social-networks
February Unplugged
Keeping up with the tradition that we started last year, we took a break from social media in the month of February, with the addition of minimizing our exposure to news websites. I felt like I received all the benefits that I experienced last year, and many more!
It wasn't difficult at all to cut out the noise of social media, and I didn't experience the feeling of FOMO that I experienced last year. I welcomed the mind space, peace, and time that were re-introduced into my life. So I thought I’d share a little bit about my experience this time around.
Hobby Odyssey
I took up some new hobbies. I started using coloring books for mindfulness, and began dabbling in painting with watercolors. At first, I was using watercolor painting as another mindful exercise — painting shapeless blobs, mixing colors, and tracing those blobs with a fine pen (something I later learned is called reverse coloring). This eventually turned to painting subjects, like simple landscapes and portraits of our two cats.
I of course also kept up with some of my usual hobbies, such as cooking, playing video games, and uh, napping.
Physical Media, not Social Media
We made it out to my favorite library (the state library, with its grand entrance, outdoor courtyard and second-floor lanais), and checked out a bunch of books to supplement our hobbies. I was able to reactivate my old library card from over 20 years ago, and therefore able to check out ebooks and audiobooks, which I consumed quickly, and often.
Continuing our theme of physical media, we got back into collecting and watching movies on Blu-ray Discs, as we had purchased a new standalone Blu-ray player for ourselves as a Christmas gift. It was a treat to go to the used bookstore and find a bunch of old favorites, some that aren’t available on any streaming video services. We also started dipping our toe in the world of collecting Criterion discs (the below meme was basically me during the last flash sale).
Me placing my order during the flash sale.
byu/Rodolf1410 incriterion
Sound System
This particular project doesn’t seem to fit neatly into a category, as it feels like it lies between digital and physical media. We both took it upon ourselves to go through our old iTunes Music Libraries and port them over to Apple Music. It was really cool to rediscover lots of our music that we had imported from CDs and haven’t listened to in ages because many of those songs aren’t available on streaming services. It was also really satisfying for me to sort through my music library, finding the best versions, deleting duplicates, and organizing the files.
Being Human Beings
We of course took lots of time to just be humans. We had lots of thoughtful conversations with each other, wrote in our journals, and spent time in quiet thought. It was nice to reconnect with each other and ourselves.
A Montage of Moments
I kept up my captures of 1 Second Everyday, so here's that video as a summary of last month:
Signing back on
Once March rolled around, I did not feel any rush whatsoever to dive back into social media, and it took me a few days into the month to sign back on. My curiosity to peek in on the everyday lives of the folks I'm closest to eventually got me to sign back in. I have, however, found myself idly scrolling a few times, and that hasn't felt great. Thankfully, I was aware of this behavior and have been able to set a boundary for myself every time this has happened.
I definitely don’t have the inclination to grab my phone when I’m idle, and start scrolling like I had gotten accustomed to before. If I do grab my phone lately, it’s to listen to an audio book or podcast, or play a quick puzzle game (finity. has been a favorite lately).
I want to continue experiencing more peace, genuine connection, creativity, and fun in my life, and this month away from social media and news was conducive to that. It’s really nice to have this reset once a year, but I’m motivated to maintain the good habits that I established this February.
About that social media experiment...
When I last posted to this blog, I was embarking on a month long experiment in which I removed all social media apps from my phone. I would say that it was a success — I didn't even want to rush right back into it when February ended. Only today, the 4th of March, is when I reinstalled a couple of apps back on my phone.
At first, it felt a little strange to be without social apps on my phone, almost like I was dealing with a phantom limb. I would instinctually pick up my phone when I was idle, only to find out there wasn't really anything for me to look at.
Within the first few days, I found myself actually looking for something else on my phone to kill the time with, so I started browsing my social Slack instances to see what people were talking about. That still had a bit of a social media feeling to it, so I eventually deleted those off my phone as well.
More reading, less browsing
Soon I started reading my neglected reading lists on Instapaper and my RSS reader. That felt pretty good and enriching, but I still didn't like staring at my phone for an extended period of time. I eventually limited my feed reading to my iPad, when I would sit down intentionally to read. That worked pretty well! I also started reading on my Kindle more regularly.
The life and death of FOMO
I definitely had a feeling of FOMO in the early days of this experiment. My anxious brain kicked in: What is everybody up to? Am I missing any big announcements or events in anyone's life? Am I being a bad friend or family member by not keeping up with things as they're happening?
The solution to this was to make more direct connections with people. That made the FOMO monster go away, and I felt more relaxed.
Direct connections
As I mentioned in my previous post, I gave myself permission to make occasional, intentional visits to the desktop/web versions of these sites while sitting at my computer, and spend a limited amount of time on them. While it was nice to have that option, I ended up only doing so a handful of times over the course of the month, mainly to check in to see what family and close friends were up to by visiting their profiles.
I think going directly to the profiles of people I want to check in on is a habit that I'm going to keep up with, as the main feed on Instagram in particular is often frustrating with the way that the algorithm sorts things. I've also become partial to using the “Favorites” view if I felt like browsing. Another habit I'd like to keep up with when browsing IG is to use the desktop/web version more often, since there doesn't seem to be any advertisements littering the feed.
In addition, I made more direct connections by contacting people individually (via email, text, even calls). That felt a lot more fulfilling than trying to keep up with social media posts.
The others
It turned out that Instagram was the largest presence in my social media life, and that adjustment was probably the most challenging. The second runner up was Mastodon, which I had only recently gained momentum in using in the past few months.
The other apps were not a challenge at all to be away from. TikTok and Tumblr were already occasional visits. I largely stopped using Twitter many years ago, and cleared out my account last year anyway.
The sound of silence
I really, really liked the reduction of noise in my life from taking social media apps off of my phone. When looking at my phone to check the time or weather, it was refreshing to not be greeted by a long, scrolling list of notifications.
What I took away from this is to disable notifications from these apps completely. It's such a simple solution, yet I hadn't thought of it till I conducted this experiment.
Being
With less social media in my life, I found myself with more time and mindspace to just be. I found myself sitting and reflecting a lot. I picked up journaling again. I became more consistent with my exercise habit. All good things that I hope to continue.
I've learned a lot from this experiment, and have some new habits that I'll be keeping — I consider this experiment a success!