social media - Ashley Zin

Hi friends, I wanted to stop in and share a challenge I have decided to start now that it’s a new year. At the end of last year I was feeling like I had a lot of dreams and goals that I wanted to do but wasn’t getting anywhere with. This in turn created a lot of really ugly feelings. Deep down I knew what was causing these feelings.

Social Media = The Problem

Social media: mostly Instagram and Youtube was the problem. I’ve come to realize slowly over the course of the last year or so that wasting too much time on social media caused me to feel paralyzed in my own life and goals. It had reached its height towards the end of last year so I decided to cut it out cold turkey. (!!)

The Rules

Absolutely no time spent on social media of any kind.

Spend more intentional time reading my Bible.
Spend more time journaling.
Spend lots more time reading.

Blog twice a week.
Create new products for Etsy.
Spend more time with others – book time at the library, playgroup at church, etc.

Start doing yoga 1-2x per week by the end of the 90 days.

The Results

The hope is that taking a break from social media will cause me to feel less paralyzed in my own life because I won’t be constantly comparing my life to others and feeling like I don’t measure up.

It will also create a lot more time in my schedule. This will help with finally finding the time to work on the many goals that I’ve been wanting to meet.

If I’m being completely honest: I am very nervous to start this challenge. I’m worried about how hard it might be. I know that some of the goals I am reaching toward are pushing myself outside of my comfort zone but I know in the end that it will be good for me.

I will be checking in once a month to share how things are going.

Have you ever taken a social media detox? How did it go? What did you learn? Can you relate to any of my feelings caused by social media? I’d love to hear how you work through them. 🙂

A little over a month ago I decided it was time I took a social media break. I decided that I would do 30 days and asked my husband to do it along with me. I learned a lot from those 30 days so I thought I’d share that with you here today!

Why I Decided To Do a Social Media Detox

The answer to this was pretty simple really. I decided I needed some time away from social media because I felt like it was consuming my life a bit. I felt super addicting to checking my phone and it was really starting to bother me. I also really wanted to see what else I would be doing if I wasn’t scrolling endlessly on my phone.

So I proposed to my husband that we do a 30 day social media detox and he eagerly agreed. What I’ve also noticed since then is a lot of people that I follow online are talking about either needing to do the same or should do the same. It seems we all are feeling a bit overly attached to our phones.

What I Learned From My Detox: The Comparison Trap

The most important thing I learned over those 30 days was that the comparison trap of social media affected me waaaaay more than I had ever realized.

For me, this mostly had to do with working on my Etsy shop. I’ve always wanted to work from home. So naturally I’ve found a lot of women online that do work from home and have started following their lives hoping to learn something from them to make that possible for me.

What I honestly didn’t realize was that watching their lives so often was completely paralyzing me from really working hard at what I wanted.

I realized that because I’m just starting out on my business venture that watching people who already have what I want makes me feel really badly about myself. Crazy right? I already knew that this is a long time complaint of social media. That people feel badly about their own lives after being on social media. But to be completely honest, I didn’t know I was one of them until I did this social media detox.

Because for me, I realized that they aren’t conscious thoughts that are causing me to think these things. Like I never had the thought, “I’ll never have that.” or “I feel really badly for not having that yet.” after being on social media.

What I realized was that they were just feelings I would get as I was scrolling. I never would fully dwell on them long enough to even realize it was happening but after taking the 30 day break I could see it so much clearer.

Because in those 30 days I got so much done. I worked hard on my Etsy shop and actually did the things that I had planned to do for it for so long. I didn’t feel badly about where I was and I didn’t second guess myself. I just worked hard and felt good about it.

Jumping Back In

So what have I done now that I’ve learned this? That’s the hard part for me because I feel like staying off social media would be really good for me honestly. But the thing is I don’t want to stay off social media for good.

I enjoy following along with my “online friends” but I definitely realized something had to change.

One major thing I did was to unfollow (or mute) so many people I was following. I went through everyone and basically asked myself why I was following that person. If I didn’t have a good reason then I unfollowed. I unfollowed or muted a lot of people that I knew as acquaintances because our time is valuable. I realized that if I was going to spend time on Instagram then I didn’t want it to be time wasted. If someone encouraged me or if they were a real friend who I genuinely cared about what was going on in their life, then I kept following.

This has helped a bit and I am definitely more conscious of the comparison trap when it’s happening now. I also have decided to take more social media breaks more often. Once a week, my husband and I stay off social media completely on Saturdays and I feel like this helps a lot too.

So have you ever taken a social media break? What have you learned? I’d love to hear your experience with this!