Ah, social media – our best friend and our worst enemy. I’ve always (obviously) been a proponent of social media and have made a point of arguing that the good outweighs the bad, but lately, I just can’t stand behind that argument anymore. I’ve been noticing annoyance as my biggest emotion after opening an app, and that’s something I want to remove from my life at the current moment.
Day 1 – July 14
One of my closest friends, Cailyn, and I met for brunch this morning, and we talked about why we think temporarily removing social media from our lives is the move right now. She made the decision to temporarily deactivate her Instagram about a week ago and had nothing but positivity to report – even to the point where she might make a permanent switch.
I have been toying with the idea of removing myself completely for a while. But, as with all bad habits/addictions, why make a change today when you can do it tomorrow? Today I took the plunge and deactivated my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts and removed those apps, along with Snapchat from my phone.
A few reasons I’m doing this:
– The more I go on social media, the more I see people who I know on a personal level being someone they’re not. This creates judgment and criticism from my end, which isn’t healthy, nor do I want to associate these feelings with someone I am close to.
– Social media is so. horribly. time-consuming. I downloaded the app Mint yesterday, which is essentially a Fitbit for your phone usage. It records how many minutes/hours you spend on your phone, how many times you pick up your phone to check it, how often you check your phone, and how long you have gone without using your phone. Yesterday, I downloaded it at the end of the day and had 2 hours and 42 minutes on my phone, 87 pickups, checked my phone every 2 minutes, and had been without my phone for 17 minutes. That’s 3 hours I could have been spending on working out, watching a movie, spending quality time with someone, working on my blog – anything other than being glued to my screen.
– I don’t want to be the person who is always on my phone. I’ve gotten better about being on my phone in conversational settings, but I’m still aware that people expect me to be checking/on my phone at all times. It has gotten to the point that if I don’t answer someone within 10 minutes, they will follow up or comment on the fact that I haven’t answered – and that’s a problem. I need more separation from others, along with boundaries.
– There is a huge amount of negativity on social media. With what is going on in the world right now, I have found it incredibly difficult to go on Twitter without feeling extremely angry or incredibly saddened. I already struggle with depression and anxiety, and I don’t need to be heightening these emotions with things that I’m not consciously involving myself in. Twitter has always been my comedic relief, but a lot of that comes with a negative correlation, and I think I will benefit from stepping away for a bit.
– It affects how I see myself. I see pictures of models I follow, or even people I went to school with, and I automatically compare myself to them. This is only natural, but it’s so unnecessary and damaging to sit here and criticize my own body, solely because of how I perceive someone else. I need to step back and realize that I also work hard on myself. Just because someone else looks a certain way, this doesn’t mean I should be minimizing my own efforts.
– I’m tired of how obsessive people have become regarding social media. “What should I make my caption?” “Wait, can we take that from a different angle?” “Can we take another?” “Ugh, I look huge.” We’ve all been there, and it’s exhausting. There is no reason we should be devoting this much time to how other people view us, and we are all guilty of it. We are only human, and social media forces us to hold ourselves to such high and unrealistic expectations.
– There are a lot of reasons we post, and a lot of times they aren’t for ourselves. I’m referring to Instagram and Snapchat stories here. I want to make more of an effort to realize why I’m posting, and then change my behavior based on that.
– It’s overstimulating. I am so easily distracted and have the hardest time focusing, and I know that is only worsened with the influx of notifications that come with all of these platforms.
– I want to be more present with myself. I often ignore my thoughts and wants, and social media is a huge culprit. It’s so easy to get lost in the lives of others when we want to avoid our own problems and troubles, and I no longer want to bury myself in distractions. It’s time to spend some quality time with myself.
I don’t have a set time for this detox – right now I’m aiming between a week and a month, and we’ll see how it goes from there. I’m planning on periodically documenting how this goes, so I’ll be checking in soon.
EOD Day 1 – July 14
Truthfully a little disturbed by how habitual checking my phone is, now that I am actually noticing when I do it. Now that I can’t check social media/get notifications, I find myself checking for texts more than I usually would. This constant need for stimulation is clearly quite engrained in my brain.
