What I Found during My 30-Days Social Media Fasting
Social media becomes part of our daily lives nowadays. It has undoubtedly brought positive impacts as well as the negative ones depend on how we use it and how we process the provided information.
As a user who use various kind of social media accounts regularly, I start to think extremely:
“In this age of digital world, are we really okay to live without social media?
If you use them daily and become part of your life, would you like to let yourself free from opening those things?”
Since January 24th, I challenged myself to not open MY social media accounts that are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Path, through mobile apps and website version. I even uninstalled all of them from my smartphone.
(Actually I still sometimes opened accounts belong to my community, just to post something, but in other hand phone. Install -> post -> uninstall depend on the need)
I just want to observe what my self will be like without opening personal social media accounts for a month. Yes! I like observing ;)
What is the purpose?
Actually I do not have any certain purpose. I just wonder if in the past when we were in school, we had no social media (may be had, but the choice is limited) and we were just okay.
Are we okay if today we are not too often using social media account?
Have social media become our primary need that always should be fulfilled?
Would our life be empty if we don’t have or open any social media account?
Are we become socially awkward in the real life?
Are we happy living without it?
I did not get the answer for all those questions, but I just found many lessons during one month.
#After 1 week
I practiced to not always express my emotion. Due to social media could be a kind of self expression for everything I feel, my tendency to tweet everything I did or posted any photo I like on Instagram seemed to be decreased. My emotion started to be steady because everything I felt just passed through my mind and went with the wind. I was not supposed to express it on twitter as usually I did.
Apparently it affected my emotion when I had to face unexpected bad conditions such as suck traffic in this crazy Jakarta or when I had to wait for ojek online which sometimes took a long time. I became more patient and enjoyed everything happened.
Social media can sometimes become my focus destruction. To be honest, when I scrolled down my timeline, I sometimes stared at other people’s business which are not related to my life. Then I would think about them, assumed something unimportant and so on. Even I unconsciously abandoned my own plan, target and what I have to do. So, I intend to end all of this.
Well, I do not try to become selfish but I try to focus on myself, to look deeper on myself, to focus on my purpose without seeing other people’s thoughts out there. And the most important was I spent more time to connect with God.
It was awesome to not open any social media account for several times.
#After 2 weeks
Peaceful. One of the words that I really felt for this one month. I didn’t know exactly why. But I guessed it might be because I had no tendency to express any kind of emotion and had no assumption which is not related to my life.
Productive. I spent time by reading and writing or singing or doing chores or doing chit chat with old friends.
Focus. Focus at work. Focus on what was happening.
Being convenient in all situation. When I was alone in a public space, I just looked around and looked for someone who could be asked to talk about something. I put down my gadget (except if I have to open it because of important matter). When there was no one, I kept look around and observe (hopefully people around me did not suspect me as the one who lost relations or friends or parents, lol). I tried to be convenient in all situation without depending on other things, smartphone for example.
#After 3 Weeks
I asked myself “Don’t yo miss your friends’ update?”
Yes, definitely. But I thought there are many ways to know what happen, for example directly asking via messenger. Hehe.
It showed that we do not just wonder, but truly care and aware.
And there was simple thing happened that made me amazed. Some friends simply asked me via messenger “how are you pid?”
Yes it is a simple thing but really matters for me.
#After 4 Weeks
No term could best describe this last week experience, except…better self control.
This experience became a kind of self ‘therapy’ (for me). It is not recommended for everyone. If you feel okay by using many social media and you don’t get yourself negatively affected by them, it is okay for regularly using them. But, if you feel overwhelmed, just try to quit for a while.
If fasting from food could make my digest better, emotional control by fasting from unnecessary information could make my soul and heart better too.
Yeah, this is my randomness. I just want to wrap it out in a writing. Thanks for reading :D
