Is It Time For a Social Media Break?

How many of us are addicted to our social media accounts? If someone took your phone and computer away for a week would you go insane, or would you be OK with not seeing what’s happening online?

When you first got on social media, what was your purpose? Did you open accounts because everyone else had one? Or did you think it was a good way to keep in touch with friends and family? Or perhaps did you use social media for your business purposes?

Social media has changed over the years. When I first got on Facebook so many years ago, I had no idea what it was. Others I knew had spoken of it as a way of staying touch. I was under the impression it was for college kids. Maybe that’s mostly who was on Facebook. Then again, I was still learning how to use MySpace at the time!

I opened a Facebook account and liked the way I could keep in touch with friends and family with little effort. We could touch base without long conversations. A quick status kept us lightly connected.

I learned of other social media sites, but few interested me as much. I opened accounts on a couple of them, but wasn’t too intrigued with them. My intention never had been to become too involved.

But, social media has evolved over time. For many, their social media life is a life all of its own. It’s separate from real life. And sometimes, that becomes obvious, as in the case of “keyboard warriors”. These people behave online in ways they would never behave in real life.

Social media has become a complete time eater. It’s not so simple to just take a quick look and catch up on things and go with the rest of your life. For one thing, there are a lot more ads to interfere with the perusing of your feed. This makes seeing all the new posts take longer.

Secondly, algorithms now determine what posts you see instead of seeing things in chronological order. So, instead of being able to see just the activity from the last 4 hours, the app picks and chooses what you will see. This leaves you to scroll even longer to be sure you aren’t missing things from someone you don’t want to miss.

But, now, social media has also become a war zone. No matter how much you try to weed out the negative posts or the controversial things, somehow they make it into your feed. And, everyone has an opinion they feel a need to comment under these posts.

As empaths, we feel the emotions behind these comments and posts. We feel like we are stuck in that war with the battle being waged from both sides. Social media is a dangerous place for us right now.

For over a year now, I have been actively working to limit my social media time. I have a few groups that I oversee, so I have to check in with them to be sure they are running as they should. But, I don’t scroll through my feed much anymore.

I miss a lot. There are probably important posts from my friends I wish I would have seen, but it’s not worth walking through the minefield to find them.

I have a friend who is taking it a step further. She is going to go completely cold turkey free from social media for an entire month. I give her all the credit in the world. It’s going to be a complete life change for her. But, I’m willing to bet after that month, when she sees how much more relaxed her life is, she will not go back to being addicted to her phone again.

If it were not for the responsibilities to my online groups and the friends I can only stay in touch with online, I might follow her lead. Because, I already know the difference in my life just limiting my social media time. My life is more relaxed and I feel less uptight. There is more time to do things I need to do at home. And most importantly, I don’t feel constantly goaded into an argument.

It’s OK not to be connected all the time. If someone can’t get in touch with us for an hour or two (or 6 or 7), that’s perfectly all right. Do you think you could use some time away from social media?

(My friend is blogging her experience going without social media. If you want to check it out here is the link: Wendy’s Blog)