What I Learned When I Logged Out of Social Media

If you know me, you probably know I love social media—I love people and it’s been such a fun tool over the years to connect with others, to keep tabs on people from various parts of my life I otherwise wouldn’t get to catch up with, and I love sharing pieces of my own life with family and friends near and far. Yet I am also the first to admit it is incredibly addicting. I’ve done enough research and watched enough documentaries on how the tech companies design these phones and apps to keep us coming back for more and cognitively I know every time I pick up my device I am playing into their designs, yet I couldn’t seem to help myself. It was like my brain had these ruts worn into it, pathways that my fingers automatically followed every time I picked up my phone. I’d pick it up to respond to a text and then automatically navigate over to Instagram to see what was new. Which of course sucked me to into watching stories or scrolling posts for 10 minutes before I realized it. I knew I needed a detox, both because of the sheer quantity of time I was spending each day checking in on other people, and because I was feeling pretty icky in general for a variety of reasons and I had a sinking suspicion my phone was partly to blame. You know how there might be a food that doesn’t always agree with you but you really really love the taste of it so you keep eating it, knowing you’ll regret it later? Yeah, that was me with Facebook and Twitter for the last few months of 2020 and through January of 2021. I knew nothing I saw was going to make me feel good—peaceful, happy, content, satisfied—yet I kept tapping that little blue icon on my phone screen. When February rolled around I knew all social media had to go during the 6 weeks of Lent.

I’ve given up social media several times in the past, but here’s my confession. Every single time I’ve majorly cheated. By week 2 of my “fast” I would find myself just popping on to check. Which would lead to more scrolling and before week 3 of Lent would roll around I was full on scrolling daily, just not posting so people would think I was still off line like I said I would be. I feel ridiculous even admitting that here but it’s the truth. I didn’t want that to be the case this time around and I even admitted to a friend I was going to have my husband change my passwords to prevent me from “cheating” this year. I truly wanted a break. Technically during Lent you are allowed to break your fast on Sundays, but I didn’t even want to do that this year, I wanted a full 6 weeks away.

Ash Wednesday rolled around and Chuck was busy, so I never ended up asking him to change my passwords, but the strangest thing happened. For the first time in my life I had no desire to even try and “cheat.” It was like I was relieved to sign out and step back, and I don’t know if I had ever experienced that before. In the past it was something I would give up because I felt like I should. This time it was because I desperately wanted to. After the first two weeks, the main two things I noticed was that I was reading more (I read 4 books in 2 weeks) and that I did not know what to do with my hands when I was sitting anywhere, usually while watching TV at night. I didn’t realize what a habit it had become to watch tv while also scrolling instagram or twitter at the same time. I found myself fidgety and really struggling to sit and relax at night without my phone in hand. So after the first week I took myself down to Michaels and bought a skein of yarn and a crochet hook. I had learned years ago but was never super into it, and while I’m not sure I’m actually making anything right now I don’t really care, it just feels good to have something tactile to reach for at night if we’re watching a movie.

After three weeks I had a pretty major realization. My anxiety was way down. It’s not something I talk about often, but I’ve realized in the last few years I do struggle with anxiety in ways that have some physical symptoms in my body. It took me a long time to pinpoint what was going on, but I finally realized that so often my throat is really tight and I have a sensation of gagging that comes and goes throughout the day. I’ve finally realized it’s been anxiety that’s been causing this, this tight choking sensation, and what I realized around week three of Lent is that I hadn’t had to reach for my usual coping mechanisms in days and days. I felt relatively peaceful and more clear headed, and the choking feeling I’d been really really struggling with throughout the fall and through January was almost entirely gone. Eliminating social media is the only thing in my life that changed, the connection was undeniable.

It makes sense to me that Facebook and Twitter would trigger feelings of anxiety in someone—it’s so many opinions and the comments section on anyone’s post can quickly devolve into a train wreck of people blasting one another for having an opinion different from their own. It’s a lot of news articles, posts on local pages of warnings of suspicious people at playgrounds, and opinions from people I love a lot but really disagree with that cause me to feel tense. But what surprised me the most was how much anxiety I was feeling on Instagram too, which isn’t exactly known for it’s controversial content. This is going to sound like a petty junior high thing to say, but if I’m being really honest I found myself feeling anxiety over what others were doing that I either wasn’t invited to be a part of, wasn’t able to participate in, or what other families were doing that I was somehow not doing or not able to afford doing with my kids. I wasn’t necessarily comparing myself to others but was finding myself feeling lonely and left out, even though the logical part of my brain knew this wasn’t the case, it was still hard seeing various things happening that I wasn’t a part of. I realized I actually liked not knowing what others were doing, it made me less lonely, which I know might not make sense but was truly what happened. Giving up Instagram especially made me think through why I posted what I did whenever I shared things and who I might have unintentionally hurt by sharing something, especially photos of social events that not everyone in my community was invited to be a part of.

The final thing that I realized happened when I signed out of all social media is that I found myself connecting more intentionally with those people who are a part of my more weekly life. At the beginning of Lent I actually wrote down the names of the people I wanted to be connecting with regularly and made sure to try and text them more often to check in outside of group chats, reach out for coffee dates, and invite people to do things. What I realized is that my world became much smaller, but also richer. Instead of scrolling and liking friend’s posts, I was hearing more about how they really are. I didn’t get to see pictures of their spring break trip but I got to hear first hand a longer account of the adventures they had, and I would take that any day.

I know that social media isn’t going anywhere, and I’m not planning on deactivating my accounts or never signing on—there are some really fun aspects of these tools that have been an asset in my life over the years! However, I think I’ve discovered that to engage with it in a more healthy manner I need to make some changes to when, how and for what I’m using it for, and that’s probably an on going evolving process. Like anything, there are amazing aspects of these tools that I truly love and am grateful for. I’ve had my worldview expanded immensely because I’ve been intentional about following people very different from myself. I’ve made online connections that I value. I’ve learned a lot. But something about the way I was utilizing these tools in my life was making me physically sick in some ways, it was making me groggy, lazy feeling, and anxious. Is it possible to find the right balance? I have no idea, however I sure want to try.

I’d love to hear from some of you about what this has looked like in your lives—have you found good boundaries to put into place around your phone usage? Have you discovered a good balance with these tools? Or are you also struggling and resonated with what I shared? Our online lives aren’t going anywhere, so reflecting on how to manage technology in our day to day is something I want to keep thinking about and would love to be inspired by how other’s use these tools well in their lives!