I can tell you from my personal experience that eliminating social media from my life has been one of the most freeing things I have experienced. There was a point in my life that I would get so bored at work, or driving in the car, that I would instinctively just pick up my phone and hit a social media app.
Have you ever closed a social media app, and then literally 10 seconds later open it again? I'm guilty of both of these things. This post today is for those people that have deleted their Instagram app 10 times, this post is for people that are looking for a reason to leave social media behind, and this post is for people that are on the fence on if they should delete social media. And I have spoiler for you.. After this post, I think I can convince you to at least take a break from it.
I just want to express, before we begin, that I understand that social media is very helpful for businesses. The goal of this post today though is to hopefully help the individual out by giving wisdom on why it may be a good idea to take a break from these various apps.
Comparison is a Poison
Social media is just a highlight reel of some ones daily life. Have you ever heard it said that way? Social Media shows only the best of what someone wants you to see in their life. Picture this you are having a bad day, and feeling some type of way about the material things in your life, your relationship status, or something else. You then get on Instagram and you see your friend or a friend of a friend, or even some influencer posting pictures of their relationship, house, or car. It immediately makes you potentially feel sad, envious, and not enough.
This is just a small dosage of what social media can do to you mentally. Your status in life, your job, your material items, are not what's most important in life. Your relationship with God is. This is what Matthew 6:19-20 says:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal."
Everyone can have different paths to success in life, and it's important to define what success is to you. If success is just getting to the top, earning the most money, being famous, or something else fleeting. It will ultimately not sustain you and fall short every single time. So why be on platforms that just are façades of peoples lives?
Crushing Affirmation Seeking
I want to tell you a story of someone I know that would seek affirmation on social media, and didn't even realize it. This person would post music from Spotify that he was listening to in the car. For the hopes that affirmation would be given to him. Either by fantasying about what someone would think or say about the music he was listening to.
That person was me...
Saying that out loud is just embarrassing. But how ridiculous is that? Have you ever posted your Spotify wrapped? I mean I do admit that the wrapped is really cool, but the point of the story is, we all post on social media, a lot of times, for affirmation. I mean why do you think social media is driven by a "like" mechanism. It's there to give you a dopamine hit or instant feedback of what you posted. Think about the last 10 posts that you made. What was the true reasoning behind the posts? Were they to get attention from a special someone? Or were they to get affirmation about how you look? Take some time to think about that.
I also know that affirmation is important if given in the right ways. But I do believe that social media amplifies our selfish desires of wanting affirmation all the time, and sometimes in the wrong way.
You can enjoy the real world
Another massive reason that you should take a break from social media is you get to enjoy the REAL world, and all the beauty it possesses. I could go into a whole other video on this when it comes to video games, and living in fantasy worlds. Today, however, we will just focus on the social media aspect. Being off of social media allows you to see the world around you, and to enjoy some of it's most amazing things.
When you are off of these apps, you notice God's beautiful creation. That may be the sunsets or sunrises. That may be animals or lush grasslands. It even could be just sounds that you hear while sitting on your porch. Either way I have found that I really enjoy just basking in what God has created. It brings a smile to my face when I drive by scenes like the one below:
What this allows as well, is it allows you to take up hobbies that you didn't realize you enjoyed before. For me that has been reading, and enjoying the simpler things in life. I have read more books in the last two years of my life, than I have 10 years prior. If it's not reading it could be drawing, sports, smoking cigars, hiking, you name it. Leave me a comment below, once you take a break from social media, and tell me what hobby you have taken up.
You won't be as angry
The next topic is always a touchy one, but let's be real, the propaganda you are receiving on social media, I mean, news, incites fear and makes you angry most likely. I mean literally look at any hashtag trending on Twitter in the politics section. It's there to just make you upset and hate one another.
But when you get off social media you realize the world isn't exactly how everything is portrayed on social media. It's almost like social media is a façade... Now the world is fallen, and needs a savior for sure. But the average person isn't some insane cancel culture lunatic. A lot of times I feel like we as a society don't talk about topics anymore in public because we are so afraid of what the other person will say. Again it's another situation of you are so afraid to talk about something, as well as the other person. But in reality that person may be open to discuss whatever you want to discuss.
More Meaningful Conversations
Moving on to the next reason you should take a break from social media. It allows you to have more meaningful conversations with actual people. This is one of the biggest positives to fasting from social media in my opinion. What do I mean by this? Well let's say you are scrolling Instagram or Facebook, and you see someone got engaged, or you see pictures of their new baby, or you see a new car that they bought, or maybe it's a promotion at their job. Well right then you have seen their post and a lot of times I feel like when we see that person face to face we don't bother asking deeper questions about those topics.
