So I went on a social media detox, and survived to tell about it.

No, this is not going to be one of those “social media is bad” posts. I still love it (I mean come on, I’m writing my experiences about not using social media on social media *mindblowing*). What actually made me take this challenge was a very particular habit I developed — The Zombie Scrolling (great horror movie title btw). I think you could already guess what’s that.

Being a classic GenY/proud millennial/typical tech-savvy kid or whatever you wanna call it — I believe social media is an essential part of my interaction with world. Practically growing up with the Internet I can’t really see any future without it, for better or for worse. It has an immense effect on how we communicate with our family and friends (or enemies).

But then there is always that feeling that it sometimes takes more place in our life than it should.

Looking at my social media usage I realised I spend most of my time on Facebook and Instagram. I have literally three friends on snapchat so it doesn’t count (really showing my age here). I also decided to dedicate a week for the mission. Now you probably think — how hard a week without social media can be? Well, quite.

Yeah yeah, I know you spent a month in the wild of the Amazon rainforest without a signal, or haven’t touched your phone when you had to submit 3 assignments in two days. Cool. Disconnecting is the easiest thing to do when you are swamped or enjoying the views of foreign territories. You have literally no other choice, and choice is the key here. I’m talking about something else, a real challenge, like standing at the tram stop when you forgot your earphones and the tram is 17 minutes away?! now that’s a torture. But seriously, it is in these little traps throughout our day that we found ourselves going into zombie scrolling mode just to get the time pass.

Working in a marketing agency meant I could not completely go off the grid so I decided that logging out of my personal accounts would be enough. Messenger and WhatsApp were left untouched because most of the people in my life live in a different timezone (and group assignments exist). The rules were simple — no feed scrolling, post liking, or notification looking for one week.

My usual social media activity would be sharing another pink-skied Melbourne sunset (can’t help it soz) or my daily coffee cup. You know, the good stuff in life. But most of all, I would just scroll infinitely to see what’s new. You all know how hard it is to keep control on your scroll. I could literally spend half an hour full on zombie scrolling with the occasional like or heart (to those who deserve it obviously).

First thing I noticed was my digital FOMO. Yes, just like your regular FOMO, that constant feeling of “maybe something awesome is happening and I’m missing it” kept hunting me. Maybe it is another hilarious Game of Thrones meme about incest or supersonic ravens (still not over about this one). Or maybe someone just got engaged. Well I wouldn’t mind missing these. But you get my point. It is that itch that keeps telling you there might be something there you just have to see.

I have recently moved out on my own (yay #adultlife). Naturally, I was spending more time on my own on a daily basis. I consider myself somewhere between an introvert and an extrovert — an ambivert if you want to put a name to it. I enjoy the company of other people, but also get drained pretty quickly, so I was cool with living alone. During this week, I didn’t change anything but my social media usage. I was at uni, at work, meeting friends, the usual stuff. But somehow I felt more alone than I normally do. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider the majority of my online friends as ‘real’ friends (no offence). I probably met 60% of them only once in my life. And those who are actually my friends barely post on social media. So why was I feeling that? How not looking at these feeds made any difference? Well, it was more about me than what I was looking at.

I realise this constant observing at others lives, whether interesting or not, was functioning as a sort of ‘noise’ that I summoned whenever I needed it. Whether it was to forget about a terrible day, or to try and disappear from a social gathering I did not want to take part in. So it wasn’t much about feeling alone, as much as it was about experiencing my thoughts or simply the unfamiliar quietness in the absence of social media that left me feeling strange.

Regardless, I did feel like I wasn’t talking enough to my friends. There will be days that I would turn to the scroll because I’d feel like I can’t deal with any other type of interaction. And that’s fine, sometimes you do need that white noise to take over for a bit. But when it becomes a habit that’s when I felt I was missing on something. I know I promised this won’t be one of those technophobic old lady kinda posts. This isn’t about social media being good or bad, it is about if social media is enough. Is it enough to make you feel better when you can’t deal with the world? Is it enough to make you feel less lonely? To entertain you when you're bored? Is it there to fill a void or to take place of something else?

I really think social media can be great. I can think of countless examples showing how online interaction has helped us feel more connected, share our thoughts with the world, raise awareness to issues we would probably pass our whole life without knowing about. And lets not forget the cat videos.

But, this short exercise did leave me thinking about my personal usage of social media, particularly about the why aspect of it. If you understand how the algorithm of Facebook and Instagram works, you would know that all the posts of the accounts that I tend to interact with (aka friends and others I’m obsessed with) were organised at the top — like a mini recap of the week I missed. It was nice, but mostly reassured me that nothing extraordinary/must-see/can’t-be-missed happened while I was on my little vacay.

The (way overused) phrase seems to fit here — balance is the key. And I would normally agree. Although I reckon there is another dimension to it, and it is the question of gain. My problem was that I felt there was no purpose to my zombie scrolling. But then I can’t forget all the other times I spent hours scrolling down my feed and found things that I was inspired by, changed my perspective on something or simply just laughed until I cried (again, cat videos).