Happy Saturday, my friends! I’m back! After a long while since November of last year, I’m finally back on the blog! And I’m excited about this not only because it’s been awhile but I because this won’t just be a single post for the month!
Consistency just jumped along the bandwagon (hopefully). And I’ll be on here a whole ton of a lot more. Which is good news especially when I really have to be on here!
1. Facebook & Instagram hit the road so hard, it hit back.
In other breaking news, I just signed off of Facebook and Instagram! One of the biggest boxes I’ll check off this year! I’ll admit, I was feeling pretty relieved, clear-minded, and refreshed for the first few hours of no social media being a reality.
And that still is the case. Though, if you consider I’ll get on every couple of days or so and check and see if anyone missed the memo on my leaving and decided to connect with me anyway on Instagram, I’m still not exactly social-media-free.
And that’s because I only took the Instagram app off my phone and left my Instagram account up for people to glean from. Still, I’m glad to say I wasn’t addicted to Instagram. Granted, it was hard to get off when I was on there. But I wasn’t someone who constantly needed their phone.
2. The war on phone-addiction.
And I made it a practice during movies to face my phone down and not pay any attention to it unless, you know, someone was actually calling me on my phone. Because that’s what it is – a phone. A cellular device for long-distance communication.
And many times, I’d realize halfway through a movie or even after a movie that my phone wasn’t even in the room. And sometimes, I’d purposely leave it back in my bedroom.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the people I came to know on Instagram. Some of which became good friends of mine and became part of my inner writing circle and I’m staying in touch with them. But to get Instagram entirely off my phone was a big relief.
3. Friendship is a beautiful thing.
And after a tumultuous period of time in life a few years ago, friends have been something I’ve been extremely short on. So, being able to build an inner writing circle to stay in touch with without the ball and chain of social media has been a great edition to my life.
It’s been a unique pleasure I’ve discovered to go to my phone and instead of seeing another “so-and-so liked your post” notification, I see a notification for a message so long from a writer friend, my lock screen can’t show me the whole thing. So, if I had to give a list of the three benefits of getting off my social media, they’d be…
- More time with friends
- Less strain on my attention span
- More focus in life in general
4. Facebook is a done deal.
With Facebook, I just entirely deleted the account. So, I can’t even sign on and check in on things without posting like I can on Instagram. I’m just waiting for thirty days to pass for the official deletion of the account.
And I didn’t even really do anything on Facebook anyway. I didn’t even spend that much time scrolling endlessly. There were times like that. But it wasn’t even on a once-a-week basis.
5. The one secret I discovered.
But despite having already given three benefits of getting off social media, I still have a secret for you I discovered after realizing the benefits I’ve listed… from being a writer always trying to showcase myself when my self has been strenuously lacking to transitioning to being a writer with all my free time suddenly being able to be devoted to writing and self-expression has deepened by experience as a human being.
Being able to step back from writing, know my writing is in my room and I don’t have to “print it” and send it off to the world of social media and to know I can just take a break, walk away, play a game, eat an apple, or spend time with family… peace, clarity, and, as a result, deeper peace from that clarity has become my being.
6. Complications still endure.
So, with more time in my schedule, which I’m overly enthused over, writing fiction and blog posts now has more space on the calendar! But despite this newfound time in creativity, there have still been complications.
But that’s another blog post… Because this one’s already too long.
Have you ever shaken the dust of social media off your feet and been social-media-free? What was your experience like?
