Don't get me wrong, I love social media, but I knew giving it up would help me actively investigate my time management skills. There were two reasons I decided to give up social media for the entire month of October. First, I was not being very productive in my life and I thought taking a break from social media would increase my productivity. Second, I wasn’t spending enough of my time in daily devotional with God. By consciously giving up a portion of my daily use of technology, I aimed to use the time I had previously used for social media to dedicate myself to prayer and reading my Bible. There were three major results from this month-long social media fast.
First, I made more of an effort to personally share events with my friends and family that I originally would have shared on social media. I stripped it back to the basics and resorted to actually texting and calling people to share exciting news. Every time I wanted to share something on social media I analyzed why I wanted to share it. Normally it was an event that I really only needed to share with a few people and so I texted or called them to tell them about it. Making a conscious effort to share my exciting stories and adventures personally made me feel more connected. This is ironic because one of the purposes of social media is to connect and share with people.
Second, I didn’t really miss social media. This was surprising to me, but probably a good thing. You would think that if something you invest a lot of time into is taken away you would miss it, but this wasn’t really the case. I think what this means is most of the time I spend on social media is just mindless scrolling that leaves no effect on me. This finding gives insight into why using social media has been such a big time waster in my daily life.
Third, I found other ways to waste my time. This is the most negative result of my social media fast because it contradicts the goals I set out for myself. Even without social media, the internet is still an endless blackhole of websites that want your attention.
From this experiment I learned several valuable lessons. First, social media is not at the heart of why I procrastinate getting work done because even without it, I found other ways to waste my time. I’m not saying that social media is a complete waste of time and we should all ban it, I just did a little experiment to decrease my dependence on it. If I want to be more productive and make better use of my time, the heart of the issue is, I believe, as simple as self-control. I have the ability to be productive, but now I just need the self-control to actually use my time wisely.
If you think social media uses up a lot of your time, I encourage you to give it up for a day, a week, or even a whole month. You'll learn a lot about yourself and you'll learn to be more present in all situations. And, believe it or not, it's actually a very positive experience.
