Social Media Sabbatical:
The experiment: I’m giving up Social Media for a year
I am exhausted and NEED change.
-With the subliminal messages about why my body isn’t enough
-with the inevitable comparisons that come from scrolling
why do I even care about followers!!? I hate this takes any of my energy!!
-with the Obsession to get adorable, cool photos for my feed
-with Instagram and Facebook monetizing MY time and energy and playing on my weaknesses
-with the false sense of community and connection
-with the low quality dopamine hits from likes, and comments
-with the ‘why not me’s’ about engagement, and followers
It feels fucking GROSS to admit I’m borderline addicted to social media. Psychology today has
6 simple questions to help you tell if social media has too much of a grip on your life:
"If you want to check whether you may be at risk of developing an addiction to social media, ask yourselves these six simple questions:
Do you spend a lot of time thinking about social media or planning to use social media? yes. More than I’d like to admit
Do you feel urges to use social media more and more?
it can happen to me very easily where I start filling every intermittent space with social media. I’ve instagrammed and drove.
Do you use social media to forget about personal problems?
this one. If my kids are driving me bonkers or I’ve had an argument or frustration with Ryan I will go on Instagram or Facebook to numb out and escape. But it doesn’t fill my cup with any quality (aside from a handful of exceptions: accounts I love their content or my friends, but that’s like 5% of my consumption)
Do you often try to reduce your use of social media without success?
I have had success. I’ve used my screen time app, I’ve taken a week off. It’s NOT ENOUGH for me. I need more time to truly tap into what being removed and on my phone is taking from my quality of life.
Do you become restless or troubled if you are unable to use social media?
no. Luckily. Although thinking about giving it up for an entire year gives me major anxiety. Another reason why I know I NEED it.
Do you use social media so much that it has had a negative impact on your job or studies?
I can’t be on my phone and work doing massage. But I will admit I’ve checked Instagram occasionally during a birth ( during quiet moments I’m not needed, and even that seems gross)
I want to go back to school eventually. And I know if I don’t get this under control and really lean in to the why behind controlling it, I would let it back into my life and go back to old habits.
This is the ULTIMATE self care decision for me. It actually at times feels grossly selfish. I am truly following my gut and my heart.
I know I am letting people down, especially my doula partners. We just started a collective in September and social media is a HUGE part of marketing and I will not be contributing to handling engagement, comments, ect. I will still produce content for them to post, I just can't engage in the like/comment/engagement dopamine hits anymore.
Also we are reducing our post frequency and I will still blog! I’m going to channel my creativity into other avenues that feed my soul.
I want to be more present and in the drivers seat of my life and self worth. Thriving. Not just getting by.
I want to be vibrant. Glowing. And I really hope that kind of alignment is on the other side of this. I want to be not cheating myself out of having the time to read, meditate, clean my house. You wouldn't believe how often I sit and look at a pile of laundry and complain about not having enough time when I just scrolled for 10 minutes!
My biggest fears are:
- not being connected, I do love oversharing. I just want to take this time to double check my intentions. I don’t want to be sharing with an expectation of engagement.
-Fomoofomo (fear of missing out on fear of missing out) fear of missing out of things I won’t even know about! But hoping I have created enough routines with my friends that my social/friendship cup will still be filled.
-Resentment - from my business partners that I’m not doing enough, that they feel this has been unfair for me to step away and they feel an expectation to produce content.
- Anyone feeling like I am judging them for not making a similar decision. THIS IS ABOUT ME. Its about what I need to do for myself. I have zero judgement about anyone else journey. Different things work and effect people in different ways.
I do hope that if this resonates at all with you that you take some time away to think about it.
I am SO looking forward to sharing here, and to what this spaciousness created from quitting social media will provide.