As Lent was approaching, I was thinking about what I should give up. I knew it had to be a sacrifice, which is the purpose. I tossed around the ideas of soda, sweets, ice cream, and even homework. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get away with not doing homework, since that wouldn’t be a real sacrifice. Everything that came to mind I had already done or I felt like it wasn’t enough. After talking to a few friends, I heard what they were giving up, one of my friends suggested social media. One of our friends was already on a social media cleanse, so it was already a hot topic. By this point, it was Fat Tuesday and I had no idea what to do. I knew I couldn’t give up Snapchat since that’s the only way I communicated with some people, but Facebook and Instagram needed to go.
Once Ash Wednesday came and went, I saw that a lot of people were giving up social media for Lent. After talking to another friend, they told me that the point of lent is to give up something that will be hard. I decided to go ahead and give up social media for lent. I chose to give up social a few days after Lent began, so I decided not to use Sunday’s as a “cheat day.”
Being a communication major I had to use social for some activities and assignments, but even then I limited myself. After the first couple days, I or should I say my fingers, finally got used to not automatically clicking the Facebook and Instagram apps on my phone. After a while, I realized that I wasn’t missing anything and between Facebook and Instagram, I really only missed Instagram.
I’ve spent a month and a half without access to Facebook and Instagram and the only thing I really noticed was that I get the majority of my news from social media, so I was a little out of the loop. Otherwise, I felt free. I wasn’t bothered by people complaining, because I didn’t see it. I was living my life and keeping in contact with those that I really cared about.
I was also able to focus and do other things instead of procrastinating through social media, I procrastinated by being productive in other ways. I also got more sleep because I wasn’t up for an extra hour or two scrolling through my feed.
I learned more about myself and others while being away from social than I did being on it. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and honestly, since Lent is over, I’m still going to try and limit myself. As hard as it was, it was well worth it.
