#time to delete every social media account again and go offline for six years i think

[whorejolras]

and we're back with another thrilling episode (lol) of our favourite show: everyone hates me everyone hates me everyone hates me everyone hates me everyone hates me everyone hates me everyone hates me everyone hate

[writinginthesecrettrees]

It’s my birthday. 

I hate my birthday.

I’ve been sitting here, trying to think of a good one, and I think the best might have been in 1983, when I was born. All downhill from there. I’m gonna write a bit about my birthdays over the years. It’s long. It’s really just for me.

Because my birthday has never actually been mine, you see. My birthday has always been about other people. What my mom thought would be fun, and never mind if I wanted to invite the neighbor to my party and never mind that he’s mean to me, we have to be nice. It’s what good neighbors do. Or the year that none of my friends came to my party. That’s a fun high school memory.

Or the year that my high school had a dance on my birthday. Freshman year, and I thought “Hey, let’s just do that,” and went with my best friend. Unfortunately, my ex-boyfriend (we “went out” for about a month before I realized that, while I liked talking to him and we had some shared interests, I wasn’t attracted to him) decided that my birthday was the day to try and get back together with me. I didn’t know how to handle it, so my friend and I went into the locker room (dances in the school gym, locker rooms available for restroom purposes) and hung out there until a teacher asked us what was going on. Because he was right outside, and standing there until I would talk to him. She went out and told him he had to leave us alone.

He spent the weekend sending me really scary emails. Like, 10 to 20 a day. When I went to school on Monday, he was still sending them. Subject lines like “IF YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SCARED AT THE DANCE...” I didn’t know what to do, I’d never dealt with something like that. Luckily, I was a TA first period, for a teacher with a free period (Dr. B, I still love you!). I told her what was going on, showed her the emails. He was still sending at that moment, because his first period class was Internet which was an actual class at my school in 1998 where we made hotmail accounts and built angelfire webpages.

So Dr. B printed out my inbox, just the inbox with the subject lines and showing how many emails I had received just that morning, and took it to the VP in charge of security (our school had four VPs). Ex-boyfriend got called out of class, had a talk with the VP, campus security, the actual police, and, worst of all, his mother. He didn’t bother me after that. But it’s still a wonderful birthday memory.

Things got better after I stopped trying to have parties, but it lets the real crap stand out more. Like the way that people I don’t speak to, who don’t speak to me, decide that my birthday is the day to feelings dump on me. I’m expected to answer their calls, or call them to thank them for the card or whatever, or else I’m the ungrateful spoiled brat.

I’m not gonna go into the friends who have vanished from my life, and me from theirs, who still pop up to say happy birthday on social media. I deleted Facebook, so that’s no longer an issue.

There’s my dad. My dad and mom divorced when I was three, and when I was six my mom got a restraining order and he lost visitation because of his habit of alcoholism and taking me six hours away and not bringing me home on time. I’ve actually got my mom’s old file of legal papers and letters to both my dad and grandma and their responses. So my dad was a deadbeat, and that sucks. Facebook let him find me again a while ago, so now he’s like a creepy jumpscare every birthday. Normal “Happy Birthday I love you” sorts of messages (paragraphs and paragraphs worth) but there’s a lot there that’s unresolved, and I get to have it all dragged up again every year. Happy birthday to me.

There’s also my stepdad. He’s basically been my dad since I was seven, and he actually adopted me when I was eleven. A while back, he decided that drugs, porn, and hookers are more fun than having a family, and skipped out. I actually tried to keep a relationship for a while. Then one year, maybe four years ago, I didn’t reach out on Christmas. And the holiday went by with no communication. And then his birthday went by, and mine, and Father’s Day, and Thanksgiving, and the next Christmas too. And suddenly it had been over a year and there had been zero contact. And that was nice.

Too nice to last, though. He popped up around his birthday (it’s in March) the next year. I ignored it, because I was really enjoying not having awkward dinners with him where he said stupid things and acted like it was deep, or awkward visits where I had to sit and look at over an hour of slideshows of his new family (they don’t speak English, he only speaks English, it’s very confusing to me), or look at his stupid rock collection that’s really the only thing he cares about. 

He popped up on my birthday, too. “Wife and I would love to have you come over for dinner tonight” was pretty much the text I received, on my birthday, late afternoon. At the time, I lived about an hour’s drive away, two with traffic, and he knew that. He also knows that I hate last-minute plans, especially last minute plans that require me to drive over an hour to get to. Also, it being my birthday, I already had plans with my mom and sister. Yeah, the plans were just “get Thai food and watch Netflix,” but I’m BIG into the low-key birthday. And I was in the middle of a major depressive period at the time: I love baking, and I love making cakes and stuff, and I’d been planning on making some sort of fancy thing (one year I made lemon cake with orange blossom buttercream and candied orange slices to decorate, and it was gorgeous and delicious and I make good cake is my point) but I ended up just buying a cake that year. Which is rare.

So anyway, he pops up hoping to claim hours of my birthday at the last minute (also I hate his wife’s cooking), and I just ignored it. Went with my mom to get the food, and while we were waiting... Surprise! Stepdad and his wife walked into the exact restaurant we were in. He ducked down and pretended like he hadn’t seen us.

Awkward. Happy birthday to me.

Which brings us to this year. This year, and I’m already braced for impact, because stepdad emailed my mom about “What’s Kelly’s address so I can send her a birthday card? I’d ask her but she never answers me.”

Which is crap, because whenever he asks me an actual fucking question, I respond. I don’t respond immediately to pictures of his new puppy, or a baby flamingo that he thought looked funny, but “Hey, Kelly, what’s your address?” gets an answer right away. I know this, because:

Literally the last texts sent. Edited out the actual address, but that’s it. So literally the last time he texted me was to ask my address, and I immediately responded to that. And yeah - I didn’t respond when he said “love you” because I’ve got some issues with him. Like, went looking for a card to send him for his 60th birthday (milestone year, didn’t want to just ignore it) and I was very frustrated at the lack of “I don’t want to talk to you but I can’t ignore this birthday” cards. Hallmark, you’re missing a market there.

