A Week Without Smedia
First of all, I would like to coin the slang word, smedia which is obviously a blend of the two words social media. It's super cute and extremely time sufficient, so can we all start using this word, please? Ok, moving on, I gave up smedia for a week and here's what happened.
To preface, Facebook + Instagram are the only social media accounts I have. I have a Pinterest account as well, but I'm not entirely sure if that counts as social media? I stayed off just to be safe. I am so not into Snapchat; it weirds me out! I am 100% sure all of the pictures people are sending back and forth are still in the cloud somewhere. I'm not about that questionable vanishing image life. (Never forget Jesus is watching.) I also don't have a twitter account, I used to, but it did not seem any different from Facebook to me, so I got rid of it after a few months. None of my smedia account notifications are on, I feel like that steals a ton of battery life, and when it comes to notifications, I'll see them when I see them, no big deal. I don't think I've ever intentionally stayed off of social media for an extended amount of time. Some days are busier than others + I just had no opportunities to scroll, but I've never had specific days planned out to say no to screen time. Instagram is my fave, and I honestly thought it would be harder for me to avoid it this week, but this smedia fast turned out to be a fantastic experience!
Ok, so real talk, ever since IG introduced the feature where you can see how much time you have been spending each day within the app, I have cut waaaayyy back. The first time I saw the grand total, it made my eyeballs bulge! I am so embarrassed about the amount of time I initially spent on Instagram; I can't even bring myself to type out the number, just know, it was a chunk of my day. Ever since then, I've brought down the amount of time spent on Insta to less than one hour a day. *smiley face emoji* I mindlessly clicked on Instagram one time on Tuesday afternoon, but I immediately exited, I'm confident I was on there for less than three seconds I also accidentally clicked on the Facebook messenger app once. It looks almost identical to my GroupMe app. That was it, no twitching and no withdrawals like I imagined. I don't have any super amazing great stories about my week; it was overall pretty refreshing. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss it, but I didn't crave smedia like I thought I would.
Would I recommend:
Of course, I would suggest less screen time and more exploring or self-discovery! Even though I had a busy week, there were some pockets of time for me to read more pages of my book or delete old files, pictures, and emails. I was able to get my life even more organized and take a break from some of the virtual negativity. I think it is crucial for people to stay connected and a lot of apps help us do that. I also think it's important to call each other on the phone now and then and if it's possible, to have face to face interactions, preferably over brunch.
