leni-easypeasy

[leni-easypeasy]

Social media - friend or foe? My insights from a social media time-out

The impact of excessive use of facebook & Instagram is best known so I‘m not gonna bore you on that. If you are lucky and you are not hit by one of these intense effects like a distorted body image or depression, you might still wonder: Does it have an effect on me I haven‘t yet realized? And what effects does it have on me specifically? Keep reading and you may get to the point of wanting to find out.

Friend or foe - good or bad?

Just as with food and other things, these media should not generally be labeled as good or bad. They can provide access to information, inspiration and amazing entertainment we all should enjoy, connect us with friends or stakeholders, and keep us up-to-date on trends as well as world news.

But how exactly can I assess my own consumption? How does it change my everyday life?

As always, there is no general rule how to best deal with it, everyone has to find this out for themselves. And exactly that, to find out what effect it has on me and what is the best way for me to deal with it, happened to me - quite unplanned.

My impactful decision

Beginning of April I spontaneously decided to delete all social media apps (in my case Instagram, Facebook (+Messenger), Linkedin, Twitter) for one month. I knew that social media consumed about 2 hours of my day which is a lot considering that I'm not using it for business reasons. Also I was sure that I'm not addicted to it, neither to using it, nor to reactions of followers. I do not give a shit on how many people are following me or watching my stories when I randomly post something. At least, that's what I thought.

In the first 2-3 days I reached for my phone every few minutes out of a habit. From day 1 I noticed that I had moments throughout the day in which I was suddenly bored, I did not know what to do. It became clear very quickly how much time social media really "costs" me. I started to write down smaller activities (household, organizational things like paying bills, etc.) for the next few days to be done instead of endless scrolling and boredom. I intentionally added some activities that involved using the smartphone, to prevent potential deprivation symptoms I expected. (Spoiler: I didn't have any such symptoms for the whole month, it turned out quite differently than expected). Some tasks like organizing my e-mails took me a little more than 2 hours in one day, but it was in line with my original social media consumption, so no additional time loss. I loved the new efficient me and started to fill the following days more and more with tasks that had been pending for a long time. After I had completed all my to-dos involving the phone - which was after about a week - my screen time dropped dramatically. From 3-4 hours a day, I was suddenly at 55 minutes screen time. Because not only the social media usage was gone, also the pointless opening and checking of various other apps that I only opened because I was already on my phone due to a social media scroll marathon decreased. I didn't miss it at all.

The moment I realized …

It took 2 weeks until that one moment that showed me, what relationship I actually have with instagram. I was out with friends, we went for a little hike and had dinner at an insane location. The view, the food – “a perfect instagram moment”. As if remote controlled, I reached for my phone to take a photo when I suddenly remembered that I was on that time-out. The feeling that took me in that moment was: relief! WTF? I was expecting a lot, but not this. My mind immediately began to work out what just happened: Why did I feel relief not having to post this? I thought I didn't care about followers or likes. I had no interest in monetizing or growing my social media presence in any way. My relationship with social media was more of a compulsion than voluntary independent use. Showing my followers what an awesome moment I was experiencing, the desire for quick recognition we receive on instagram even without actual performance, via "views, likes, reactions, follows".

Is this deserved recognition and is it an achievement and real recognition at all? From my point of view, no, at least not concerning my activity on instagram. The reactions of followers rarely reflect how much effort you put into a post. Research-based articles / high quality content or images go down next to nudity, wealth and unrealistic over-edited images.

What followed were days where I walked 14,000 steps/day due to the time I gained (my average was 10,000/day before the time-out). My apartment was cleaner than ever, I met friends I hadn't seen in a long time and I had more time for sports and ticking lots of boxes on my to-do list.

I also have to mention that this extra time gained was of course filled with other "time wasting activities” over time. No one is constantly efficient, which is all good. But I'd rather fill my time with daydreaming than with one instagram-scrolling-marathon after another due to known effects.

Ultimately, I also want to briefly mention that I realized, I was lying to myself about my usage: I argued my usage with the inspiration I could draw from fitness/health accounts. There is insanely good content available on instagram, no doubt. But any inspiration is only valuable if you put it into action, and that was not the case for me. For me, the time limit functionality on phones is not enough as long as you can still skip and ask for more time; knowing there is an app where I might get messages / reactions leads to more consumption than I want. I am going to gradually part ways with instagram. After my time-out month, I reinstalled it and was relatively quickly back to a level of usage that is too high for me personally, which is why I decided 1 month later to delete the app again, for an undefined time.

Whatever you think your relation with social media looks like: I can absolutely recommend a complete time-out to everyone to find out what it really does to you. Too often we lie to ourselves - even completely unconsciously. For me, it was a comfort zone I moved out of, and I found a new comfort zone I love, that I hope to challenge again soon.

Now: Follow me on Instagram leni_theoneandonly … but don't expect any content there 😉