When I had to change my number, I let him know right away. Only reason I didn’t update him when I moved was because he’d never mailed me anything. Or visited. In the five years I was living there.

So now I get to look forward to a card for my birthday. Yay. And I know there’ll be an awkward call with his mom, my grandma to look forward to. It’s really hard having a relationship with her when I don’t have one with him, and when I have so much negativity towards him.

You know what, this has gotten way longer than I meant it to. I’m just gonna end it now.

Happy birthday to me. I hate my birthday. I’m maybe going offline for my birthday. And turning off my phone. I don’t want to deal with people today.

[sorcyress]

State of the Social Media, 2017 Hi friends!! It's been a loooong time since I last checked in about this, and Russia has made an update Weirdly Relevant, so let's talk social media! I'm gonna post this everywhere I mention, except on Twitter where I'll just link it, because I do not hate my twitter friends that much. SO! I use social media! Let's talk about which and how. This is going to be a real-person post, which means long and rambling. I may make a tl;dr for Facebook. Livejournal:(KDSorceress) WELL OKAY FINE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. I WON'T USE THIS ANYMORE. Okay, no, realistically I have given up on online privacy *and* my Russian-speaking-friend who uses LJ doesn't seem to be bailing, but given that EVERYONE ELSE has pretty much finally bailed...it's time to drop it entirely, and that's a bummer. So I'm gonna turn off cross-posting (MASSIVE WINCE) and abandon the place I've updated at least once a month for the last 161 months1. That's over thirteen years, my livejournal is old enough to start its own livejournal. But it's okay because I'll be finally fully transitioning to... Dreamwidth:(Sorcyress Wooooo! Open-source! Community-controlled! Transparency and not randomly deleting journals and not run by a government that thinks Teh Gay is a major league problem and why was I on elljay in the first place? Anywho, DW is where I put long-style thoughts, and Real Serious Life Stuff! It's my (new) home. I have never given up on longform personal blogging, and I still love it more'n anything, and I want the rest of you to return to it. Meanwhile, you can also find Real Serious Life Stuff on... Twitter:(@Sorcyress) This is where I have been dumping my serious stuff in sortof the immediate, because...I...also don't have attention for longform blogging right now? Please see my eighty part tweet-saga on "does Kat have health insurance and/or medication for their ADHD this week?", which I have been performing 140 characters at a time for the last six months. Also, there's a *lot* of selfies. If you wanna see my face, you gotsta follow my tweets. Tumblr:(Sorcyress My Tumblr is an uncoordinated cesspit, and I mostly just reblog stuff that I theoretically want to follow up on later somehow, but then don't. I really should stop using Tumblr. You are welcome to follow me there, I provide no original content and very little original commentary, but you might still find my curation cool or useful or something. Meanwhile, on the offline side of the internet you have... Facebook:(Firstname Lastname, go ahead and ping me privately if you want it) Facebook is what I use to speak to lots of people at once --lots of "hey I need a thing from y'all" but also it's the place where my party ideas show up and invites and stuff. I also post a weirdly high amount of genderstuff, because I remain eternally thrilled that Facebook lets me set my gender accurately and my pronoun correctly. Anyways, because Facebook has my wallet name attached instead of my handle, I also behave all delicately and professionally and whatnot. This means I don't swear on my own page2, and don't link to my handle! Places I am no longer include: deviantART, Sluggy.net, any other forums...Iunno. The rest of the world I used to be on? Oh yeah, OKCupid, which isn't really social media and I never really used it, but I've pretty much wholly abandoned it. And that one bounty-hunter3 website that a certain subset of my friends list is thinking of, yes I still have an account, every few months I'll post a thing, but I hardly ever read or do anything else. Places I am not currently that you probably are: Instagram (I haven't gotten around to it), Pintrest (I fundamentally object to their screwing up of Google Image searches), Snapchat (Technically I have one, every few months I remember to look at my sister's timeline, but I do not "get" it like at all) Separate from social media, if you wanna get in touch with me, you can... Text me! After two decades of fundamentally hating telephones, I finally got a tiny-pocket-computer-that-incidentally-makes-phone-calls and I like it very much. I like getting random texts, and will do my best to respond, if whatever my job is allows it. IM me! I still looooove instant messanger, even though I'm not always the best at using it. When I am on the computer, I have access to GTalk and AIM (username on both: kdsorceress), when I'm on the phone, just GTalk. Call me? Please...um...I mean, I like having phone calls very rarely with a smallish subset of the People I Like, so please don't randomly call me for conversation without pinging me otherwise first? But if that's a thing you like, I mean, try pinging me and we'll see! Skype me! (Or Google Hangouts or whatever --the kleenex problem is coming for you, Skype.) I especially like utilizing this for the "I'ma work on cleaning my room and you work on cleaning your room" type stuff. Last big Skype chat I had, Tailsteak was inking or something, and I made a LEGO set! (my skype is Sorcyress, my google is kdsorceress) Email me! Oooo, I love getting emails! I am _absolutely terrible_ at replying to emails. You will not bother me if you send me reminder emails to reply to your email. Seriously. It is good for me! (kdsorceress at gmail dot com) Is there anything I'm missing? If you wish to get in touch with me on a social media I didn't specify, go ahead and email me at [insert appropriate email here]. Or leave a comment or whatever! Yay social media! ~Sor MOOP! 1: Except two, back in 2005 because I was being a petulant and sulky baby. 2: My grandfather objects, and again, I try to pretend that Facebook is professional even though I have it locked up pretty tight privacy wise. Of course, it's sFB, so those privacy settings could randomly change any day now. 3: I am very clever! Do you like how clever I am?

[cash4youblog]

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox

On the morning of April 29th, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. It was the last social media app to go, as I had deactivated my Facebook account in 2016 and removed the Twitter app from my phone in March. I never thought I would delete the Instagram app, because of all the social media platforms out there, it had always been my favourite. But after yet another sleepless night in April, I could no longer hide from the truth: my anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

I say I “had” to kick it because being addicted to looking at my phone and at social media does not align with my values. Over the past few years, I think you’ve all witnessed some of the transformations I’ve made in my life, including falling in love with the outdoors, and wanting to spend less time working and more time living. My phone is a great tool, in that it can help me navigate new territory and take pictures along the way. But it can’t help me do any of the other “living” I want to do; neither can social media.

