with friends and usually do it when I'm not doing anything important. Well, I can't say 'never' because I know we have all been in a situation where everyone in the room is looking at their phone instead of talking to each other, so you look at your phone because you don't have anything better to do. It happens too often. I can guarantee it happened to you the last time you were in a group setting. Nevertheless, I wanted to see what life was like before we felt the need to troll through everyone else's lives all the time.
I returned to social media yesterday and felt like I didn't really miss anything. I don't know what Instagram was like before we were blessed with memes which is definitely what I missed most along with a few entertaining people on snapchat. Other than that, I didn't miss much because I kept in contact with everyone I wanted to talk to.
I challenge everyone to take some time away from social media and see what you discover about yourself. Whether you use it often or very little, it does have an affect on our psyches that we aren't aware of until we let it go.
The last thing I'll end with is just a thought that came to me a couple days after I deleted everything from my phone and I made a note of in my phone. It's funny how some people think they know you because of what you post on social media when you don't post everything about yourself on there. We all have interests and hobbies that we keep to ourselves and do not feel like we need to broadcast to the world. We should never think we know everything about a person because of their profile. We only know what that person wants us to know.
If you take away one thing from reading this, I hope it's the understanding to use social media as way to complement your life and not detract from actually living it.
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