Dear reader,
It's been about 12 complete days of fasting from Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp and I still have about 27-28 days to go and I have realized the following things.
1. I have a serious urge/ itch to keep checking my social media and have to remind myself that I'm not using it right now (there have been a few slip ups of opening an app and then closing it immediately after checking the contents but not opening the notifications).
I didn't think I was this addicted, but trying to stay away is showing me otherwise.
2. The apps that I'm most itching to use personally are WhatsApp and Instagram. I have deleted my Facebook account in the past for about 4 years and that could be why I am more used to being without it? I'm not sure exactly. Instagram was my constant boredom fix ( though I only started using it 2 years ago?!) And whatsapp actually helps me keep in touch with my friends, family and colleagues so I don't think it will too bad to use it for limited times in the future. I am seriously questioning if I even need Instagram in the future.
3. I found myself having full thoughts that I wasn't able to have before because I had been always looking for the next thing to click on leaving no time for me to hear my own thoughts.
4. I notice how much time every one else is on their phone and start to feel a little weird about it.
5. I have way more time for real-life friends, and hobbies, than I thought I did before. Earlier, I had rarely felt the need to call people or speak face-to-face because texting is so much simpler and I can already kind of tell what people are doing through their WhatsApp statuses and Instagram stories anyway. I started to wonder why I didn't notice this before.
6. I am making less negative comparisons with other people and myself, since I'm not feeding on images of people's perfect (seemingly) lives and curated posts.
7. I find the world does go on whether I'm online or not and my true offline friends - though a little frustrated about my absence online have found ways around to reach me either via email or text or phone call.
8. I don't need to share my time and attention with everyone online all the time. I'm allowed to be focused on God and the real people in my life for large amounts of time.
9. I'm not as emotional as I am when online all the time. There's obviously something very wrong about my thinking if I end up feeling anxious, angry and terribly sad after seeing a few posts about other people's lives and I've realized that spending time off of social media is helping me focus on more truth and this in return is helping me have a much more rational way of looking at things - instead of harboring feelings like anger, jealousy, hatred and sadness.
I still have more than half of the challenge to go through and perhaps at the end of it I will get to see if I'm really doing better and feeling less itchy to get back. The first couple of weeks are supposed to be the worst (I hope). Perhaps I will do a part two of this post with new insights that God places on my heart in the coming 4 weeks!
Something that is helping me get through this time every time I wanted to check my social media accounts was to instead read an article or watch a video about someone who had done any kind of social media fast or about the negative effects of social media and that helped me stay off of it for that time. One notable talk was this one by Cal Newport.
Would you take up a social media fast? Or do you think you use it just enough already?
Have you ever felt anxious because of something you saw online?
Today I also want to thank Feedspot for featuring this blog on their top 200 Christian blogs on the internet list!
Best regards,
Jeffy
It's been about 12 complete days of fasting from Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp and I still have about 27-28 days to go and I have realized the following things.
1. I have a serious urge/ itch to keep checking my social media and have to remind myself that I'm not using it right now (there have been a few slip ups of opening an app and then closing it immediately after checking the contents but not opening the notifications).
I didn't think I was this addicted, but trying to stay away is showing me otherwise.
2. The apps that I'm most itching to use personally are WhatsApp and Instagram. I have deleted my Facebook account in the past for about 4 years and that could be why I am more used to being without it? I'm not sure exactly. Instagram was my constant boredom fix ( though I only started using it 2 years ago?!) And whatsapp actually helps me keep in touch with my friends, family and colleagues so I don't think it will too bad to use it for limited times in the future. I am seriously questioning if I even need Instagram in the future.
3. I found myself having full thoughts that I wasn't able to have before because I had been always looking for the next thing to click on leaving no time for me to hear my own thoughts.
4. I notice how much time every one else is on their phone and start to feel a little weird about it.
5. I have way more time for real-life friends, and hobbies, than I thought I did before. Earlier, I had rarely felt the need to call people or speak face-to-face because texting is so much simpler and I can already kind of tell what people are doing through their WhatsApp statuses and Instagram stories anyway. I started to wonder why I didn't notice this before.
6. I am making less negative comparisons with other people and myself, since I'm not feeding on images of people's perfect (seemingly) lives and curated posts.
7. I find the world does go on whether I'm online or not and my true offline friends - though a little frustrated about my absence online have found ways around to reach me either via email or text or phone call.
8. I don't need to share my time and attention with everyone online all the time. I'm allowed to be focused on God and the real people in my life for large amounts of time.
9. I'm not as emotional as I am when online all the time. There's obviously something very wrong about my thinking if I end up feeling anxious, angry and terribly sad after seeing a few posts about other people's lives and I've realized that spending time off of social media is helping me focus on more truth and this in return is helping me have a much more rational way of looking at things - instead of harboring feelings like anger, jealousy, hatred and sadness.
I still have more than half of the challenge to go through and perhaps at the end of it I will get to see if I'm really doing better and feeling less itchy to get back. The first couple of weeks are supposed to be the worst (I hope). Perhaps I will do a part two of this post with new insights that God places on my heart in the coming 4 weeks!
Something that is helping me get through this time every time I wanted to check my social media accounts was to instead read an article or watch a video about someone who had done any kind of social media fast or about the negative effects of social media and that helped me stay off of it for that time. One notable talk was this one by Cal Newport.
Would you take up a social media fast? Or do you think you use it just enough already?
Have you ever felt anxious because of something you saw online?
Today I also want to thank Feedspot for featuring this blog on their top 200 Christian blogs on the internet list!
Best regards,
Jeffy
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