Even though spending a lot of time looking at my phone or at social media doesn’t align with my values, I’m not immune to getting sucked in. Sure, I’m fairly self-aware, but I’m not a robot. I don’t operate on command, and I don’t automatically shutdown at certain times of the day. In April, I learned the exact opposite was true: when I was anxious, I looked at it more; went further down the rabbit hole; and felt worse about everything I found. On the morning of April 29th, I knew my online life needed a reset. It was time for a social media detox.

The Rules for My Social Media Detox

In the past, I will admit I have been hesitant to do any type of social media detox. My reasoning: I felt it was a necessary part of life, and that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony that this thought came from the same girl who banned herself from shopping for two years. What can I say? Humans are complex! And I was a Communications major who, at one time, truly loved social media.) Still, once you see something, you can’t unsee it. So, when I finally saw how unhappy looking at social media made me, I knew I needed a break from it.

The rules for my social media detox were simple:

remove all social media apps from my phone

logout of all social media sites on my computer

use Buffer to schedule posts for my blog and Rockstar Finance

and don’t check any of my profiles!

The 30-day social media detox was intended to last from April 29th to May 28th. I was hesitant to walk away for such a long period of time, especially since I work for myself and have an “online presence” or whatever you want to call it. But like most of the other challenges I’ve set for myself, I knew this one was essential. In fact, tuning in to what my body and mind ask for would end up being just one of the many lessons I would take from this experience. But before I jump into the lessons, I should first tell you how the detox went, including some of the things I noticed about myself – and others – when I was offline.

How I Used Social Media Before the Detox

To have a better understanding of what this detox entailed, you should have a clear picture of exactly what type of social media user I was when I started. As I mentioned, I had already deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I deleted Facebook altogether in May 2016, but I still managed a few business pages and groups, which I did from my computer. And I checked Twitter regularly on my computer, as well, but didn’t feel the need to have 24/7 access to it from my phone. I deleted the Twitter app in March, and had enjoyed feeling slightly less connected without it.

The one app I still checked often was Instagram. I have always loved Instagram. It has allowed me to share pictures of the beautiful scenery I’m surrounded by every day, and helped me discover new places to explore. I have also met some of my closest friends on Instagram! The first friend I made when I moved to Port Moody and the first friend I’ve made since moving to Squamish are both people I had connected with on Instagram. Our conversations started online, but through the pictures and stories we shared, we knew we could probably take them offline too – and we did!

The day I decided to make my Instagram profile a “business profile” was the day I started to get a little less enjoyment from the app. Instead of simply posting a picture, I started to look at how that picture was performing. I also found myself having more conversations with friends about how to optimize posts in order to get more likes. It was all about the likes. What I wrote in the captions was honest, but the profiles I tagged and the hashtags I used were intentionally chosen in the hopes it would bring in more likes. And if I didn’t get enough engagement with a post, I genuinely felt like it wasn’t a good enough picture. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was business. The same became true with Twitter and my tweets.

Even though it felt like business, Instagram – like all social media platforms – was also a rabbit hole. It was too easy to see I was tagged in a post, check out the picture, read the comments, reply to the post, then visit the profile of the person who took the picture, check out a few more of their pictures, look at the list of profiles similar to theirs, check out their pictures, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, 10 or 20 minutes had gone by, and I had forgotten why I’d opened up the app to begin with. That’s not to say I never found or connected with cool people that way, but this happened way more often than I liked.

I knew things were really bad when my insomnia on April 28th caused me to pick up my phone at 11pm, 12am, 12:30am, 12:40am, 12:50am 1am, 1:10am … until I finally passed out around 3:30am. The dogs woke me up at 6:30am, and I knew I couldn’t survive like that another day. My anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

What My Life Was Like Without Social Media

I don’t think I’ll bore you with all the nitty gritty details of what each and every day looked like. (I did keep a journal and documented most of them, but it’s not exactly an exciting read!) Instead, I’ll share some of the things that stood out most to me. The first thing I noticed, of course, was how often I reached for my phone. As soon as I clicked the home button, however, I realized the only thing I could check was my email. Email is my least favourite communication tool, so I didn’t check it very often. I just spent ~14 days reaching for my phone, realizing I didn’t care if I had new email then putting it down again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The second thing I noticed, in those first two weeks, was how many times I thought about posting pictures of what I was doing. I would be out on a hike and still take pictures, but would think to myself, “If I don’t post this, did it really happen?” Obviously, laughter ensued. Instead of posting pictures, however, I sent them to the one or two people I really wanted to share them with. This meant a handful of friends got a lot more pictures delivered via iMessage, and I got to have a lot of meaningful conversations with them.

That brings me to my third point, which is that I strengthened a handful of friendships during my social media detox. Instead of simply double-tapping a picture on Instagram or replying to a tweet, we had real conversations – via text, the phone, Skype, etc. Two friends, in particular, quickly became the people I spoke to on an almost-daily basis. To counter that, unfortunately, I also found a few of my friendships quietened down or died off. I don’t know if that’s because I was offline, or because we have gone down different paths lately. But it did make me think about how the connections we “maintain” online aren’t always meant to last forever.

Finally, one of the best – and most unexpected – outcomes was that I slept better than I had in months. Since October, I had been in a new and terrible sleeping pattern. I was lucky if I could get six hours a night, and especially lucky if I could sleep in past 6am. Within the first few days of my social media detox, I was getting at least eight hours of sleep and was sleeping in until 7-7:30am! The non-morning people probably still think that’s too early, but this felt incredible to me. The bags under my eyes started to diminish, I had more energy and just felt better overall each day – all because I wasn’t checking Instagram before bed.

