I never realized how much time I spent on my phone until I found myself opening the lock screen out of habit ready to click on apps that weren’t there. I never truly understood the hours I spent scrolling through mindless videos and photos on media platforms until the option to do so was gone and I realized I never knew what to do with my hands unless they were connected to a mobile device.

Now, before you stop reading and say I sound like your grandmother lecturing “you young people” about the dangers of modern technology and telling you to “put that damn thing away,” hear me out.

In the middle of spring quarter 2016, I was the most stressed I had ever been in the entirety of my academic career. I practically lived at the library, averaged about four hours of sleep a night, had no social life, and was still doing poorly in all of my classes. I was a week away from my second round of midterms and didn’t understand how it could be that I was spending so much time taking notes and doing practice problems and yet I wasn’t able to retain any of the material.

Why was it that I was spending so much time studying yet still failing?

Then it dawned on me. You see, some realizations come to you slowly over time and deep self-reflection. This wasn’t like that. The answer hit me so hard it was like I could hear my own mother's voice answering my question for me: “it’s probably all the time your spending on that Snapfish app” (Snapfish being what my mother calls Snapchat).

At first, I tried to deny it, I didn’t spend THAT much time on my phone. But with midterms looming in my midst I was desperate to try anything that might help. So in hope that I could improve my studying efficiency, I decided to give up all social media platforms until I was done with my last final, so 36 days in total.

No Instagram, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Snapchat, no Netflix.

I even deleted the Yelp App from my phone for good measures. I then began my month journey back into what felt like the stone age, but more accurately was the early 2000’s.

I honestly didn’t notice what a big role social media played in my life until I stopped using it. Throughout the day I rotated between checking and posting on three different Instagram accounts, two twitter accounts, and a Snapchat full of 100-day streaks.

I found myself constantly putting down my pencil to open my phone just to scroll through my apps before realizing what I was doing. I would lay in bed shell-shocked about what to do without the constant stimulation. I found wanting nothing more than to just take a small peep of an Instagram feed or twitter at least. I even found myself logging into my Snapchat account on someone else’s phone under the premises of googling something just to check if I had any new snaps.

In short, I was going through withdrawals.

After a week or so though I started to slowly get used to the lack of a constant source of entertainment and began to find other ways to fill my time. I started paying attention and taking better notes in class because I wasn’t constantly reaching for my phone. I stopped taking long breaks in between studying because I was no longer getting distracted by constant notifications. I started reading in my free time, something I love to do but didn’t think I had time for in college.

I was completing assignments ahead of time instead of staying up drastically late in the night to finish them. I even managed to raise every single one of my grades at least one whole letter. I grew closer to the friends around me because there was nothing for me to do but bother them with conversation.

You really don’t realize how much time people spend together but on their phones until you’re the only one without a reason to look at yours. It’s so easy to disconnect and ignore the world and people around you when you don’t take the time to stop and look. That month I spent less time distracted with a constant buzz of white noise and spent more time genuinely looking.

While my college connections flourished throughout the month I noticed a drastic decrease in my communication with my friends from home. Outside of their initial angry outburst about letting our snap streak die I heard very little from people I wasn’t interacting with face to face. Without the ability to view their posts and Snapchats I had very little information on what was going on in their everyday life.

My best friend and I went about three weeks without exchanging a word, but when we finally did talk on the phone after those three weeks it meant more than Snapchat ever could. Yes, my lack of social media exposure limited my casual connections to those living far away, but were those connections even meaningful in the first place? I found short personal conversations, sparse as they were, made me feel more connected to my home friends than seeing their 140 character status updates every day did.

Looking back at it unplugging effected almost every aspect of my life. It made me realize that time is a valuable thing and shouldn’t be wasted on mindless chatter. I learned that I need to spend my time pursuing the things I want to achieve and connecting with the people I find important to me because those are so much more fulfilling than likes on a post.

After those 36 days, I did go back to social media. However, I no longer spend hours a day scrolling through news feeds or sending Snapchats. Honestly, it’s a good day if I remember to answer a text message.

So no, I’m not telling you that social media is some big monster that sucks your soul. But I am telling you that sometimes you really do need to put that damn thing away.