For instance, like how is the baby? Or whoa that's a cool car, or congratulations on the promotion. Instead we have already seen these life milestones, and so we treat it as something that is old news. Now I'm not saying that everyone is like this. Imagine a scenario, though, if you don't see those things on social media. When you meet up to have coffee or talk to that person at your job or church. That will be the first time you get to have that interaction, and it can spark conversation and excitement. This doesn't just have to be big life events either. I mean people post anything on social media today. So even the ability to just have an opportunity to converse with someone about how life is going, is valuable.
It also provides more opportunities to get to meet up with people face to face and build a relationship. You can't build relationships over just social media scrolling. You need to talk to the person, ask questions, and listen to them. I think social media takes this away so much. It shortcuts communication, and it shortcuts genuine relationships. Genuine relationships with people take effort. The world today is lacking effort in so many phases of life.
Now I understand that sometimes people utilize social media to keep up with loved ones that may be far away. Again I am not trying to say that social media is completely devoid of these positives. But there are a lot of negatives that can't be ignored.
Something that my pastor has said before is "We are the most connected we've ever been but the most disconnected at the same time." It's true too. You can have 1000 followers on Instagram, but how many of those people do you actually feel connected to? How many of those people really know you?
Less Distractions
The next topic is it allows you to be less distracted, and more focused on the things that matter in life. Maybe you are spending too much time on social media at work and it's causing you to be a poor steward of that time. Maybe it could literally be while driving a vehicle. We are all guilty of this but people are on their phones way too much when driving. Have you ever driven somewhere and you are on your phone, and 10 minutes go by and you don't even remember looking at the road?
That's scary.
Social media can distract you from your family. You need to be present in your wife or husband's life, your children, your mom, dad, and other loved ones. Social media just robs time that you could be spending with them. Again building those relationships take effort, and sometimes it's effort that we don't really want to spend. Instead we decide we are just going to open that app and scroll for hours on end. I want to challenge you to look at your screen time on your phone. A lot of you will be surprised by how much time you spend on apps in general, maybe not even social media ones. Think about all that time that is wasted on those apps, and how that time could be used to pour into relationships, life goals, or other lasting and meaningful things. Let me know in the comments what your screen time was the last week.
It Can Save You Money... For Real
The last reason you should take a break from social media is it could literally save you money. Every social media platform has ads. It's how it generates revenue. If you are constantly scrolling and seeing new clothes, tech, or car parts. Don't you think you are more apt to impulse buy some of that?
Especially if you are having a tough day, and you see an influencer showing a product that you are really enamored by. That could be an easy purchase for you. I believe removing yourself from social media for a time, for some of you, could actually help you save money. Less exposure to these impulse triggers, less chance you will act upon them.
What if this is my job?
Some of you might be saying, "Adam, this is my job, what do I do?" I understand that doing social media as a job can be tough to balance. I also know that social media as a career path is fairly new in the grand scheme of things. So first off, speaking from experience of being a content creator for nearly 4 years, I would ask yourself if you think this is a sustainable career for you. If you think that it's not sustainable, then maybe you should consider looking in a new career field. Secondly, I would utilize some of the many tools out there that does content planning for social media, like Hootsuite.
These tools are very helpful in planning out posts and can limit your time on the apps. Lastly, I would definitely lower your usage on your personal devices. If you are going to be on these apps all day or be around them all day, then limit them at home.
Survey Says!
As we wrap up this article I want to leave you with a challenge. For the next 30 days try fasting from social media. So what would that look like? That means deleting the apps off of your devices and not going on those platforms for 30 days. That could be Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, or any other social media platform. Once you do this fast I want you to let me know down in the comments section of this blog, of my video, and I want you to participate in this poll! If you have already done a similar fast, please feel free to participate in the poll now! And if you like this content make sure to subscribe to my blog and my YouTube Channel!
How do you feel after 30 days of no social media?
0%Less stressed
0%No change
0%I have more joy
You can vote for more than one answer.
What was social media distracting you from the most?
0%Family
0%Job
0%Relationships
0%God
You can vote for more than one answer.
Which of the 7 benefits, that I listed above, resonate the most during the fast?
0%Comparison
0%Affirmation seeking
0%Enjoying the real world
0%Being less angry
You can vote for more than one answer.
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