Of course, some of these things changed when Molly passed away. Namely, I went back to not sleeping very well. All I did was hangout with (and worry about) Lexie. She had spent her entire life with Molly, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I also didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t want to leave the house without her. So, I decided to quit the detox early and downloaded Instagram on May 22nd. There was nothing impulsive about this. I just wanted to share the news (writing little obituaries for Molly and Lexie was part of my healing process) and share pictures and videos of my time with Lexie during her final days. <3

Other Observations I Made During My Social Media Detox

So, it wasn’t a perfect slow living experiment. I witnessed some positive differences in my behaviour and built upon a handful of existing friendships. Being offline also helped me stay more present and alert with the girls, during the time they needed me the most (and that’s time I could never have gotten back). But I did genuinely miss a few things about social media, during those 23 days (I only stayed off Facebook for the full 30). Specifically, there were two friends who were on big life-changing journeys, and I missed reading their updates on Instagram, and seeing pictures and videos from the beautiful places they were visiting.

There are a few other observations I made during my social media detox:

I tracked how many hours I was using my phone with the Moment app, and found I spent only 35% of my usual time on it without social media. It also (obviously) held a charge for a lot longer.

I can’t tell if it made me any more productive. I finished the second draft of The Year of Less, but I also quit freelancing (more on that later) and spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I did feel out of the loop on things, like current events. To be fair, I could have done a better job of checking the news on various sites. It just didn’t feel important compared to what was happening right in front of me at home. And I will never regret being uninformed for one month.

I found myself in a lot of conversations with friends who asked, “did you hear about X thing happening in Y city or to Z person?” When I said no and asked for more details, they couldn’t give me any. “That’s all I know,” they said. That’s all most of us know, if we don’t read past the headlines. And that’s what we do: think that what we can learn in 140 characters is enough to stay “in the loop”.

And one observation I’ve made since starting to use Instagram again is somewhat surprising: fewer people text me. I don’t know if it’s because they are now getting updates about me online, but I feel as though I’ve had fewer (and less meaningful) conversations since posting again. That’s something I need to think about more, which brings me to my final thoughts on this experiment.

How I Plan to Use Social Media in the Future

I had such a negative mindset about social media, when I started the detox, that I honestly thought I would be deleting some of my profiles by the end. Twitter had been fuelling my anxiety for weeks, as had Facebook the year before. I knew I wouldn’t delete Instagram, but I also knew the way I’d been using it had to change. I was so convinced I would be anti-social media, by the end of this, that I actually wrote an outline for the post where I would announce why I was walking away from it. Instead, I’ve gone back to my original thought: that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely.

When I looked back at that post I had drafted, I realized most of the reasons I was thinking about quitting social media were related to the fact that it wasn’t fun anymore. Some of that is because what we see online has been extremely negative (even downright mean) since the election. But it’s also because I had turned it all into business. I had never been someone who cared about the numbers, and then one day I started paying attention to them. I also started caring about the overall look/feel of my profiles. I thought that was what I was “supposed to do” in order to grow my business or to seem more legit (and imagine many bloggers and online business owners feel the same).

I’ve bucked most of the trends of what we’re “supposed to do” for years. I’ve never followed thousands of people in hopes they will follow me in return. I’ve always known I would rather have fewer followers who engage with my content rather than an inflated number that makes me seem more important. I also refuse to schedule content to publish around the clock. The business blogs tell me it will increase my pageviews, but I would rather have all my interactions occur in real-time. These are just a couple of the ways I’ve stuck to my morals while building my business. The experts might tell me I’m doing it wrong, but doing things their way isn’t fun. And if it’s not fun, what’s the point?

The most important lesson I learned during my social media detox is to make your own rules. Click To Tweet

I’m going to ignore every article about how to increase my engagement and achieve some meaningless goal, and go back to doing what I used to do: sharing my story and connecting with people. Social media doesn’t have to suck. For as much as I was hating on Twitter earlier this year, I am in control of how I use it – and all social media platforms, for that matter. I know it’s a powerful tool, but I don’t care how it affects my business. I want the power to be all about the connections we make. I love hanging out with you guys (and am using this penguin picture to show you how much I love it). I just want to do it my way. Here’s what that will look like:

Facebook: I’ll still use it to share all my new blog posts, and some other posts I think you would like.

Twitter: Ditto. But I’ll never schedule anything. I only want to post things when I know I’ll be available to have a conversation with you.

Instagram: I actually think I’m going to use this platform a little more than usual (namely, stories). However, I won’t be tagging profiles or using hashtags in posts. I don’t care how many people like my photos. I’ll share things because I want to, not because I want it to get any amount of validation.

Also, if the thought of using social media strategically makes you feel icky, go look at how some of the people you look up to in your industry use it. For me, that meant looking at the profiles of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton. These women don’t have strategies. They all do things differently but have one thing in common: they post what comes from the heart.

Experiment #5: Slow Technology

All-in-all, while I didn’t fully complete the slow living experiment I had mapped out, I still feel incredibly happy with the lessons I took away from it.

do a 30-day social media detox (April 29th – May 28th) – 76% complete

figure out the role I want social media to play in my life – done!

check/reply to email less often (also experiment with not checking on my phone) – done!

figure out the role I want technology to play in my life (phone, computers, TV, etc.) – not really

read from a book every day – nope

As I am slowly easing myself back onto social media, there is one new habit I built this month that I hope I can hold onto forever: the feeling of not wanting to look at my phone very often. It’s hard to describe, but I genuinely feel an aversion to carrying my phone around with me and looking at it all the time. Yes, it can be a way to connect with people, but the connection you make when you sit across from someone and look them in the eyes is so much better. I vow to do a lot more of that in the future. <3

Books and Podcasts I Consumed This Month

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

The Magnolia Story by Chip and Johanna Gaines

At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider

Forward by Abby Wambach

The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary (loving the new meditation series!)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox posted first on http://ift.tt/2sSbQiu

[carpediempagesite]

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox

On the morning of April 29th, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. It was the last social media app to go, as I had deactivated my Facebook account in 2016 and removed the Twitter app from my phone in March. I never thought I would delete the Instagram app, because of all the social media platforms out there, it had always been my favourite. But after yet another sleepless night in April, I could no longer hide from the truth: my anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

I say I “had” to kick it because being addicted to looking at my phone and at social media does not align with my values. Over the past few years, I think you’ve all witnessed some of the transformations I’ve made in my life, including falling in love with the outdoors, and wanting to spend less time working and more time living. My phone is a great tool, in that it can help me navigate new territory and take pictures along the way. But it can’t help me do any of the other “living” I want to do; neither can social media.

