Behind: My Experiences From a 30 Day Social Media Detox
In today’s distracted world we have the ability to know events as soon as they happen through social media websites such as Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, et cetera. However, there are times when being on top of everything when it is happening can be a bad thing. Nowadays we are so connected to our phones (which over time have turned into tiny computers) and there are examples of people becoming addicted to social media.
Looking back it seemed that I could have gone down a similar path but over time I was interested in books now coming out about this topic. Psychologists have been doing studies relating to this epidemic and college professors have been talking about it.
Never in my life had I thought I would be doing a challenge of no social media for 30 days, but here I am now. These are my experiences during a 30 day Social Media Detox.
This idea for this challenge came through Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport. I had heard of Cal before because of his previous book Deep Work but I had never read any of his work before this one
THE BEGINNING
The Sunday night before I began the actual challenge I deleted all social media from my phone and I used a chrome add-on that limited my time on these social media websites. At first, I did not know how I’d come out, but it was an interesting experience to begin nonetheless.
Like starting anything new, the first day was harder than the others. I did not use my phone that much at all which was considerably different than before, and I came to realize how much time there is in a study hall or a lunch period. I still used Spotify (which people online have called Social Media) because I had Premium but I only used it during the bus rides to/from school and did not abuse it.
When I told other friends about how I was doing this project I got mixed reviews. Some were interested in it, some responded “I could never do that…”, and some did not care at all for it. All I knew was I was doing this on my own time, and that I shouldn’t take offense to how people saw this challenge.
CHEATING OR NOT?
There were some times during the 30 days where I would go on youtube, but it would only be for a video or if something got stuck in my head that I would watch. After I had searched and watched that video I would close the site and not go to it for the rest of the day.
After looking back at these actions, I never knew if I was “failing/cheating” the challenge or if I was giving in to the urge. That is up to you to decide.
THE RESULTS
One thing I did regularly to pass the time during this period was reading and/or listening to books. I listened/read along to five books during this period and it helped revive my love for reading that had slowly dwindled throughout my first two years of high school.
Secondly, getting away from the negativity of political news every day left a positive impact on me (Today if I do look at political news it’s on allsides.com where I can get different perspectives on the same story). And when I got back to my social media accounts, one of the first things that I did was unsubscribe/unfollow any political accounts in order to get that negativity off of my feed.
Another finding was how I was able to get out of any SM before I would get sucked in (I had resistance against social media apps). Like I mentioned earlier there were some days where I would sneak into Youtube to watch a video but after that, I had built up the ability to exit the sites as I knew what I was doing and where I had to focus on more.
THE FUTURE
One thing I have noticed recently is that I have watched more Youtube then I probably should have nowadays but I have made adjustments to who I watch and why I watch them. The people that I watch have changed with how I now am focusing more on the real world. Less political and gaming videos, more calming and good vibes videos.
I am looking into actually look into tracking my time on Youtube on my phone in order to give myself a certain amount of time before I leave it for the day.
Overall, this was an interesting experience that got me out of my comfort zone and I am looking forward to how this can impact me in the future.
CITATIONS
Social media GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/animation-gif-art-sushi-grNDsG4bMJRsI
Cal Newport Image: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-to-be-a-digital-minimalist-the-rules-56nbttql8