A couple of weeks ago I made a drastic change to my daily behavior.
I cut out social media.
Did I know I was making a drastic change? No.
I was under the assumption that while I could see the huge dependency the public has to social media and the clear addiction to cell phones and social media, I wasn’t “that bad”.
It started while my mom was staying with me for the birth of my fourth child while Matt has been deployed.
After she had been with me for a few weeks, she commented on multiple occasions to how much I was staring at my phone. She said I was in the room but not there.
I of course got immediately defensive and would remark that I was actively doing something that I needed to do and that I really wasn’t on my phone all that much. While it was true that every day at the same time, there was a chunk of about 1-1.5 hours that I was glued to my phone (that’s when Matt was able to text me through WhatsApp) I really didn’t need to be on my phone other than a few things like email here and there and the kids swim app once a week. I brushed off her comments because I wasn’t “that bad”.
A few weeks ago as I was driving home from dropping the boys off at preschool, I noticed that every person I saw walking down the sidewalk was staring at their phones. Not one person was looking around at nature around them or at possible dangers like moving vehicles. It was jarring.
Is this the world we live in now? One where we devote more of our time and attention to these little rectangles that must be with us at all times than to human beings around us, nature, or our current task?
What I thought would be a simple no problem cut off for myself has been anything but.
The rules I gave myself were that I only get to use social media for one day at the end of each month and I removed the apps from my phone’s home screen. I have also turned off all notifications other than for calls, texts, email, and messages, and I moved all apps but four off of my main screen to give a clear visual.
The most surprising thing for me is that I noticed that I’m constantly grabbing for my phone. There won’t be anything I need to do but I’m still grabbing it; looking for facebook or instagram, getting bummed when I don’t see it, and putting my phone down again. All day, every day. My uncontrollable urge to look at social media is so much worse than I had imagined. I noticed that I was much more irritable during that first week when I couldn’t scroll through social media which means I’m having an actual withdrawal. Which means I’m addicted. I’m addicted to social media.
To be honest, that’s what they want. All of these developers want us addicted to their creations. It makes them more money. It’s just good business for them.
The first week was the hardest and most humbling for me because it truly opened my eyes to how much and often I had been staring at my phone. I would get so excited when someone sent me a text, called me, anything. I was continuously grabbing my phone.
We are now in the second week of my fast and it happens to be the last day of the month which means I got on to upload pictures and give a quick family update. Last night I almost got on to do the update a day early because I just wanted to look and see what I’ve missed (I’ve also got major FOMO apparently too). I made myself just go to bed instead which was definitely the better option.
When I got on this morning after getting the kiddos outside to play and Elijah fell asleep, I found that I was scrolling my feed as fast as possible to get through it, see any major updates on friends or family and then get myself back off of facebook. I’m realizing now that I forgot to check instagram. Oh well. But what I’m happiest about is that I saw going back on social media today as a chore; and not a chore that I was looking forward to!
Another surprise for me was how much time I have during each day now that I’m not wasting time on my phone. I have time to deep clean rooms and keep up with the general cleaning of the house [other than chores that Im just not a fan of and put off till I truly have to do them like laundry and the kitchen (something I’m actively working on getting better at)]. That doesn’t mean that I’m keeping up perfectly with all of my extra newly found time because I do just get tired keeping up with my house, children (one of which is a newborn), and animals.
I have the time to spend with my kids. We play more, we “kind of” do homeschool (I don’t legally have to do anything with Joshua yet and don’t plan to truly start homeschooling till I absolutely have to. I have more time for baking and cooking meals. I have time to read books again and recently started journaling which I’m enjoying. There is simply more time for more life-giving activities that feed my soul.
I would say that whether you are on social media a lot or a little, whether you use it for fun or for your business; step away for a bit. Take a social media sabbatical. I’m guessing you’ll find that you are grabbing your phone a lot more than you realized.
For me personally, I like that I’m no longer letting facebook or instagram control me. They are losing their power and I love sticking it to those big time CEO’s.
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