Have you ever found yourself opening a social media notification, just to get rid of the banner on your home screen, and find yourself on the Instagram profile of your high-school friend's roommate's boyfriend's best friend's social media about an hour later? You can lie, but I'm sure this has happened to you at least once.
That action of just opening an app to get rid of that notification has now ruined all plans of being productive during that hour of your life that you can't get back.
Around February of this year, I decided to turn off all social media notifications from on my phone. Preceding this, I was constantly finding myself wasting chunks of time that could have been spent doing homework, studying, doing laundry or anything else productive, on Instagram or Facebook, watching Tasty videos that I would never make.
Notifications are addictive. In our minds, they are enough of a reason to pause studying or halt a conversation midway to respond to another friend who DM-ed us a funny video. These alerts that someone commented our name on Facebook or Snapchatted us a picture that is more than likely pointless, makes us feel obligated to check them. But is that what social media should be- an obligation?
It is so important, especially with our generation, to realize that social media is a leisure activity. An activity that, at the end of the day, is quite insignificant. It is something we should use to connect with our friends and share our life with others, but it is not at all a requirement.
If you're on a super cool trip, enjoy it. Post a picture or two, but just savor your time there- don't waste your precious time seeing which of your friends liked or commented on your pictures. Don't let that notification pull you away from your experience. Because trust me, going to respond to that one person's comment will lead you to responding to the others, then checking whether a certain person liked the picture, to seeing all those who liked your picture, to looking at other people's pictures, to finding out that Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick called it quits…. Again.
I won't lie and say it was easy, as silly as that may sound. At first, I would sporadically turn my notifications back on because I was afraid of missing out on something. But as I continued to push myself to turn and keep them off, I found myself wondering what in the world I could be missing out.
If I posted a picture, why is it that I felt the need to watch the progression of people actually liking it? Would my long-distance friends fade away if I missed liking their pictures? Our generation can fall into the trap of associating likes as approval or friendship, but the honest truth is the people who want to stay in your life, will. So, it's okay if you don't respond to every single one of their comments or don't like each and every picture.
Now I only get on any of my social media accounts when I actively want to use the platform. My friends all know that my notifications are turned off and are quick to send me a text if they need me to go check my Twitter DMs or Snapchat.
It was this decision that has made me a lot less dependent on my phone. I'm able to sit in a class, meeting, or even lunch with a friend without my mind wandering after seeing a Snapchat/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook notification.
Because what's the point of staying connected if you can't engage with what is in front of you?