Being from Florida, almost all of my friends are on the semester system and get out in April and May. And having to see everyone from home hanging out at the beach and at parties made me suffer from major FOMO. I started feeling upset, antsy, and homesick after seeing the constant pictures on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. I knew I needed to focus on my finals and finish out my sophomore year strong, but seeing other people on break made me start to lose motivation. So, I decided to temporarily delete all of my social media until finals were over.
At first, I definitely opened my phone a lot to click on the apps that I had deleted. But with time, it got a lot easier. Without the ability to go on my phone and check different social media apps, the lack of motivation I had developed started to go away. Getting space away from Instagram and Snapchat accounts of people who were enjoying the freedom of summer made my sad thoughts slip away. I knew I would be on summer vacation myself very, very soon!
In the end, deleting social media is definitely something I would do again in the future. Getting space and time away from seeing what other people were doing allowed me to focus on myself. In a time where I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and what decisions I needed to make in regard to my relationships with other, not seeing social media allowed me to figure it out. Not have social media around kept me from comparing myself to others and questioning the decisions I was making in my life. I need to realize that social media is a facade, and my decision without it would allow me to follow my heart. It seemed to be the perfect cure for my FOMO.