For about a week now, I have unplugged myself from social media. No Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter for me and honestly, it's been pretty great. I am fortunate to have seen the world as we know it before this technology age. I knew it before everything revolved around instant sharing and instant gratification (i.e. likes, comments, retweets, etc.). I remember what is was like before everyone willingly put all their business out on the interwebs and what it was like to just have moments to yourself. Now, it seems as if all we do is mindlessly scroll through our phones seeing what's "new". This article isn't meant to discount all the great things social media has done for us in the least bit, I am still very much a fan. I just simply want to share a few things I've come to terms with since I began my hiatus.
The first thing I noticed is that social media is an idol, of sorts, in my life. This is actually the reason I decided to take a break from it for a bit. In my eyes, an idol is anything that I place above God. In this instance, I just spent more time on social media than I did with God and that wasn't cool with me. I wanted to take a week to use the time that I normally devote to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter and devote it to God instead because honestly, nobody has time to get to the pearly gates and have God turn them away, ijs.
The second thing I realized is that I am extremely vain. WOW, that hurt more to say than I thought, but it's true. Maybe always or maybe since social media became popular, I'm not sure of its inception, but what I do know is I love it when I post a cute pic and those likes start rolling in. And how crazy is that? During this time, I began asking God to humble me, because who am I to think so highly of myself?
And that brings me to my next point, social media serves as a platform for people to share any and everything about their lives, but in all honesty, that isn't necessary. As I stated before, who am I to think everyone cares about every. single. thing. I want to post about? In the grand scheme of things: I am not that important, I need to humble myself, and I need to get a grip.
Lastly, on the flip side of that, I began to think about life before social media and that got me thinking about how I am not obligated to share every part of me with everyone on the internet. Not everyone deserves to know every single thing that goes on in my life. We live in a time that lacks a true sense of privacy because everything is always out in the open, at all times.
From this, I realized that we have been socialized to believe these things are okay. To me, putting social media (and really anything else) over God is never acceptable. Vanity is not cute. I am not the end all, be all. And not everyone needs to know everything. Obviously, these issues may not apply to everyone but I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on myself and be real with you all.
Let me know what you think about unplugging from the world wide web! Tweet me @ThePiersenElise.
