I took a 1-year hiatus from social media and this is what I learned.
About a year ago, I made the choice to unplug from social media. I deleted the apps from my phone, logged out of the accounts from my desktop. I considered deleting my profiles altogether, but chose instead to practice some limit of self-control — I would continue knowing the digital version of me existed out there, but I was going to hit the snooze button for the unforeseeable future.
What arose from this experiment was eye-opening, uncomfortable, and freeing.
1. The relationships around me had to transform to now meet a new kind of connection — one without status updates or stories in my feed, but rather something that was sought out and actively nurtured.
The initial feeling of “FOMO”, that I would be missing crucial life updates from people in my life (as well as the not-so-crucial ones), was one of the first anxieties to settle in. I sat with slight unease in realizing that perhaps I had a false connection to these people in my life, a product of the laziness that was fueled by an understanding that I would get the “life content” I needed passively through the apps on my phone. I began questioning which relationships were actually true…
