When I returned home last summer in early May, I put my phone down and didn’t pick it up until the first week of school. Sure, I used my phone to take pictures and make phone calls, but I didn’t go on social media for about three months. Yes – I didn’t go on Facebook, Snapchat, Groupme, Twitter or Instagram, and I did somehow manage to survive. Upon returning to school – and social media – I noticed subtle differences in my life that can be attributed to social media.
1. Anxiety about everyone else was nonexistent.
I once heard that scrolling through social media is like comparing your life to everyone else’s highlight reel. As I was looking through everyone pictures, I would often get a serious case of F.O.M.O. followed by sadness that I wasn’t doing the cool things that everyone else was. It was incredibly freeing to not have that anxiety of comparing myself to everyone else weighing down on me. My confidence began to improve, and I became more grateful for the things I already had.
2. My concentration on tasks increased.
When you aren’t worried about what everyone else is doing, you become more engrossed in the task at hand. Whether it was working or attending class, I found myself becoming captivated by what’s right in front of me. After spending the entire summer with an increased concentration, I found myself being able to focus more in class. No longer am I tempted to look at my phone every two seconds. I began to actually concentrate on the lecture and really began to feel the love of learning again.
3. There was more time to explore other interests.
When you aren’t caught up in constantly keeping track of everyone else’s lives, it tends to create a lot of free time. This summer I reinvested in myself and found a lot of forgotten interests. Books became relevant in my life, and I had more time to read and increase my knowledge on subjects that I truly enjoyed. I also took a lot of time to truly think about my future career and what jobs I was interested in, and, hey, it turns out that I really want to be a lawyer!
4. My life became more about experiencing life than taking pictures to prove something to other people.
When my family and I went to Italy this summer, my mom was all about documenting every single day on Facebook and getting as many likes as possible. She would spend all morning agonizing about what other people were doing, and it really took away from the fun activities that we were doing. Since I didn’t constantly have my phone out, I felt like I was able to appreciate the beauty around us. Without fail, at every meal every single person in my family would take out their phones and spend the majority of the meal scrolling through Instagram and ignoring each other’s presence. I would look around the restaurant and see all these other family’s whose phones were no where in sight and saw a noticeable difference between the fun dinners that other families were having and the boring one we were having.
So I’ll leave with you this; try weening yourself off social media and see how it can change your life. You never know what could come from making such a small change!