About a month ago, I decided – impulsively, of course– that I would delete all my social media for August (Except LinkedIn… I’m a business student). So come August 1st, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook, all of it was gone from my phone.
I am obsessed with my socials; I’ve been an avid Instagrammer and tweeter since I created my accounts. On Snapchat, I would document almost every waking moment of my life. And although the decision to delete all the social media platforms was primarily impulse-based, a lot of it was also derived from the fact that I have been at home quarantining since March, and I got into this unhealthy habit of mindlessly scrolling through my phone. For. Literally. Hours. On. End.
Every day I would scroll through all my social media, put my phone down for a single moment, and then almost instantly pick my phone back up for no reason. I always had to have one hand on my phone. It was an unhealthy addiction. And don’t even get me started on my screen time. Given that I was about to spend my junior year of college out of my bedroom, having this addiction going into the school year was a recipe for failure. So as any rational human being would, I decided to go 31 days without it.
Honestly, after an entire month, I can confirm that the cleanse is worth it. I hate sounding cliche, or as if I am an omnipotent guru on how to live your life, I can assure you that I most definitely am not. But I can assure anyone reading that after an entire month, I learned so much about myself and what social media does.
Before I continue, I want to clarify that I am not trying to bash on any form of social media by any means. Honestly, I’ve only been using it for two days now (post-cleanse). Almost immediately, I am remembering how much I love looking at feeds, curating the content I want to post, and the overall entertainment. What I am trying to get across is that the cleanse truly is a cleanse, and I think everyone should try!
1. Your Presence
Presence can apply to several aspects. It could be with your friends, about what happens in the world, with yourself even. Last month I would spend time with my friends, and rather than trying to capture every moment as I usually would have done, I felt that I enjoyed my time with those right in front of me. I got so much closer with some of my friends I have known for years. When usually I would have snapped a picture of my Playa Bowl in Princeton, I talked to my two best friends about our whole life stories LOL or our daily routines.
I follow all my primary news sources on my Instagram and Twitter. In August, honestly, either I would not know what was happening, or I would actively have to tell myself to check the damn news.
And finally (and most importantly) be present with yourself. When I say the words ‘I got bored last month’... that could be its own post. That boredom though, really got me to think about how I was really feeling. At the beginning of the month, I swear I felt dumb as hell because I would get sad about not having Instagram, or I would get sad in general. When I usually would pick up my phone and try to distract myself, I just had to be present and let myself be sad or happy or whatever I was feeling that day. I always considered myself to be a pretty independent person. Still, by the end of the month, I felt comfortable being with myself, without any background noise of the plethora of content on social media.
2. Time
I had a lot more time on my hands, considering I was addicted to my phone before this. The time I would have spent taking the perfect picture for Snapchat, Instagram story-ing the omelet I made for breakfast, or just scrolling through the unlimited content at our fingertips, I discovered new hobbies. I like to run now and listen to podcasts. Two things I would have NEVER admitted to enjoy.
Everyone I talk to about this cleanse, expects me to say that I have magically become 10x more productive or barely touch my phone anymore. I did not spend every waking moment of August being productive. But with that said, I did work on myself a lot more. At the beginning of August, I kind of moped around when I had nothing going on, but towards the end, I did not just sit around all the time; I tried to keep myself busy on one thing or another.
3. Self Control
Okay I deserve a self-control award. Me and Apple’s App Store would have a staring contest sometimes because my mind would be like it won’t hurt just to see who snapped me. BUT I DID NOT SUCCUMB. Two of my roommates claim they were “trying to motivate me” when they were like: Yeah, this cleanse won’t last. But I don’t even blame them; I make impulsive random challenges/ cleanses and put them upon myself ALL THE TIME, and rarely follow through. Around mid-August, I had to research a few different Instagram accounts on my laptop, and I WAS SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT. I saw 40 something notifications, and the amount of strength I had to muster up to not click on that heart button thing to see the notifications is unfathomable. Safe to say, my self-control increased exponentially in August.
4. Mental Health
THIS IS THE MF TEA SIS. Capturing the memories with people and keeping everyone connected is essentially what social media’s purpose is. I never thought of myself as someone who put out an inauthentic representation of who I was online; I always considered myself to say or be who I wanted to be. But I learned that so much of what I used to do was take pictures and post stories about aspects of my life to show off that aspect to others. It became almost mechanical thinking– so typical and automatic that I would never actively think of myself as posting something to show off, but it was in reality. For most of August, I took my funky, quirky pictures/ videos for myself with zero intention of posting. (okay i lied I def took some pics that I love but here is a pic dump of ~yukta pictures that I took for myself~)
I also realized that I didn’t know what was going on with a lot of other people last month. I didn’t get sad, get FOMO, or feel stupid if certain people were doing something, and I wasn’t, because I didn’t know it was happening. Whatever that may be. If someone excelled in their career and doing whatever, I spent this month doing what I was doing. Their actions did not affect me. If I saw someone working out and getting their dream body, I would be working out at my own pace and doing whatever I wanted to do when I felt like it.
No one else’s actions or lives they put out to the world had any effect on mine. And even as a person who never thought they cared about what others thought, I learned more about that last month more so than any other time in my life.
5. Friends
Not much to be said here.
If someone really wants to reach out to you, they will. It’s as simple as that.
I think this wraps up my whole experience and what I learned last month! I can promise you a social media cleanse is neither as hard nor as easy as it seems. Give it a shot and comment below how it went for you… in 30 days ofc… ;)
xx yukta
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