At the beginning of the year, I decided to take a break from social media. Post after post was about kids from my high school traveling around the world and having, what appeared to be, a time of living their best lives. All while I was still in school, as a super senior. I was jealous and it was affecting how I saw myself. I didn’t need to see all the selfies from rooftop bars in cool new cities or at the beach, while I was stuck sitting in the library, supposedly studying.
One night, I finally had enough. I stopped using social media because I was tired of thinking down on myself because I was in school a few years longer. So what? That doesn’t matter. Everyone has their own path– that was the first thing I realized. It doesn’t matter what everyone else was doing, what mattered was what I was doing. What I do doesn’t affect them in any way, so why should I let it get me down when it doesn’t have too? Eventually I will get where they are, and I will have my own story to tell and my own lessons learned. Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who had already graduated and one whom I was slightly jealous of and she confessed to me that she was jealous of me! She was jealous because I was still in school and that is where she wanted to be– not in the real world working but studying on campus with all her friends. How ironic.
The second thing I realized is how productive I was without social media. When I say no social media, I mean it. I had logged out of Instagram, Facebook, and VSCO. I stayed on snapchat, but I did not view anyone’s stories and I also ended my streaks with everyone except my brother and boyfriend. I had no idea what was going on in the world and that was okay. I was surprisingly able to go to bed every night before midnight because I didn’t waste any time. I was more focused, and I felt more confident in my schoolwork and tests. Ultimately, my grades went up because of it, which made me feel even better about myself.
Without social media, I was overall a happier person. I felt no comparison to anyone and I didn’t feel the need to photograph everything I did. I started to live more in the moment, and I realized that it was so much more fun than trying to make it look like I was living in the moment while actually keeping my camera focused at the same time. One weird thing I didn’t expect to experience was that I felt more confident in what I wore. Without seeing everyone wearing the “latest trends,” I wore what I liked. I felt good about myself and what I wore, and I even got more compliments than when I wore the same thing everyone else is wearing.
After about a month, I felt confident in myself again and I got back on all my social media platforms, but I went through and unfollowed everyone I didn’t still talk to or I didn’t even know personally. Now, I only follow those who I care about and those who care about me. I find myself not getting on social media as much anymore, and it’s not even the first apps I open up on my phone. Now when I’m bored, I read a book or play a game; I don’t just endlessly scroll through Instagram’s trending page. Sometimes I go days without checking my feed and I don’t even realize it!
I feel like a lot of us think that if we don’t know what is going on in everyone else’s lives, we will fall behind, but I learned that’s not true. In a way, I feel like I came out on top in some aspects of life after taking a break from social media. Social media is both a source of positive and negative energy in our lives, but I think it’s important to balance it out so we can stay happy with who we are. And for you, if that means logging out for a while, do it!