Even though spending a lot of time looking at my phone or at social media doesn’t align with my values, I’m not immune to getting sucked in. Sure, I’m fairly self-aware, but I’m not a robot. I don’t operate on command, and I don’t automatically shutdown at certain times of the day. In April, I learned the exact opposite was true: when I was anxious, I looked at it more; went further down the rabbit hole; and felt worse about everything I found. On the morning of April 29th, I knew my online life needed a reset. It was time for a social media detox.

The Rules for My Social Media Detox

In the past, I will admit I have been hesitant to do any type of social media detox. My reasoning: I felt it was a necessary part of life, and that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony that this thought came from the same girl who banned herself from shopping for two years. What can I say? Humans are complex! And I was a Communications major who, at one time, truly loved social media.) Still, once you see something, you can’t unsee it. So, when I finally saw how unhappy looking at social media made me, I knew I needed a break from it.

The rules for my social media detox were simple:

remove all social media apps from my phone

logout of all social media sites on my computer

use Buffer to schedule posts for my blog and Rockstar Finance

and don’t check any of my profiles!

The 30-day social media detox was intended to last from April 29th to May 28th. I was hesitant to walk away for such a long period of time, especially since I work for myself and have an “online presence” or whatever you want to call it. But like most of the other challenges I’ve set for myself, I knew this one was essential. In fact, tuning in to what my body and mind ask for would end up being just one of the many lessons I would take from this experience. But before I jump into the lessons, I should first tell you how the detox went, including some of the things I noticed about myself – and others – when I was offline.

How I Used Social Media Before the Detox

To have a better understanding of what this detox entailed, you should have a clear picture of exactly what type of social media user I was when I started. As I mentioned, I had already deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I deleted Facebook altogether in May 2016, but I still managed a few business pages and groups, which I did from my computer. And I checked Twitter regularly on my computer, as well, but didn’t feel the need to have 24/7 access to it from my phone. I deleted the Twitter app in March, and had enjoyed feeling slightly less connected without it.

The one app I still checked often was Instagram. I have always loved Instagram. It has allowed me to share pictures of the beautiful scenery I’m surrounded by every day, and helped me discover new places to explore. I have also met some of my closest friends on Instagram! The first friend I made when I moved to Port Moody and the first friend I’ve made since moving to Squamish are both people I had connected with on Instagram. Our conversations started online, but through the pictures and stories we shared, we knew we could probably take them offline too – and we did!

The day I decided to make my Instagram profile a “business profile” was the day I started to get a little less enjoyment from the app. Instead of simply posting a picture, I started to look at how that picture was performing. I also found myself having more conversations with friends about how to optimize posts in order to get more likes. It was all about the likes. What I wrote in the captions was honest, but the profiles I tagged and the hashtags I used were intentionally chosen in the hopes it would bring in more likes. And if I didn’t get enough engagement with a post, I genuinely felt like it wasn’t a good enough picture. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was business. The same became true with Twitter and my tweets.

Even though it felt like business, Instagram – like all social media platforms – was also a rabbit hole. It was too easy to see I was tagged in a post, check out the picture, read the comments, reply to the post, then visit the profile of the person who took the picture, check out a few more of their pictures, look at the list of profiles similar to theirs, check out their pictures, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, 10 or 20 minutes had gone by, and I had forgotten why I’d opened up the app to begin with. That’s not to say I never found or connected with cool people that way, but this happened way more often than I liked.

I knew things were really bad when my insomnia on April 28th caused me to pick up my phone at 11pm, 12am, 12:30am, 12:40am, 12:50am 1am, 1:10am … until I finally passed out around 3:30am. The dogs woke me up at 6:30am, and I knew I couldn’t survive like that another day. My anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

What My Life Was Like Without Social Media

I don’t think I’ll bore you with all the nitty gritty details of what each and every day looked like. (I did keep a journal and documented most of them, but it’s not exactly an exciting read!) Instead, I’ll share some of the things that stood out most to me. The first thing I noticed, of course, was how often I reached for my phone. As soon as I clicked the home button, however, I realized the only thing I could check was my email. Email is my least favourite communication tool, so I didn’t check it very often. I just spent ~14 days reaching for my phone, realizing I didn’t care if I had new email then putting it down again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The second thing I noticed, in those first two weeks, was how many times I thought about posting pictures of what I was doing. I would be out on a hike and still take pictures, but would think to myself, “If I don’t post this, did it really happen?” Obviously, laughter ensued. Instead of posting pictures, however, I sent them to the one or two people I really wanted to share them with. This meant a handful of friends got a lot more pictures delivered via iMessage, and I got to have a lot of meaningful conversations with them.

That brings me to my third point, which is that I strengthened a handful of friendships during my social media detox. Instead of simply double-tapping a picture on Instagram or replying to a tweet, we had real conversations – via text, the phone, Skype, etc. Two friends, in particular, quickly became the people I spoke to on an almost-daily basis. To counter that, unfortunately, I also found a few of my friendships quietened down or died off. I don’t know if that’s because I was offline, or because we have gone down different paths lately. But it did make me think about how the connections we “maintain” online aren’t always meant to last forever.

Finally, one of the best – and most unexpected – outcomes was that I slept better than I had in months. Since October, I had been in a new and terrible sleeping pattern. I was lucky if I could get six hours a night, and especially lucky if I could sleep in past 6am. Within the first few days of my social media detox, I was getting at least eight hours of sleep and was sleeping in until 7-7:30am! The non-morning people probably still think that’s too early, but this felt incredible to me. The bags under my eyes started to diminish, I had more energy and just felt better overall each day – all because I wasn’t checking Instagram before bed.

