A Year Without Social Media
I’m still very much alive!
For longest time I had a social media addiction, which I’ve since resolved down to just a moderately unhealthy relationship with my smartphone, which I’m actively trying to over come. I say moderately, because while I still feel I over use my smartphone, it’s for more wholesome reasons.
Well, at least to me it is.
I don’t waste my time scrolling through endless feeds of the perfectly flawless lives of people I met once in college. I long ago broke out of the loop of check facebook notifications, then snapchat notifications, then instagram notifications, then twitter notifications, then…. repeat. Waiting for a little kick of dopamine from a like, or favourite or retweet to keep me enthralled and stuck in the loop.
I’d say before I easily spent over 3 hours a day on social media. On the bus, walking, at home “relaxing”, and worst of all while I was trying to have conversations with people I cared about.
I’m not saying I have a fantastic relationship with my smart phone now, I don’t but its half of what it was, and I feel it’s more constructive. Instead of meaningless metrics to measure myself, I read articles on medium, or check out some community feeds for some things I’m really interested in, or straight up good old fashioned meditation via Headspace.
It wasn’t easy to give up and the fear of missing out was a tough part for me. But the toughest was if people would think I was one of those weird people who shunned social media (Which personally for me, they’re the ones all zombied out watching snapchat stories and playing with filters. Imagine.). I didn’t want to be considered a weird hermit and treated like a pariah.
It was particularly diffucult because I felt like I was expected to be on social media.
“Ohh add me on facebook”
“Ohh I’ll invite you on facebook”
“Yeah send me a message on messenger”
“Did you see X”
“How did you not hear Y”
But I’m here to tell you, I didn’t miss ANYTHING. NOTHING. At all. Ever. Not one thing. There wasn’t one event that I would have actually gone to that someone didn’t let me know about. There wasn’t one time where someone said “ohh did you not see it on facebook” that didn’t involve a silly meme or video. I started to realise I really didn’t need to be on social media. It was so liberating all that free time I had that I used to start reading more, learning more, meditating more.
Couple all the extra time to improve myself with the removal of the biggest drain on my mental health, and I had never felt better. I wasn’t feeling bad about myself by directly comparing myself to the apparent perfect lives my friends (or strangers) were living.
I wasn’t hooked little hits of dopamine, refresh, refresh, refresh, notification, refresh, refresh, refresh. Switch platform. Repeat.
My willpower and focus started to become my own again. Before quitting It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t even sit through a movie without checking my phone every few minutes or straight up scrolling facebook dividing my attention between the two.
A year or so in and I have zero intention of ever going back to that mental state. The only way I could describe it is a thick mental fog which has been lifted.
I still feel things are hazy though, a lot of that is probably due to my smartphone, but I’m slowly starting feel about my phone how I did about social media. It’s blocking me and distracting me, honestly if I didn’t feel pressured into having it, much like social media a year ago, I’d have gotten rid of it too.
If you’ve been considering a social media detox, especially with new year resolution time speedily approaching I implore you to consider giving social media the axe. It has probably been the most important step I’ve taken in terms of personal development as it’s acted as a strong foundation for other habits to grow.
If you’ve quit or considered quitting and have any thoughts on it let me know, especially if you’ve gone full-hermit and ditched your phone too!
