Staring Blankly into Space

In the early hours on a Saturday morning 6 weeks ago I decided to do something BOLD: completely restrain from social media for the next 24 hours. I noticed that it was one of the first and last things I was doing each day. To be completely honest, I like social media. It is eye candy, a great boredom cure and a dopamine releaser. However, I recently had an outer body experience where I watched myself scrolling mindlessly through pages and pages of photos and articles, an hour or so had slipped away and I realized I had a little problem. I was addicted! I put my phone down and thought of all the other things I could be doing in that moment and it made me sad that I chose this mindless activity over the other things.  

So, on that Saturday morning, I woke up and instead of scrolling, I picked up a book and started reading. Later that day i went for a walk, meditated, journaled, therabanded, spent time with my family and friends, cooked, read some more and went to sleep.

After that day, i decided to do an experiment: quit social media, for an undefined amount of time, COLD TURKEY.  Many questions and thoughts popped into my head.  Do i need to tell people?  What will i miss out on?  Will anyone realize i'm off? How hard is this going to be?  Do i really need to do this? 

Over the next several weeks i had many moments of picking up my phone to check Instagram or Facebook and quickly realized what i was doing and stopped.  I would then find myself staring blankly into space for a little while. It felt odd.  Other things i noticed- i read more, a lot more.  I was more present with people around me.  I was more aware of my surroundings.  I was calmer. I talked to strangers. 

On my travels to Ireland, France and Spain the past few weeks (see pics above), there were many times where social media would have been a great space filler.  Delayed flights, hundreds of miles as a car passenger, laying in bed jet lagged.  But i resisted. Why?  Because I think there is a problem in this society that we are not fully addressing. 

Walking down the street the other day i peeked over to see a girl swiping through her IG account- feet moving, head down, oblivious to 'the real life instagram' all around her.  I have heard people, including myself, openly saying "i'm so addicted to my phone" and then laughing it off and doing nothing about it.  Imagine if I said to you, "i'm so addicted to heroine" and then brushing it off?  Why is this so different? Because it's not as bad as heroine? Actually, I think our phone addictions are VERY detrimental to our mental and physical health.  Our necks are getting wrecked, eyes strained, we are developing more carpal tunnel syndrome, our minds numbed, we are hooked on instant gratification and instant information, we are connecting to an online world but disconnected from ourselves and the real life people around us.  

And its not just the 'younger generations'- some baby boomers are JUST AS HOOKED.  Maybe not so much on social media but rather news, work emails, texts, etc... It’s still disconnecting us from the present world.

I fully understand that times have changed.  We rely on our phones for many things that we didn't before and it is important to be connected in that way. I don't know what i did without google maps years ago! I also know that as I am about to bring another little human into this world, i want to be as present with him/her as possible and teach by example.  

I'm not saying i will never go back on social media.  There are things that i miss. However, i want to make sure that when i do go back i have a greater sense of awareness around it.  I encourage you to ask yourself a simple question the next time you feel the urge to pick up your phone: "is this phone check absolutely necessary?".