It’s been over a month since I’ve liked, commented, tweeted, or uploaded anything to the numerous social media accounts that I have. While one may think that sounds crazy, honestly, it’s been kind of nice.
Every year for Lent, I try to give up something that I know is going to be some sort of sacrifice. I typically give up something related to food; last year it was eating after dinner, the year before that I gave up cookies. (I love food if you couldn’t tell.) This year, I wanted it to be something different.
I started to think about what I do on a daily basis that I could stop. Once I realized I couldn’t give up overthinking; I decided that social media was my next best option. I knew that quitting cold turkey would be hard, so I decided to start a week earlier. I logged out of all of my accounts, deleted the apps on all of my devices and just like that I was completely unaware of everything and anything, or so it seemed.
I’m not going to lie, the week before Lent started, there were multiple times every day where I would log back into my accounts just to see if anything new or exciting happened. Social media had been a part of my daily routine for years, at first I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it until Easter Sunday.
I love social media and that’s where my problem lied. I would spend more hours looking at memes on Twitter than I would spend sleeping. I knew more about the random guy I had Biology with in 9th grade than I knew about things that actually mattered, like the due date of my analytical paper. I was addicted and I wasn’t afraid to admit it.
I have always been the type of girl who compares herself to every other girl. Scrolling though my newsfeeds, I would see pictures of girls I know and would instantly start pointing out my own imperfections. As much as likes don’t matter, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone who posted a picture at the same time as me had three times the amount of likes that I had.
Over the last several months, it seemed that almost every time I got on social media, I would get off of it feeling upset, mad, or annoyed. I would see where my friends hung out and didn’t invite me, that the guy I had my eye on got a girlfriend and people that I graduated with seemed to be doing a heck-of- a-lot better in their career paths than me. I would exit the apps feeling like I wasn’t good enough or feeling like I’m not as successful as I should be at this point in my life.
Social media is a great, I love that we are all able to connect and share all of the wonderful things life has to offer us. Over the last month of being disconnected from the virtual world, I have been way more productive and happier.
I haven’t decided yet if once Lent is over if I’ll log back into my accounts. Not having social media has been difficult, but I’ve certainly started to like myself just a little bit more.