How Social Media Is Important To My Job, But Shouldn’t Be Important To My Life
Oh yes. The weekend. The epitome of the best of all days. The highlight of most twenty-something year old’s week, and sometimes the only thing they look up to for a good portion of their lives. This weekend was different for me though. At first, it was a typical Saturday for me. The coffee brewing in the morning, the sun creeping in through the blinds of my apartment, scrolling through my Facebook feed to see what my “friends” were up to, my noisy neighbors being, well, noisy.
Anyway, my mornings in general are pretty typical; the same with my work days, which are Monday through Fridays. I wake up, check my Snapchat, brush my teeth, shower, make my cup of joe while browsing Instagram, get dressed, scroll through Twitter and retweet today’s nonsense — you get the jive of it. I go through the same routine every single day prior to going to work. Now let’s talk about my work and what exactly I do there. I’m a digital marketing specialist, not the fanciest thing in the world, but it is something that I love and enjoy doing ever so much. I get to think of marketing campaigns for different clients in different industries, I get to communicate and brainstorm with my team, I get to build up and scale businesses to the best of my ability — all through social media and other mediums, but primarily through social media via paid advertising, influencer marketing, you get the picture.
I work anywhere from 40–60 hours a week (it’s usually closer to 60 but a range makes me feel less guilty and feel that I have more free time) but now let me tell you what I do when I have free time at work, when I’m not crafting a social media post, or not working on new copy for a search ad that is supposed to go out today, or not doing keyword research for an existing ad that isn’t performing as well as I’d like it to: I spend my free time checking my Snapchat, and sometimes scrolling through Facebook to see what my “friends” are up to; I find myself browsing through Instagram, and I scroll through Twitter and retweet today’s nonsense. Every. Chance. I. Get.
Let’s go back to my typical Saturday, the one that actually wasn’t so typical. I don’t know if I was going through some sort of quarter life crisis or just having an anxiety attack or maybe now just started to realize that we are all going to die soon, but I came to the realization that social media was basically taking over my life. Any chance I would get, any time there was absolutely nothing going on, I would pick up my phone, type in my passcode, check my Snapchat, scroll through Facebook to see what my “friends” were up to, browsing through Instagram, and scroll through Twitter and retweet today’s nonsense. But why? Why was I so obsessed with checking the same social media outlets every single chance I got? What was wrong with speaking with my significant other in the mornings when I’d be getting ready for work, or instead of spending my two fifteen minute breaks at work on my phone rather than getting to befriend my co workers and getting to know them better, or do something more productive?
Apple introduced a nifty little feature into iOS 12 when it launched back in 2018. It’s called Screen Time. I turned this little sucker on when I got my shiny new iPhone X in November, at the time not even knowing what it was, and up until recently, I actually took a peek at it and the results threw me into a whirlwind of emotions. The most notable thing from my screen time (other than the fact that I pick up my phone about 1,000 times a week) is that I was spending anywhere from 37 to 42 hours a week on my phone. 37 to 42 hours a week.
I work 40–60 hours a week — how do I even manage to spend that much time on my phone? Why am I even spending that much time on my phone? What is it that I am doing or looking at that is so important that I spend as much time on my phone as I do working? These were all questions my little brain was trying to process and come up with excuses for. Again, I do work in the digital advertising world, so it must be for client related work right?
Wrong.
I do all of my client work on my iMac or my MacBook, and yes, although you would think Apple would integrate all of these devices through Screen Time, but you and I both my friend are wrong. The Screen Time is only counting hours and minutes from my phone. Yikes.
So why do I spend so much time of my phone? Is it a habitual thing? Is it because of my anxiety? Does it give me a sense of security when out and about in public situations? Is it a way for me to hide from the real world? These were all questions I was asking myself when sipping my coffee, browsing through Instagram. What is it with me and social media? I get that I use it for work all the time but man, also using it for leisure? I was sick of it. I needed help, I needed to get away, to try something new. I needed to be more productive, speak to more people, and stop being the introvert that I have become. Is social media to blame for this? No. At the end of the day, I am responsible for my actions and how I react and respond to my feelings. So as a response to this realization, I used the power of technology to help me out with this situation, because I would not be able to do it alone (I mean I could, but that would require a lot more effort).
One nifty thing Apple introduced with their Screen Time feature, is the ability to set limits to how long you are able to use/access different applications. For example, I, a social media addict, could use this to my advantage and limit the amount of time that I am capable of accessing specific applications, in this case, anything social media related. The applications that I am limiting myself from are Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Netflix, and some other entertainment applications that suck up all of my time. The limit I set myself to is 30 minutes every day. So if I spend 10 minutes on Facebook, 10 minutes on Snapchat, and 10 minutes on Instagram, my time is up for this entire group of applications that I am limiting myself on. As you can imagine, this is some serious limiting since I am used to being on my phone quite a lot, the same goes for social media.
What Happened When I Limited Myself?
After configuring my settings and saying goodbye to a big portion of how I spent my time, there was no going back. I was now limited to only 30 minutes of social media a day (which I mean come on, it really isn’t a big deal and really shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is for me because of this so-called quarter life crisis). I’ll admit it was really difficult. And I couldn’t help but laugh and get frustrated with myself. There come those questions again: am I really that dependent on social media? Do I really cope with my every day activities by having my phone in my hand? I really did. I was more antsy, more irritable, and man I felt the same way I did when I quit cigarettes years ago. I am an addict and need to take control of this. It’s not even like I quit it cold turkey, I was literally still getting 30 minutes of social media time, but it wasn’t enough for me. But was it really the social media portion of it? Or was it a habitual thing where I just needed to look at my phone or read something in public to not get anxious when I am out and about or in a public setting. I had to test both of these possibilities.