Of course, some of these things changed when Molly passed away. Namely, I went back to not sleeping very well. All I did was hangout with (and worry about) Lexie. She had spent her entire life with Molly, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I also didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t want to leave the house without her. So, I decided to quit the detox early and downloaded Instagram on May 22nd. There was nothing impulsive about this. I just wanted to share the news (writing little obituaries for Molly and Lexie was part of my healing process) and share pictures and videos of my time with Lexie during her final days. <3

Other Observations I Made During My Social Media Detox

So, it wasn’t a perfect slow living experiment. I witnessed some positive differences in my behaviour and built upon a handful of existing friendships. Being offline also helped me stay more present and alert with the girls, during the time they needed me the most (and that’s time I could never have gotten back). But I did genuinely miss a few things about social media, during those 23 days (I only stayed off Facebook for the full 30). Specifically, there were two friends who were on big life-changing journeys, and I missed reading their updates on Instagram, and seeing pictures and videos from the beautiful places they were visiting.

There are a few other observations I made during my social media detox:

I tracked how many hours I was using my phone with the Moment app, and found I spent only 35% of my usual time on it without social media. It also (obviously) held a charge for a lot longer.

I can’t tell if it made me any more productive. I finished the second draft of The Year of Less, but I also quit freelancing (more on that later) and spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I did feel out of the loop on things, like current events. To be fair, I could have done a better job of checking the news on various sites. It just didn’t feel important compared to what was happening right in front of me at home. And I will never regret being uninformed for one month.

I found myself in a lot of conversations with friends who asked, “did you hear about X thing happening in Y city or to Z person?” When I said no and asked for more details, they couldn’t give me any. “That’s all I know,” they said. That’s all most of us know, if we don’t read past the headlines. And that’s what we do: think that what we can learn in 140 characters is enough to stay “in the loop”.

And one observation I’ve made since starting to use Instagram again is somewhat surprising: fewer people text me. I don’t know if it’s because they are now getting updates about me online, but I feel as though I’ve had fewer (and less meaningful) conversations since posting again. That’s something I need to think about more, which brings me to my final thoughts on this experiment.

How I Plan to Use Social Media in the Future

I had such a negative mindset about social media, when I started the detox, that I honestly thought I would be deleting some of my profiles by the end. Twitter had been fuelling my anxiety for weeks, as had Facebook the year before. I knew I wouldn’t delete Instagram, but I also knew the way I’d been using it had to change. I was so convinced I would be anti-social media, by the end of this, that I actually wrote an outline for the post where I would announce why I was walking away from it. Instead, I’ve gone back to my original thought: that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely.

When I looked back at that post I had drafted, I realized most of the reasons I was thinking about quitting social media were related to the fact that it wasn’t fun anymore. Some of that is because what we see online has been extremely negative (even downright mean) since the election. But it’s also because I had turned it all into business. I had never been someone who cared about the numbers, and then one day I started paying attention to them. I also started caring about the overall look/feel of my profiles. I thought that was what I was “supposed to do” in order to grow my business or to seem more legit (and imagine many bloggers and online business owners feel the same).

I’ve bucked most of the trends of what we’re “supposed to do” for years. I’ve never followed thousands of people in hopes they will follow me in return. I’ve always known I would rather have fewer followers who engage with my content rather than an inflated number that makes me seem more important. I also refuse to schedule content to publish around the clock. The business blogs tell me it will increase my pageviews, but I would rather have all my interactions occur in real-time. These are just a couple of the ways I’ve stuck to my morals while building my business. The experts might tell me I’m doing it wrong, but doing things their way isn’t fun. And if it’s not fun, what’s the point?

The most important lesson I learned during my social media detox is to make your own rules. Click To Tweet

I’m going to ignore every article about how to increase my engagement and achieve some meaningless goal, and go back to doing what I used to do: sharing my story and connecting with people. Social media doesn’t have to suck. For as much as I was hating on Twitter earlier this year, I am in control of how I use it – and all social media platforms, for that matter. I know it’s a powerful tool, but I don’t care how it affects my business. I want the power to be all about the connections we make. I love hanging out with you guys (and am using this penguin picture to show you how much I love it). I just want to do it my way. Here’s what that will look like:

Facebook: I’ll still use it to share all my new blog posts, and some other posts I think you would like.

Twitter: Ditto. But I’ll never schedule anything. I only want to post things when I know I’ll be available to have a conversation with you.

Instagram: I actually think I’m going to use this platform a little more than usual (namely, stories). However, I won’t be tagging profiles or using hashtags in posts. I don’t care how many people like my photos. I’ll share things because I want to, not because I want it to get any amount of validation.

Also, if the thought of using social media strategically makes you feel icky, go look at how some of the people you look up to in your industry use it. For me, that meant looking at the profiles of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton. These women don’t have strategies. They all do things differently but have one thing in common: they post what comes from the heart.

Experiment #5: Slow Technology

All-in-all, while I didn’t fully complete the slow living experiment I had mapped out, I still feel incredibly happy with the lessons I took away from it.

do a 30-day social media detox (April 29th – May 28th) – 76% complete

figure out the role I want social media to play in my life – done!

check/reply to email less often (also experiment with not checking on my phone) – done!

figure out the role I want technology to play in my life (phone, computers, TV, etc.) – not really

read from a book every day – nope

As I am slowly easing myself back onto social media, there is one new habit I built this month that I hope I can hold onto forever: the feeling of not wanting to look at my phone very often. It’s hard to describe, but I genuinely feel an aversion to carrying my phone around with me and looking at it all the time. Yes, it can be a way to connect with people, but the connection you make when you sit across from someone and look them in the eyes is so much better. I vow to do a lot more of that in the future. <3

Books and Podcasts I Consumed This Month

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

The Magnolia Story by Chip and Johanna Gaines

At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider

Forward by Abby Wambach

The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary (loving the new meditation series!)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox posted first on cashforcarsperthblog.blogspot.com

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The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox

On the morning of April 29th, I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. It was the last social media app to go, as I had deactivated my Facebook account in 2016 and removed the Twitter app from my phone in March. I never thought I would delete the Instagram app, because of all the social media platforms out there, it had always been my favourite. But after yet another sleepless night in April, I could no longer hide from the truth: my anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

I say I “had” to kick it because being addicted to looking at my phone and at social media does not align with my values. Over the past few years, I think you’ve all witnessed some of the transformations I’ve made in my life, including falling in love with the outdoors, and wanting to spend less time working and more time living. My phone is a great tool, in that it can help me navigate new territory and take pictures along the way. But it can’t help me do any of the other “living” I want to do; neither can social media.

