Two days after Lent began on March 1, I gave up social media.
Even though I was two days late with the process of giving something up I followed through with my plan.
Now it’s about a week and a half since Lent has ended and giving up social media for a little more than enough a month has been the greatest decision I’ve made yet in 2017.
I deleted all two of my main applications: Instagram and Twitter, and I kept Snapchat but only for the sole purpose of keeping my streaks. Otherwise, I didn’t allow myself to view stories, or event post-Snapchat stories myself.
The first week of my “Social Media Silence” was challenging, I found myself itching to go through retweets on Twitter and to like posts on Instagram. Within the first week, I realized I would have to find other ways to entertain myself since I couldn’t depend on 40-second Snapchat stories.
Two weeks in and I was slowly starting to feel better. To make up for the lack of my friends lives constantly in my face 24/7 I found myself reading more news site, indulging in celebrity gossip and interacting with my friends in person more.
Within the first two weeks, I felt comfortable saying that I could continue with my silence for the rest of Lent. However, at this point, I still felt that I would most likely break my Lenten promise at least twice.
As I moved further along through Lent I had come to realize just how refreshing it was to not know constantly what people were doing at every second on every day. I felt myself feel less concerned with other people’s lives and more concerned with putting a healthy amount of effort in mine.
Letting go of Twitter was especially beneficial to me because I had come to the realization of how repetitive tweets could be, and how it appeared that everyone had the same mindset. It also allowed me to create opinions generated from my own thoughts without the influence of the social media site.
Without Instagram for the 40 days I had become less obsessed with taking the right pictures. I started to take pictures simply for the hell of it and not with the intention of people seeing it. However, towards the end of Lent I did start to feel a little antsy and started taking pictures to post on my VSCO Camera application.
Since Snapchat’s sole purpose is to see the lives of your friends and at times your friends’ friends, I concluded that I didn’t care as much. I lost the need to see what so-and-so was having for breakfast, or how much fun they were having at a party. I didn’t care and not caring felt great.
Once Lent came to a close I struggled with returning to social media. I felt so free without it that I thought it would suffocate me again. Ultimately, I did return to my abandoned accounts and it took me awhile to get back into the swing of things. It was weird seeing all the posts I had missed, it was as if I had missed out on a year of people’s lives.
It’s been about a week and a half since Lent has ended and while I find myself not using the three apps as much, the same stress of having to post the right picture or tweet is back. Despite this, I’ll probably keep using my social media but eventually I hope I’ll do a social media silence for good.
