My One Month Social Media Break…

I’ve always wanted to give this blogging a go, like treat it like my job. I have been blogging on and off since 2008, back then it was free wordpress blogs, that you simply added blurry pictures to, wrote your content and sent it out into the interweb. Now it is a whole new ball game, there is so much to know and learn, there are rules and algorithms and saturation of other bloggers and influencers.

The fact of the matter is, my blogs have never been a success. It’s not like i haven’t got content, i have photo albums of content all ready to be a blog post, my problem is this content never makes it into a post. The frustrating part about all this is my fear of missing out (FOMO), i am so busy seeing what every other person is taking photos of or writing about that i have left no time for myself. Doh!! Then there is the whole comparison is the thief of joy and before I know it, my blog is not good enough, my photos aren’t good enough and everything that I could be achieving is archived into the ‘could do better’ folder.

Scrolling…. scrolling social media is my arch enemy it would turn out. I am too scared to think about how many hours i have wasted scrolling. You know what happens when you scroll social media… life happens, all around you but you are in a bubble of perfect photos, of faces you will never look like, homes you will never be able to afford and dream lives that you will never have. Yet if all of this was not there, you may be able to look in the mirror and think I look OK today, my little home is all i need and my life is perfect as it is.

Due to my scrolling, i have what i can only describe as excessive noise, so many images, comments, ideas and things i want to do and achieve, all going around in my head. I decided at the beginning of the year, i wanted to reduce this noise and step back into Amy’s world, i have been in Instagram world for a bit too long.

1st January, I decided to take a social media break. The noise was too much, I was feeling anxious, angry that my life doesn’t feel as simple as it should be.

It is 31 days later and the noise has reduced, I am ‘back in the room’ if you like, things are beginning to sound clearer and I feel lighter. I am realising that I just didn’t have the balance quite right. I should live my life, write about it, share it and then have a little glance at what others are doing. Instead, I have been watching what everyone else is doing, checking again what everyone else is doing, thinking that would be good to write about on my blog, check what everyone else is doing, oh that blog idea is now old or obsolete, check what everyone else is doing… I think you get the gist!

I don’t think social media is bad, i have learnt a lot from others and feel inspired by their lifestyles and ideas. I think i have just been using it wrong. I still feel the urge to ‘take a photo of that’ as it would get a lot of likes on Instagram. The subconscious voice saying ‘check Instagram, you have a second free’ knowing full well, 30 minutes later i could still be scrolling!

Tomorrow, my social media break is officially over. Was it hard to do? At the beginning, it really was. I didn’t realise how often I checked my phone until i couldn’t anymore. For the first few days, I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself. I had forgotten how to fill voids of time – how sad is that?!! This past month has been truly awesome and a complete eye-opener. I feel calm and there is clarity where everything felt a bit like too many tabs were open in my mind. I have been more connected physically with people and it’s nice hearing news from people’s actual mouths instead of knowing it all already through facebook. I have baked for the joy of it and not just to take photos of my creations on instagram. I have read books, 3 whole books which is a massive achievement for this slow reader. I have felt more connected than ever to my children, we have learnt to play Uno and without fail play a game every evening before bed.

So will i be back on social media tomorrow? Probably not! I will not be putting the apps back on my phone anyway, but i may check in now and again. I have really missed some accounts on Instagram so i will enjoy catching up with them. My scrolling days are over, i like living in the actual world, the virtual one isn’t all that. I plan to blog and post more, rather than scroll, scroll, scroll.

Do you feel like you have the balance right when it comes to social media?