Even though spending a lot of time looking at my phone or at social media doesn’t align with my values, I’m not immune to getting sucked in. Sure, I’m fairly self-aware, but I’m not a robot. I don’t operate on command, and I don’t automatically shutdown at certain times of the day. In April, I learned the exact opposite was true: when I was anxious, I looked at it more; went further down the rabbit hole; and felt worse about everything I found. On the morning of April 29th, I knew my online life needed a reset. It was time for a social media detox.

The Rules for My Social Media Detox

In the past, I will admit I have been hesitant to do any type of social media detox. My reasoning: I felt it was a necessary part of life, and that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony that this thought came from the same girl who banned herself from shopping for two years. What can I say? Humans are complex! And I was a Communications major who, at one time, truly loved social media.) Still, once you see something, you can’t unsee it. So, when I finally saw how unhappy looking at social media made me, I knew I needed a break from it.

The rules for my social media detox were simple:

remove all social media apps from my phone

logout of all social media sites on my computer

use Buffer to schedule posts for my blog and Rockstar Finance

and don’t check any of my profiles!

The 30-day social media detox was intended to last from April 29th to May 28th. I was hesitant to walk away for such a long period of time, especially since I work for myself and have an “online presence” or whatever you want to call it. But like most of the other challenges I’ve set for myself, I knew this one was essential. In fact, tuning in to what my body and mind ask for would end up being just one of the many lessons I would take from this experience. But before I jump into the lessons, I should first tell you how the detox went, including some of the things I noticed about myself – and others – when I was offline.

How I Used Social Media Before the Detox

To have a better understanding of what this detox entailed, you should have a clear picture of exactly what type of social media user I was when I started. As I mentioned, I had already deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone. I deleted Facebook altogether in May 2016, but I still managed a few business pages and groups, which I did from my computer. And I checked Twitter regularly on my computer, as well, but didn’t feel the need to have 24/7 access to it from my phone. I deleted the Twitter app in March, and had enjoyed feeling slightly less connected without it.

The one app I still checked often was Instagram. I have always loved Instagram. It has allowed me to share pictures of the beautiful scenery I’m surrounded by every day, and helped me discover new places to explore. I have also met some of my closest friends on Instagram! The first friend I made when I moved to Port Moody and the first friend I’ve made since moving to Squamish are both people I had connected with on Instagram. Our conversations started online, but through the pictures and stories we shared, we knew we could probably take them offline too – and we did!

The day I decided to make my Instagram profile a “business profile” was the day I started to get a little less enjoyment from the app. Instead of simply posting a picture, I started to look at how that picture was performing. I also found myself having more conversations with friends about how to optimize posts in order to get more likes. It was all about the likes. What I wrote in the captions was honest, but the profiles I tagged and the hashtags I used were intentionally chosen in the hopes it would bring in more likes. And if I didn’t get enough engagement with a post, I genuinely felt like it wasn’t a good enough picture. It wasn’t fun anymore; it was business. The same became true with Twitter and my tweets.

Even though it felt like business, Instagram – like all social media platforms – was also a rabbit hole. It was too easy to see I was tagged in a post, check out the picture, read the comments, reply to the post, then visit the profile of the person who took the picture, check out a few more of their pictures, look at the list of profiles similar to theirs, check out their pictures, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, 10 or 20 minutes had gone by, and I had forgotten why I’d opened up the app to begin with. That’s not to say I never found or connected with cool people that way, but this happened way more often than I liked.

I knew things were really bad when my insomnia on April 28th caused me to pick up my phone at 11pm, 12am, 12:30am, 12:40am, 12:50am 1am, 1:10am … until I finally passed out around 3:30am. The dogs woke me up at 6:30am, and I knew I couldn’t survive like that another day. My anxiety had fueled a new level of addiction to my phone and I had to kick it.

What My Life Was Like Without Social Media

I don’t think I’ll bore you with all the nitty gritty details of what each and every day looked like. (I did keep a journal and documented most of them, but it’s not exactly an exciting read!) Instead, I’ll share some of the things that stood out most to me. The first thing I noticed, of course, was how often I reached for my phone. As soon as I clicked the home button, however, I realized the only thing I could check was my email. Email is my least favourite communication tool, so I didn’t check it very often. I just spent ~14 days reaching for my phone, realizing I didn’t care if I had new email then putting it down again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

The second thing I noticed, in those first two weeks, was how many times I thought about posting pictures of what I was doing. I would be out on a hike and still take pictures, but would think to myself, “If I don’t post this, did it really happen?” Obviously, laughter ensued. Instead of posting pictures, however, I sent them to the one or two people I really wanted to share them with. This meant a handful of friends got a lot more pictures delivered via iMessage, and I got to have a lot of meaningful conversations with them.

That brings me to my third point, which is that I strengthened a handful of friendships during my social media detox. Instead of simply double-tapping a picture on Instagram or replying to a tweet, we had real conversations – via text, the phone, Skype, etc. Two friends, in particular, quickly became the people I spoke to on an almost-daily basis. To counter that, unfortunately, I also found a few of my friendships quietened down or died off. I don’t know if that’s because I was offline, or because we have gone down different paths lately. But it did make me think about how the connections we “maintain” online aren’t always meant to last forever.

Finally, one of the best – and most unexpected – outcomes was that I slept better than I had in months. Since October, I had been in a new and terrible sleeping pattern. I was lucky if I could get six hours a night, and especially lucky if I could sleep in past 6am. Within the first few days of my social media detox, I was getting at least eight hours of sleep and was sleeping in until 7-7:30am! The non-morning people probably still think that’s too early, but this felt incredible to me. The bags under my eyes started to diminish, I had more energy and just felt better overall each day – all because I wasn’t checking Instagram before bed.

