Hi my name is Kayla and I’m a social media addict
This statement should come as no surprise to you.
I’ve built a chunk of my career on instagram. My twitter got me hired by a very popular fitness start-up four years ago. I met one of my best friends on social media. I even have a master’s degree in social media. Yes, that’s a thing.
Despite all these good, incredible, amazing things social media has provided for me, lately, it’s been making me feel very… meh. Like I am not enough unless my latest post gets over 200 likes.
photo take by Diana of Blue Spark Photography
My Complicated Relationship with social media
I was recently listening to a podcast which called social media a recreational drug [Let it Out: Ep. 234 w/ Robin Berzin]
That idea really hit me in the gut. Was I using social media as a drug more so than a tool? Craving that hit of dopamine every time I get a “like” on a post?
I’ve often times used my career as an excuse for my social media habits. Don’t you judge me for being on my phone, person sharing an elevator with me. I’m not just some phone obsessed millennial, I’m making a living on instagram!
And there is partial truth to that. Here I am, writing this blog post on a platform heavily supported by my instagram. But that doesn’t make all of this okay. For starters, I spend SO much time mindlessly scrolling. Even since I started writing this post I’ve checked my phone and of course instagram at least four times. I don’t want to think about how many hours I’ve spent watching other people’s IG stories.
Even more important than the time suck social media can be: I do not want my sense of worth to continue to be wrapped up in my number of followers and likes. Obviously I know that my worth isn’t equal to those metrics. But my god, sometimes it can feel like it. Especially when you are literally tying your monetary value for sponsored posts to the number of followers. It’s a tricky, confusing, blurred line.
With all of this percolating in my brain I knew I was long overdue for a social media detox. Even if only for 24 hours.
My detox rules
From the time I went to bed Tuesday night to the time I woke up Thursday morning I was not allowed to go on any social media channel. Not facebook nor twitter (yes, I still love twitter) and of course not my complicated lover, instagram.
24-hours felt like both a challenge for me but also doable. I’m sure some of you out there are snickering thinking 24-hours is nothing! I agree. But I can’t even tell you the last time I spent more than an hour away from instagram. And also I circle back to my classic excuse: Social media is in fact part of my job. So I can’t totally ditch it for days at a time.
The Detox
Is binging before a social media detox a thing, because I swear I was binging HARD on Tuesday night. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have to wake up early Wednesday, but holy moly I could not stop scrolling. Once I got bored of instagram I’d move to facebook, and then to twitter, and then start up again. It was like I wanted to absorb every last story I might miss in the following 24-hours.
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It felt weird to wake up and have nothing to “check” besides my email. Throughout the day I found myself itching to check something approximately every 5 minutes. I found myself refreshing my email approximately one thousand times throughout the day to satisfy this craving. Which gets boring real fast because email is the least exciting thing ever 99% of the time.
I took a long walk while listening to a podcast at one point during the day. There were SO many times that I felt the urge to stop, check my phone, and subconsciously open instagram. It was like a tiny, nagging, alarm going off in my brain like clockwork every few minutes. I wanted to check SOMETHING so bad. And once again, email didn’t have the same level of satisfaction.
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One thing I noticed was how disconnected I felt from the outside world. Which is crazy because I still had access to text messages, email and the news. But I kept having this creeping curiosity: did someone make some exciting announcement on instagram or facebook that I’m missing out on???
Spoilers alert: No one did. And even if that had, I would’ve found out about it eventually.
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I did mess up at one point: I have facebook as a shortcut on my Safari browser. After checking my email I subconsciously clicked over to Facebook out of habit. Which made me realize that I’m not even thinking about opening up Facebook half the time I open it up on my computer. It’s practically muscle memory to open facebook when I’m done checking my email.
After the detox
I woke up this morning all excited to catch-up on social media. I’ll have so many fun stories to watch and posts to catch up on!
Within a few seconds of opening up instagram I realized I didn’t miss anything. Logging back on was way less exciting than I anticipated.
The truth is I hadn’t missed out on much. Maybe a story or two that I would’ve enjoyed. And there were a few messages to respond to. But nothing earth shattering. And for me that was the BIGGEST takeaway from this little experiment. The realization that I don’t need to be constantly checking social media for fear of missing out on something. Newsflash, Kayla, not much is going on.
Now What?
Obviously 24-hours sans social media didn’t cure me from all my issues. But there are a few things I want to change about my relationship to social media.
I’m [obviously] not going to quit social media. For starters, I’m a bit tethered to it as a part of my job and passions. But even if that wasn’t the case I’m not ready to totally let go. There’s a lot I do like about social media. The incredible people I’ve connected with who have inspired me IMMENSELY to go after my non-traditional dreams. I enjoy seeing what my friends from sleepaway camp are up to.
I’m not saying social media is the devil, just that my relationship with it clearly needs to be adjusted
One thing I want to focus on going forward is intentionality when I go on social media. If I’m going on social media just to post, go forth and post, Kayla. But don’t linger around and get lost in everyone’s IG stories. It’s also okay to give yourself that time to scroll, engage and interact, but be intentional that that is what I’m here to do right now.
I’m working to find that right balance going forward. Do I need to set stricter boundaries? Maybe mini social media detoxes throughout the day or times of day I’m not allowed to aimlessly scroll?
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This experiment reminded me that I used to be SO much better about logging off. I’d go on vacation where the wifi at the hotel was WAY to expensive and I didn’t pay for roaming on my phone. Last summer I got in the habit of taking Saturday off social media. There was a short period of time when I’d put my phone on airplane mode once I got into bed. For whatever reason, those practices fizzled out. But maybe it’s time to bring some version of them back.
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Your Turn: Have you ever done a social media detox? What boundaries do you have set up for social media?
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