I did it! I managed to go thirty days without social media. For those of you that do not know, I decided to give up social media for thirty days with two goals in mind: to see if I could actually do it and to see if it improved my well-being. The first part was a success. The second…well, I do not know yet. I feel like my mood has been more positive and I do not find myself getting worked up over random posts.
The first few days were probably the most difficult. I would check my phone constantly and not know what to do with it. After that though, it was not all that big of a deal. Although, Facebook did become a clingy ex, sending me emails almost everyday to inform me of how many notifications I had missed since my last log in. “Why won’t you log back in??? Please spend time on the app, we need YOU!!!!!!” Kind of pathetic.
Where will I go from here? Well, I am coming back to social media. I do miss certain aspects. For example, I enjoy using Twitter for sporting events. Nothing better than seeing opinions of a bunch of experts (or people who think they are experts) during a game. It is also good for news stories and current events. I also feel like I was less informed during this thirty days. I need a better method of getting news. I have news apps that give me local news, but I feel like I missed out on specialized news (for example: on Facebook I follow a bunch of archaeologists, so I tend to read a bunch of stuff they share about new discoveries OR on Twitter, I follow astronomers and physicists…yeah, I am weird). So I am going to download the apps again and maybe curate who I follow on each one a little better.
Here are a few other observations from this experience…
-I wrote thirty blog posts. Things that I would just post on Facebook ended up being short blog posts.
-My blog traffic went down significantly. That would matter if I made money from it, but since I do not…oh well.
-I miss wishing people happy birthday on Facebook. I know that is weird, but it is one of those things I feel is actually nice about Facebook.
-I barely took any photos during that time. Without the desire to post on FB/Instagram, there never seemed to be a need to take pictures.
-I did not use my phone less. I found myself checking my sports news app a bunch more. Also, I played a ton of sudoku.
-I uninstalled the Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, and Instagram apps from my phone. And yet, I continued to receive messages through Messenger. It was definitely weird and not at all creepy.
