Why I took a Social Media Detox & 6 Things I learned From It
If you’ve been noticing, I haven’t been posting much on social media lately. Especially on Instagram, the leading social platform I use daily. I haven’t posted on my feed in a few weeks now. I’ve been posting in my Instastories from time to time to let you know I’m still alive, haha. Just in case you were wondering, I wanted to share why I’ve been cutting down my social media time.
First, social media can be very addicting. A few months back, I saw how much time I spent on social networking. I spend a lot of time on social media because it’s basically my job, I earn an income from it. So, of course, I would spend a lot of time on social media. However, I felt like most of that time was me scrolling and not being that productive. So, I started cutting back my time. I posted that I was close to reaching 30 minutes a day on Instagram, which is huge for me, haha. However, I still felt like it wasn’t enough.
My mind was still stuck on the negative side of social media as well. As a content creator, or influencer(what people usually call people like myself). I saw I was so focused on numbers, mainly my engagement(how many likes/comments I get). To the point where I was deleting my own followers by removing ghost followers(yes, this is a thing) to help with my engagement and to win against Instagram’s algorithm. These numbers are significant when it comes to working with brands. The reason why so many influencers/content creators complain about the algorithm. When i started to realize how negative my thoughts were, I just sat there and was like, this is not it. Is this really even that important?
Why do I care so much? It shouldn’t make me feel this way. There’s more to life than these numbers. There are more things I need to be focused on. Like concentrating more on my family, friends, and of course, myself. Home in on the things that bring me joy. Improving who I am as a person and loving myself. A lot of influencers or content creators feel as though they can’t take a break from social media because this is their job, which is the downside of it. Because if you stop posting, then your revenue will decrease. However, I was at the point where money was not that important to me. My mental health was more important. But when I started posting on youtube, it wasn’t for the money. I didn’t ask for people to follow my Instagram account so I could become an influencer, it grew naturally. I didn’t know what an influencer was, and that making money from Instagram was a thing until brands reached out to me.
I didn’t fully take a break from social media, I cut back on it and saw improvement already. So, if you’re one of those people who can’t give up social media entirely, then try just cutting back from it. Whether it’s by cutting down your daily average, or by taking a break for a few days or weeks. Maybe even cut back from it by one social platform at a time, this week take a break from Instagram, next week from Facebook.
Here are 6 things I noticed while taking a break from Social Media:
I was more productive:
My productivity has been up, I obviously haven’t done a 360. Like I’m a person that crosses everything off my to-do list now, but I get at least 5 things done, which is significant for me. I’m trying to get to the point where I block schedule(scheduling a specific task for a specified time) daily.
There is enough time:
We always hear people say that there is enough time in a day to get something done, and a lot of the time people disagree with that statement. After cutting back my social media time and implementing block scheduling. I’m starting to realize that there is enough time in a day.
I’ve been more positive:
I have been way more positive lately. I feel like I’m able to do things and get things done. I haven’t really beat myself up over something in a while. I’ve also been taking #Mood Pills from Love Wellness when I feel the need to, so maybe that’s why my overall attitude towards things have been better.
How much social media drained me:
Some posts annoyed me and made me so frustrated. There were times I caught myself comparing myself. Wondering what I was doing wrong when it came to posting on social media as a content creator. Once I started cutting out social media, I saw less annoying posts and compared myself less as well, which helped improve my mood.
I don’t need validation:
Everyone knows that likes and comments are a form of validation. When you don’t get that many likes or comments, you start asking yourself, am I doing something wrong? I noticed that I don’t need these things to feel validated or to prove anything. I am all the things I think I am and don’t need anyone to cosign that for me. I am beautiful, I am funny, I am creative, I am smart, and the list goes on!
I don’t need to share:
I don’t need to share a lot or even anything. This goes along with feeling the need to be validated. It’s like if I don’t share it, did I really do it? I now understand that I don’t need to share everything to prove anything. For instance, I might say I’m a big fan of an artist one day, and someone might say, “Oh, I’ve never seen you talk about this artist.” Or here’s another example, let’s say I have a whole list of ideas that I plan to post about but I never actually shared them, but then someone shares the exact same idea that I had on my list. I post what I had planned later, but then that person or people assume I got the idea from the other person who posted it before me. You get where I’m going? It’s like if we don’t post or say we’re going to do something people automatically assume we never did it or thought about it before. I know what I did, there’s no need to share it with others. I feel like there will always be an issue behind this because it’s either you overshare, or you don’t share enough.
I’m really loving this journey I am on. Going into the new year, I didn’t plan to take a break or to step back from social media, but one day I felt like it was much needed and just decided to do it. So far it’s been really great. I plan to start posting again more but reminding myself of all the things that I learned from this detox; numbers aren’t substantial, I can step back whenever I feel like I’m frustrated, I don’t need validation, and much more. If you haven’t taken a detox yet, I recommend it! If you have already, let me know how you felt after you did in the comments down below! Thanks for reading and ta-ta for now.