Last year my good friend Tiffany Ash decided that she was no longer going to use her social media accounts and this really inspired me to do the same. I do operate on social media platforms for business purposes but for that I will use an app like Hootsuite which allows me to post only, so I don’t have to look at the news feed. The difference which I have seen since I got rid of social media has been huge and it is easily the best move that I have made. Social media can get too much sometimes and here is exactly what you will discover when you give it a rest.
Learning to be Present
What is strange is that when we post images of our food or when we are vacationing with friends, we are telling the world how much we love this moment. The irony is that we are not in the moment at all, the moment arrived, and we decided to hit social media to tell people we are enjoying it, despite not even being there. When you leave social media there is definitely a sense of being more present when you are experiencing things.
Less Pressure
Something which I actually didn’t realize until I decided to quit social media was just how much pressure I felt. When I used to wake up I would check Instagram, mainly looking at people’s stories, I would often think about how great everyone else’s life looked compared to mine and that is a horrendous way to start your day. Back then I just took it in my stride but looking back I was essentially starting my day with all of this negativity and self loathing. I feel far less pressure on what I do now and I make decisions based on their own merits and not based on what the Twitterati are going to say.
Less Worry
There are only so many things around the world that we can worry about and in reality the best thing for all of us to only worry about the things that we are able to change. This is where social media is really at its worst because we have access to information from all over the world. This means that we can see the destruction and terrible situations around the world, and short of donating money to charitable causes there really isn’t very much that we can do. Unfortunately however this really gets into your psyche and you feel guilt and all kinds of negative emotions about something which is entirely out of your control.
I am not telling everyone that they have to get off social media but if you are able to take a break from it then very quickly you are going to see it for what it really is and understand that we have reached a point where it is doing more harm than good.
