Hey everyone! So my New Year’s resolution this year was to get off of social media and try and focus on myself. I’ve never done this before; ever since I got Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and all the other good stuff, I always used them. Snap streaks were my life, I would never break them for anyone (not even if the world was ending)
However, during Christmas break, I had an epiphany. I was spending too much time and energy on things that aren’t so important, things that inturn even hurt me. I realised that the core cause of this was me spending too much time on social media. I never realised that it can be so bad for mental health. So I decided that I should cleanse myself and stop using social media for the first 3 months of 2019 and see what happens.
NOTE: I didn’t stop using ALL social media, just the ones that I felt I was using too much
The first thing I did was decide which apps I would delete. Now obviously I can’t go totally off grid, I need to have some sort of communication with some friends and the clubs that I’m a part of. I concluded that Instagram and Snapchat were my kryptonite so those needed to be deleted. I first deactivated my Instagram account during the first week and deleted Snapchat during the second. Now, I’m totally not off Instagram because I need to handle some club’s accounts. The first two weeks were very hard, I would reach for my phone and I couldn’t find anything interesting on there and didn’t know what to do. So I downloaded a couple of games to keep me sane.
After a month, I completely stopped reaching for my phone ALL the time, like I would before. I didn’t feel anxious every morning about losing my snap streak, or feel left out or replaced because I didn’t reply to someone fast enough. Because of that, I was able to focus on the most important things for me. The amount of things I achieved during these months is nothing like I ever achieved before. I even travelled to NYC (the greatest city in the world duh) for a weekend and didn’t feel like need to Snapchat everything, instead I just enjoyed being there. Now, after 3 months, I’m going to continue this for the rest of the academic year.
So, in the end, I think FOMO (fear of missing out) is when everyone is constantly on social media battling to be in every social event or moment that happens in either their school, neighborhood or the world. When you stop doing that and realise what’s actually important and worth your time, you’ll have more time for your friends and family and realize that this whole FOMO thing is just BS as long as you’re having fun with the ones you love. Afterall, we’re just specks of dust floating in space ;)