I have always been one for social media; I couldn’t go anywhere without it. My whole life revolved around those accounts – just saying that makes me realize the truth in what I am about to say – but I have recently deleted all social media to steer myself away from that style of living.
I was a Snapchatter who had a snap streak of 250,000. I was a Snapchatter who had over 400 friends on the app, and I would use 10 to 15 gigabytes a month on Snapchat if I didn’t have Wi-Fi. One month my phone bill was over $500 because I spent so much time on Snapchat that my data went through the roof. How crazy is that?! Then I took my habit into a relationship and that caused so much more problems because no one wants their partner Snapchatting all these people all the time. I couldn’t even sit down without my phone and have a conversation with the people who matter the most to me. I didn’t know how to live without Snapchat and that really sucked.
Instagram was thankfully a different story. I didn’t have thousands of followers or people I followed; I didn’t have the few hundred likes on my pictures. I used it just because everyone else was but, once again, a habit grew. I would post a picture and wait for hours to see who all liked it and if anyone commented as if that was all that mattered in life. It even got to the point where I took hours to edit and crop before uploading one picture. Then I’d have to wait until it was the right time to post my picture because I needed the most likes and certain times were better than others.
Twitter was never really my thing until lately. I would follow people and just scroll on the app because I thought it was a fun way to kill time but I was never one to post often. It wasn’t until I started blogging that Twitter became a part of my daily routine. I would check to see what people were saying but I started using it as a tool to explain my every move during every day. I thought that the people who followed me would think my life was cool but what I didn’t realize was the people who follow me are either my best friends and know everything already, or they were people I know but don’t really talk to. So why would they really care? When I realized this I knew it was time to stop with social media in general.
I decided that taking a break from social media would be beneficial for me and thought I’d give it a try for at least for a little while. It was so hard. I had to refrain myself and leave my phone at home when I would go out because the temptation of being on social media was still so large. I wanted to download the apps again just because everyone else was on them. I also had to keep myself very busy for the first few weeks because when I was bored I would download them again and just look through the accounts, although I knew I shouldn’t and deleted it after a few minutes. I just knew I had to start from the beginning every time I re-downloaded it and that really sucked. I had planned to be off social media for a month and then see how I would feel after that month passed but it only lasted two weeks.
I had learned so much within those two weeks and you could say that they were the most efficient weeks I’ve had in a long time. I felt lonely because I would use social media to talk to everyone but once I stopped, I felt relieved. Relieved that I didn’t have that stress of keeping the snap streak, relieved that I didn’t have to read those negative comments on twitter, relieved to have stopped living my life through the pictures of everyone else’s lives. I stopped looking at other people and wishing I was that camera efficient; I stopped worrying about silly things like filters and hashtags. I started worrying more about the things that benefit me, things that I like. I started working out more and found happiness within myself and my music. I started working more and enjoyed the higher numbers in my bank account. I realized one really important factor that has honestly changed the way I wake up every day, the way I look at the world.
Social media does not mean friendship.
Social Media isn’t everything. Social media isn’t happiness. Social media isn’t all that matters in the world. There are more important things in this world that we can be focussed on; we do not need to be spending so much of our time on things that will not matter in five years.
Social media does not and should not control your life so stop letting it.
I have been able to live a more happy life. I am not going to lie, I do occasionally check those apps but I have learned to use them as a gift not as a necessity to everyday life and I’m so much happier. My days are now spent doing things that are beneficial and that personally better myself and my daily attitudes. I now am not a Snapchat freak, I look at Instagram to keep in contact with a few close friends and I don’t even use my Twitter anymore. It feels like such a relief.
So if you notice yourself getting caught up in the social media and feel like it has become a necessity in your life I beg you to try not using it. Try seeing the world through your own eyes and not through the eyes of your phone screen. It makes a hell of a difference.
Feature Image via pexels.