Possibility #1 — My Phone (Social Media Primarily) Is How I Cope With Anxiety
Phase one of my experiment was to figure out if it was social media that I needed to be on, or just be on my phone to cope with anxiety. To fully understand this, let’s take a trip down memory lane: high school didn’t treat me too well. It was very nerve-racking to meet new people and be in big crowds when going from class to class. I always felt insecure and lo and behold, I had the habit of covering my face with my hair to feel secluded from everyone. If my hair wasn’t long enough, I would wear a hood to “hide” myself from everyone. It’s kind of ironic thinking back on it, because fast forward to my early twenties, I played in a rock band and enjoyed going to concerts where, you guessed it, had huge crowds and I was always forced to meet people. In my mind, it was different. These people knew me, they had something in common with me, and connected with me in a different way vs immature teenagers that thought high school was the highlight of their lives.
Anyways, the way these insecurities and anxious tendencies translate to the present day, I usually pull out my phone and scroll mindlessly through social media to “hide” from the general public and people around me, to seem busy, to be distant from my surroundings and just be invisible. I would mainly do this because I hated being the center of attention, which again, ironic because being in a band on stage, you’re the center of attention. Not to say that I’d be the center of attention walking through the high school hallways or walking through the local mall, but again, the thought of embarrassing myself in public or looking weird because of my appearance or the way I walked.. it just drove my anxiety through the roof.
So, again, following suit of phase one of the experiment, I had no social media access for the majority of the day since I’d burn through my 30 minute time constraint before I’d even make it out the door every morning the first three days. And let me tell you, the first three days were absolutely terrible. I was antsy. I felt nervous and lost when walking through downtown, consistently thinking the worst of what people thought of me or just even sitting in a coffee shop without my phone in my hand just made me feel out of place and “not with it”. I’d laugh to myself because again, it’s just a stupid phone, it’s just a stupid app on my phone, why was it so vital to my every day life? I couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t handle being in public without “hiding” myself from the outside world. I needed to replace my social media habit with something else. So I started reading on my phone, as opposed to checking my Snapchat, scrolling through Facebook to see what my “friends” were up to, browsing through Instagram, or scroll through Twitter and retweet today’s nonsense.
I’m not a big reader. Actually, let me rephrase that; I used to be a big reader, at least, back when I was in school. But does that really count? Honestly, reading was fun to me, and most people end up hating to read because it is enforced in school and you have to make reading logs and all sorts of other shenanigans that ruined the experience for most. I actually liked the analytical approach to writing in a reading log or writing an essay discussing the piece we read in school. Same with reading for fun, I read the staples like the Harry Potter series, Lord of the Rings, etc, but I also loved reading self-help books or books about life and what not. During my quarter life crisis (when I realized social media took up the majority of my time) I reminisced about reading, and how I had not read a book in years.
And thanks to modern day technology and how our phones can literally do anything and everything, I decided to use reading as a substitute for my social media madness. The impulses I’d get throughout the day to pull out my phone, they were spent either writing more or spent reading. It was different. It helped with the whole “I don’t know what to do without social media” ordeal, and I started to feel that the times I now picked up my phone were more meaningful vs just going on social media. When I’d wake up in the mornings, whether it be my newly reimagined typical Saturday’s, or my workdays, I would read. The same with walking downtown, or being in a coffee shop, I was reading rather than being on social media. When I couldn’t sleep at night, or when I was in the office (the toilet) I’d be reading vs scrolling through pictures of food or someone’s beverage of choice. In doing so, I actually managed to read a book in three days. This was the first book I had read in years, and I was proud of myself. This challenge went beyond that though. Again, the purpose of phase one was all about figuring out if it was social media I was always itching to get a fix on or if it was just the fact that I needed something to do or something to be looking at throughout the day to cope with anxiety.
Phase Two — I Replaced My Phone With A Physical Book.
Seems kind of prehistoric right? Walking around with a book. I’ll admit I felt weird. I had these thoughts creeping around the corner. What do people think when they see me walking down the street reading? Do I seem like a try hard sitting in a coffee shop nose deep inside a paperback? But then I thought, who cares? Right? Why is it so important? Why do I keep thinking about what others around me think and why is it all that I think about? Anxiety boiling and all, I told myself enough is enough. Enjoy your book, enjoy your latte, everything is fine. And it was. It was uplifting not thinking about what other people were thinking or what my public portrayal of myself was. I felt good about myself, I felt great getting back into the groove of reading. I was able to read two books in one week. That’s more than I read in the last four years, which is crazy to think.
Why Did I Do This and What Is My Conclusion?
I did this because of the “awakening” I had on that not-so-typical Saturday morning. I’m 22 years old and have a lot to look forward to in life, and knowing that, I came to the realization that I don’t want to have another dull moment in life. As a result of all of this, I came to the conclusion that I still have to cope with my anxiety when in public or interacting with people. Whether it’s my phone, with me scrolling mindlessly through social media or just feeling the pages of a book when walking down the street, all my mind needs to feel at ease is to be doing something. The constant itch I had when not being able to pull my phone out and look at feeds or timelines wasn’t because I missed it or because I needed it; it was because I needed to be doing something. And that something I always found myself doing was nowhere near as productive as simply reading. I felt good reading rather than being drawn into the world of social media 20+ hours a week when I wasn’t working. Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to run around and preach that reading is now all of a sudden the most important thing in my life or that I am all of a sudden a much more intelligent person now because I read; but I did come to the realization that social media is important when it comes to my work and the industry I am thriving in, but it should not be the most important thing when it comes to my personal life.
