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!