Of course, some of these things changed when Molly passed away. Namely, I went back to not sleeping very well. All I did was hangout with (and worry about) Lexie. She had spent her entire life with Molly, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I also didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t want to leave the house without her. So, I decided to quit the detox early and downloaded Instagram on May 22nd. There was nothing impulsive about this. I just wanted to share the news (writing little obituaries for Molly and Lexie was part of my healing process) and share pictures and videos of my time with Lexie during her final days. <3

Other Observations I Made During My Social Media Detox

So, it wasn’t a perfect slow living experiment. I witnessed some positive differences in my behaviour and built upon a handful of existing friendships. Being offline also helped me stay more present and alert with the girls, during the time they needed me the most (and that’s time I could never have gotten back). But I did genuinely miss a few things about social media, during those 23 days (I only stayed off Facebook for the full 30). Specifically, there were two friends who were on big life-changing journeys, and I missed reading their updates on Instagram, and seeing pictures and videos from the beautiful places they were visiting.

There are a few other observations I made during my social media detox:

I tracked how many hours I was using my phone with the Moment app, and found I spent only 35% of my usual time on it without social media. It also (obviously) held a charge for a lot longer.

I can’t tell if it made me any more productive. I finished the second draft of The Year of Less, but I also quit freelancing (more on that later) and spent a lot of time doing nothing.

I did feel out of the loop on things, like current events. To be fair, I could have done a better job of checking the news on various sites. It just didn’t feel important compared to what was happening right in front of me at home. And I will never regret being uninformed for one month.

I found myself in a lot of conversations with friends who asked, “did you hear about X thing happening in Y city or to Z person?” When I said no and asked for more details, they couldn’t give me any. “That’s all I know,” they said. That’s all most of us know, if we don’t read past the headlines. And that’s what we do: think that what we can learn in 140 characters is enough to stay “in the loop”.

And one observation I’ve made since starting to use Instagram again is somewhat surprising: fewer people text me. I don’t know if it’s because they are now getting updates about me online, but I feel as though I’ve had fewer (and less meaningful) conversations since posting again. That’s something I need to think about more, which brings me to my final thoughts on this experiment.

How I Plan to Use Social Media in the Future

I had such a negative mindset about social media, when I started the detox, that I honestly thought I would be deleting some of my profiles by the end. Twitter had been fuelling my anxiety for weeks, as had Facebook the year before. I knew I wouldn’t delete Instagram, but I also knew the way I’d been using it had to change. I was so convinced I would be anti-social media, by the end of this, that I actually wrote an outline for the post where I would announce why I was walking away from it. Instead, I’ve gone back to my original thought: that we should simply learn how to use it more mindfully rather than ban ourselves completely.

When I looked back at that post I had drafted, I realized most of the reasons I was thinking about quitting social media were related to the fact that it wasn’t fun anymore. Some of that is because what we see online has been extremely negative (even downright mean) since the election. But it’s also because I had turned it all into business. I had never been someone who cared about the numbers, and then one day I started paying attention to them. I also started caring about the overall look/feel of my profiles. I thought that was what I was “supposed to do” in order to grow my business or to seem more legit (and imagine many bloggers and online business owners feel the same).

I’ve bucked most of the trends of what we’re “supposed to do” for years. I’ve never followed thousands of people in hopes they will follow me in return. I’ve always known I would rather have fewer followers who engage with my content rather than an inflated number that makes me seem more important. I also refuse to schedule content to publish around the clock. The business blogs tell me it will increase my pageviews, but I would rather have all my interactions occur in real-time. These are just a couple of the ways I’ve stuck to my morals while building my business. The experts might tell me I’m doing it wrong, but doing things their way isn’t fun. And if it’s not fun, what’s the point?

The most important lesson I learned during my social media detox is to make your own rules. Click To Tweet

I’m going to ignore every article about how to increase my engagement and achieve some meaningless goal, and go back to doing what I used to do: sharing my story and connecting with people. Social media doesn’t have to suck. For as much as I was hating on Twitter earlier this year, I am in control of how I use it – and all social media platforms, for that matter. I know it’s a powerful tool, but I don’t care how it affects my business. I want the power to be all about the connections we make. I love hanging out with you guys (and am using this penguin picture to show you how much I love it). I just want to do it my way. Here’s what that will look like:

Facebook: I’ll still use it to share all my new blog posts, and some other posts I think you would like.

Twitter: Ditto. But I’ll never schedule anything. I only want to post things when I know I’ll be available to have a conversation with you.

Instagram: I actually think I’m going to use this platform a little more than usual (namely, stories). However, I won’t be tagging profiles or using hashtags in posts. I don’t care how many people like my photos. I’ll share things because I want to, not because I want it to get any amount of validation.

Also, if the thought of using social media strategically makes you feel icky, go look at how some of the people you look up to in your industry use it. For me, that meant looking at the profiles of Cheryl Strayed and Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle Melton. These women don’t have strategies. They all do things differently but have one thing in common: they post what comes from the heart.

Experiment #5: Slow Technology

All-in-all, while I didn’t fully complete the slow living experiment I had mapped out, I still feel incredibly happy with the lessons I took away from it.

do a 30-day social media detox (April 29th – May 28th) – 76% complete

figure out the role I want social media to play in my life – done!

check/reply to email less often (also experiment with not checking on my phone) – done!

figure out the role I want technology to play in my life (phone, computers, TV, etc.) – not really

read from a book every day – nope

As I am slowly easing myself back onto social media, there is one new habit I built this month that I hope I can hold onto forever: the feeling of not wanting to look at my phone very often. It’s hard to describe, but I genuinely feel an aversion to carrying my phone around with me and looking at it all the time. Yes, it can be a way to connect with people, but the connection you make when you sit across from someone and look them in the eyes is so much better. I vow to do a lot more of that in the future. <3

Books and Podcasts I Consumed This Month

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

The Magnolia Story by Chip and Johanna Gaines

At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider

Forward by Abby Wambach

The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary (loving the new meditation series!)

The Most Important Lesson I Learned During My Social Media Detox posted first on http://ift.tt/2lnwIdQ