Social Media Cleanse 101
With much warning but totally catching me off-guard, here comes 2017. To say the least 2016 has taught me a lot. I found myself being taught lesson after lesson, barely having time to take notes on the last learning before another was getting ready to light my ass up.
Among the lessons I’ve learned how to be more humble, resourceful, patient, empathetic, and most important: mature. So much went down from jobs to family to my love life or lack thereof to moving. In a nutshell, 2016 was an emotional rollercoaster. All of that while still keeping up with what everyone else is and was doing. Insert social media. Double edged sword. Blessing and a curse. A catch 22.
We’ve all seen the glo up of social media and what it is capable of. These days, it literally changes lives. In some cases for the better and some for the worse. People are becoming famous and making a living off of their social media presence. As much as I want to shade all of those who are making said living, I have to give credit where credit is due. I can only imagine the work that has to be put in, not only to get to that point but to stay at that point. We’ve all have also seen how social media has become apart of our daily routines. You didn’t really eat if you didn’t post it. That party wasn’t really that lit if you didn’t snapchat it. You didn’t read that book if you don’t take a picture (one that’s IG worthy; apply that filter & adjust that contrast) and write a deep caption summarizing your thoughts on the 10 pages you read. The last book I attempted to read was You Are A Badass by Jen Gracico. And every time I got around to reading it, my mind always went to: I wonder how I can post about this. Never really enjoying the book. Never really enjoying dinner with my family. Never really enjoying my workout sesh. Never really enjoying my alone time.
One day while I was at work, I was making my rounds through all of my social apps. A little scrolling through Instagram and Facebook. A lot of peeping on snapchat. So much peeping that I kind of forgot I was at work. I literally had had enough…of myself. I deleted every single app. I put too much time into these platforms with nothing in return.
The first few days were a lesson on their own. It showed me how borderline obsessed I was with being in the know of everything and everyone. Now, during those few days I did have moments of weakness and found myself back in the app store to re-download. However, after the first week I was good to go.
Social media gives this false pretense that adulting is a breeze. While it has its perks, adulting is a never ending process and it gets hard. Hard and weird. Social media doesn’t do a great job of showcasing that as we do our best to have the most aesthetically pleasing pages that only show the highlights. Majority of the time, that is what social media is: a highlight tape that we’re sending off in hopes of being recruited.
Here’s the thing: a break will do you good. Even if it’s just for a week. I promise, you’ll start to be so much more present. And the little things become big things because you’re able to fully realize it. Comment below if you’re down & let me know how it goes!
Happy deleting!
