Living Without Social Media
How hard is it to live without social media for a week?
I’ve decided that I am going to do a social media detox. I’m aiming for five days, but I’m not sure how long it’ll last. This means no Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat, and for someone who spends up to nine hours a day on her phone (awful, I know), with three of those hours just on social media, I think this is going to be a real challenge. But I think it’ll be good for me, and I’m intrigued to see what else I do with three extra hours a day.
I’ve thought about doing something like this for a while; Deliciously Ella’s podcast with expert Tanya Goodin gave me the idea initially, she said that the average person in the UK spends over one whole day per week on their phone! Imagine what we could get done with another day in our week.
I’m not going to give up my phone completely, because let’s be real, I’m a 20-year-old student, I wouldn’t be able to survive without my phone for more than a day, but it’s not just that, I rely on my phone for so much; emails, music, Apple Pay, but I also need it to contact people. But I definitely think giving up social media will be hard enough.
So, it’s currently Monday night, and before I go to sleep I’m going to delete all of my social media apps for the detox to begin tomorrow morning. But whilst I still can, I’m going to spend my evening tapping and scrolling through as much social media as I possibly can, ready for tomorrow.
Tuesday morning — I woke up this morning and immediately went to scroll through my socials, I’d normally spend about five or ten minutes in the morning just catching up on everything I missed overnight. I couldn’t do that today, which did make it easier to get out of bed. It also made my morning routine quicker, because I couldn’t keep stop what I’m doing every ten minutes to watch a couple of Instagram stories.
It’s now Wednesday night, the end of my second day without social media. It hasn’t been easy, but it definitely hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be, if anything I’ve just been feeling a bit lost. I’ve realised that social media isn’t a huge part of my life, it almost acts as a gap filler; I’ve missed it the most when I’ve been doing menial tasks and want a quick break to scroll through Instagram.
I’ve been feeling more productive and like I want to get more stuff done, instead of wasting half my day on the sofa scrolling through my phone, doing practically nothing.
Its currently Saturday evening, and so my five-day social media detox is coming to an end. As much as I can’t wait to re-download all of my social media apps, it hasn’t been anywhere near as hard as I thought it would be. I’ve been so much more productive; I’ve been going to the gym a lot more, doing more work and just generally getting stuff done.
Although five days isn’t a very long time, I have seen a big difference in my mentality. Not focusing on what other people are doing all the time has made it a lot easier to focus on me. When you’re constantly comparing yourself to others, it makes it hard to be happy within yourself, whether that be your appearance, your surroundings, your financial situation, or even your social life, but when there’s no one to compare yourself to, you end up being that little bit more content.
At the beginning of this detox, I found myself constantly reaching for my phone, even when I was busy doing something but as the days went on, I could leave my phone in another room for hours and not want it, not want to see if I’ve missed anything. I think that’s what this all comes down to, social media is so great for keeping up to date with everyone’s lives, but it’s reached a point where the FOMO (fear of missing out) is almost unbearable, so if you remove that constant wondering of who’s uploaded on their Instagram story, or who’s out for dinner, then eventually, you find yourself becoming blissfully ignorant.
This break has also made me realise how obsessed everyone is with their phones, we could wait for a TV show all day, and as soon as it comes on, we’re only barely watching it, because we’re still just scrolling through Instagram or Twitter for literally no reason.
I know five days really isn’t a long time, but it is definitely long enough to notice a difference and I’ve really enjoyed having a break. I would 100% recommend it to anyone, especially if you have something you need to get done, or just feel like you need to unwind and unplug for a few days.