Total time spent on phone: 3 hours and 30 minutes
Pickups: 154
Checking: Every 4 minutes
Longest time without using: 1 hour and 8 minutes
(I’m a huge proponent of data and results you can actually see – so I think keeping track of these stats will help me have something to work toward.)
Day 2 – July 15
So I’m starting to think this app is counting when I change songs in these stats, which I kind of feel is inaccurate? Here are today’s stats:
Total time spent on phone: 2 hours and 40 minutes
Pickups: 48 (Hey, look at that!!!)
Checking: Every 12 minutes
Longest time without using: 2 hour and 17 minutes
This is encouraging!!! I’ve had 4 people comment on the fact that I’ve been offline so far – one noticed just from not seeing me on his feed, another was trying to tag me in something and couldn’t find my username, another thought I unfollowed her, and another went to check on my profiles and also couldn’t find me. Not gonna lie, I felt kind of bad or guilty that I wasn’t available or was taking away from their usual feed (and I felt bad that someone thought I unfollowed them and wondered how many other people are thinking this?!) but then I was like OK, this is about me – and no one else right now!
I’ve also noticed I don’t have social media to complain to anymore – which is WEIRD. I generally do it in a comical manner, but that’s still negative energy I’m putting there. It’s refreshing to just… let it go?
Day 4 – July 17
Total time spent on phone: 5 hours and 24 minutes
Pickups: 325
Checking: Every 2 minutes
Longest time without using: 57 minutes
Ugh, so today was Not A Good Day. And these stats are making me feel even worse. I started my day off by waking up AN HOUR AND A HALF past my alarm – you know, 10 minutes AFTER I usually leave the house?!?! Work was insanely slow, and I also got a horrible migraine around lunch that hasn’t gone away yet. It was also just a heavier day of emotions. Without my usual social media outlets, I have had a ton of time to be alone with my thoughts, and I’m definitely experiencing the ~withdrawal~ of my constant distractions. Sad, right? It’s incredible the lengths we will take to avoid being alone with ourselves. And it definitely isn’t easy.
As far as the stats go, I definitely check my phone WAY more often when I’m at work – most likely because I’m used to being “on call” in case a client text/call/email comes through. I spent a lot of my time researching some things when I got home, so that would explain ‘time spent’ number. I’m going to try and do that stuff on my laptop so that I’m not skewing my numbers too much.
I went to sign on the Instagram for the salon I used to work at (I run their social media and needed to post for that) and accidentally logged into my personal Instagram (muscle memory with technology is honestly a little unsettling). This then activated my account again, and of course the first thing I saw on my feed bothered me immediately. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive, or maybe I’ve just really had it with the things I’ve been seeing lately. I was especially annoyed, because Instagram only lets you deactivate your account once a week, so now I have to wait to deactivate it again. For now, I just have the salon account logged in – nothing else.
I’ve noticed my conversations via text have become more in-depth. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing for a few reasons. Good: I’m able to take the time to focus on my conversations and put more effort into the relationships I value in my life. I have the time to check in on those I care about. Bad: Was I so distracted before that I was just brushing off the people I care about? Am I seeking out conversations in order to feel less lonely now that I don’t have the interactions that came with social media?
As always, I’m constantly over-analyzing myself and the situations around me.
Day 5 – July 18
So today, I decided I am going to activate my apps again. A huge part of this was the fact that my Instagram was back and active again, and I felt like I was kind of cheating without meaning to. I am unfortunately a very all-or-nothing kind of person, and I felt like this wasn’t a real detox once my Instagram was back up.
After some further thinking, I was starting to think to myself, “Why am I forcing a time limit on this?” I was stressing about when I should come back – which I felt was defeating the purpose of stepping away. In all reality, I got what I needed from this – self-awareness. In a short amount of time, I have become a lot more in touch with how often I rely on social media. A lot of it I partially knew, but it was easier to brush off and ignore. For now, I don’t want to be off the grid completely, but I definitely want to spend less time on my phone. Hopefully this helps in the long run, and who knows, maybe I’ll try it again sometime soon.
If you’re feeling like you could benefit from any form of a social media detox, I say to go for it. It can only benefit you.
Truly,
Taylor