I’m a huge supporter of using social media as a way to be present in your online community and connect with people who you would not regularly see. Yet, I also realize how much of a distraction social media can be from your everyday life. Unfortunately, I don’t have the rock solid self-control to rid myself of all kinds of distractions like some of my peers. So, I decided to take a small step and I chose my favorite social media, Instagram, and turned off my notifications. Now, I understand this is not a big deal and debatably might be the smallest thing I could do, but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Besides, I’m still a strong supporter of having a solid social media platform. I think your presence on the Internet is a powerful thing and beneficial in a number of ways.

As this semester comes to a close I feel minimizing my distractions is the least I could do for myself. Being a millennial with a slightly unhealthy dependency on the internet, I powered forward towards my experiment for self betterment. I am one of those people who spend a lot of time of Instagram and frequently sending messages to my friends through the Instagram messenger. Without notifications, this form of communication proved to be difficult and seemingly useless. What came with this was less Instagram usage and missed posts made by my friends. I soon found that I forgot about the app altogether. These sound like negative things, but I found that I freed up some time to focus on other responsibilities and people in my life.

The change wasn’t monumental, but I can see that taking this tiny step opened up my world to new possibilities. For example, when I posted a picture, I no longer was distracted by the notifications of likes and comments. I was able to pay more attention to the tasks at hand. I was suddenly finishing my homework uninterrupted (within reason), I was engaging in conversations, and I even kept my room cleaner than normal—which is a huge accomplishment in my eyes. It seemed as though doing away with Instagram and not looking at my feed as frequently as normal increased my productivity. I thought to myself that there is an endless amount of potential, and it honestly made me think about deleting all of my social media altogether. I thought about it for a really long minute.