Taking breaks from social media is really important. Unfortunately, in society, it is one of the biggest influencers of how we see our peers. We are constantly trying to tweak ourselves to make sure we create this certain image on those social media platforms.

Social media can be something that is very addictive, and that's unhealthy. I realize this in myself constantly, the first thing I do in the morning is check Instagram. I don't know why I do it, out of habit sure, but also because I feel like I need to know what is going on like something really important happened overnight.

Recently, I had the opportunity to hike Mount Washington, and over the course of the few days I was on the mountain, I was able to disconnect from everything social media related for a few days. Honestly, it was one of the nicest things I've been able to do recently. Not being overwhelmed by other peoples' lives on the internet was something that was a good change.

Another thing that I did recently broke all of my Snapchat streaks. This was honestly a big deal for me in trying to distance myself from the obsession with social media. I had Snap streaks that were well over 800 days and just like that, I broke them. I realized a number next to someone's name on an app was subtly controlling me.

When you think about it in that context you realize that you're really letting some dumb number stress you out. It was a really good thing for me to do that because now I use Snapchat a lot less and I'm happy about it because I realized that not everyone needs to know what I'm doing at every moment of the day.

Disconnecting is something that is important, in my opinion, because it's good to take a break from worrying about everyone else's life. We should be taking steps back from the screen to actually look up and take in the world around us.