Social Media Detox
Dear Lovely,
Back in 2020 when I was still publishing The Art of Living Beautifully magazine and blog, I led my readers in a little social media detox designed to give everyone a break from the scrolling. I came across the rubric for that detox the other day when cleaning out my Dropbox, and thought, you know what, I should do this again. Who doesn’t need a detox now and again. The OG detox consisted of this:
do not comment or post unless it’s positive
unfollow anyone who brings you discomfort and leave toxic groups
delete the app 3 days a week and one day of the weekend
make it a family effort and get your spouse and kids to participate
With the need for a detox greatly on my mind over the weekend, I began to rethink the structure of how this would truly benefit me, and you! As one of the oldest Millenials, (I was born in 1982) I was the last generation to understand what life was like prior to social media. The calm. The safety. And although mankind still dealt with plenty of issues prior to the launch of social media, the pressure of performance and acceptance via an intangible metric was non-existent. Later generations don’t know that life, therefore oftentimes don’t see the benefits of living without it.
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As I continued to ponder this social media pain point, I decided a few things. 1.) Even if I delete the app several days a week, I want to make sure I’m not spending more than one hour/day scrolling. 2.) I need to understand what I really want from having socials. Do I want to connect with friends, watch news outlets, view videos of dogs, see people who travel? What is the purpose? Keep up with friendships far away? Keep tabs on what’s happening in my community?
I think it’s really important to decipher this because many of us hop on for some mindless scrolling, but the truth is, it isn’t mindless. It doesn’t take much effort to watch the feed, but it does give a lot for you to process. This is especially difficult when the topics you see are varied: food, weather, friend whose traveling, someone lost their mom, someone lost their dog, weight loss journey, catastrophe in the middle east, earthquake, new designer purse, private plane, divorce, celebrity drama, dinner date, new restaurant, your political party is hated…all of this easily in the span of 30 seconds. It’s not mindless, friends. It’s overwhelming.
So, I asked myself, When I open the Instagram app, what do I really want to see?
This is what I ascertained: I look at Instagram to see a pretty world. I want to see pretty pictures and videos of food, homes, fashion, faith, European travel, and lessons on how to live sustainably. + I only want to see these things from certain content creators.
These things actually feel good to me. These things bring me joy and inspiration, plus they are all along the same lifestyle vein so it’s a much more cohesive information. In order to curate a feed that shows me these things, this is what I did:
Unfollowed every single celebrity/pop culture news outlet-Celebrities and pop culture constantly keep me on edge. The narcicism is out of control and most of what is shown isn’t really in alignment with the values in my life.
Unfollowed all political accounts, even if I agreed with their stance-I DO NOT want to get my political information from social media. This included people I know who constantly sound off on politics.
“Hide/Mute” all people I know and feel like I should follow, but don’t really want to see what they post-If I’m only going to spend an hour/day on social media, I don’t really want to see someone else’s child’s soccer game. I’ve been attending my own children’s games since 2013. As adults, guess what. We get to decide who/what we look at on social media. (More on this below.)
Unfollowed any account I couldn’t remember why I had followed to begin with ie: restaurants, random people I met at parties, etc…Unfollowing accounts that I don’t know or connect with will allow my feed to be specially curated for my exact tastes.
Though it took a few days, and in fact, I’m still cleaning when I open the app, I now have a feed that is enjoyable. If you are seeing advertisements you don’t want, take a minute and tap the … (the 3 little dots) in the top right of the screen and select, “not interested.” Although we will still see ads, if its something not in aligment with your clean out, you can taylor them away from accounts you don’t want to see.
Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself:
how does this account make me feel?
inspired
good
annoyed
lacking
angry
depressed
do I really want to get political news (whether same side or oppositional) through social media?
do I really care about seeing pictures or videos of other people’s kid’s sports matches? I don’t think this should be harsh, though some might see it as such. Those of you who know me know I am not a big sports fan anyway. I’m the mother of two athletes and I see plenty of games, but I am in a phase of my life when I don’t have the bandwidth to care about games I’m not attending. I don’t have the bandwidth for a lot of things, nor were we designed to be aware of everything going on in the world. Like I said before, my Instagram is for pretty lifestyle things. Let’s text or talk on the phone to catch up. Better yet, let’s meet for lunch!
Lovely, true friendship is about personal connection, not “liking” or “following” on social media. Can we please normalize social media not dictating the state of friendships? This is especially important for our young people. Socials exist in a digital world that resides on a 5” screen. Actual relationships are personal. Social channels are available for you to keep up with people across the globe if you wish, but should never be the cornerstone of relationships.
Why is any of this important?
Because friends, social media is dangerous. It’s dangerous for the human condition. It numbs and dulls our senses, overrides critical thinking, shortens our attention spans, stimulates dopamine addiction, normalizes over consumption…friends, it’s really dangerous for humankind.
Also, it fills up all the extra space we have if we aren’t careful. It’s in quiet moments that we can hear God. Boredom facilitates creativity and curiosity. If all the quiet moments are filled up with socials, we are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to hear God and be used by Him.
Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
Exodus 3:2-4
Moses received his calling from the burning bush after he became curious about the phenomenon he saw. He walked over to get a closer look. There was space in his life for curiosity, and it wasn’t until God saw that Moses was interested that He spoke. What if Moses was scrolling mindlessly, numb and dull from the buzz of scrolling. What if he had never heard his call? What burning bushes are we missing because of this dull, distracted, numb state we’ve become accustomed to? And what about the kids? Lord knows this has given me cause for worry over the years.
So Lovely, I hope you will take this as your sign to detox from social media. Remove the app from your phone for a few days each week. Clean up your feed. Leave toxic groups and don’t comment unless it’s positive. Evoke a family rule that deprioritizes scrolling. And be on the lookout for burning bushes and God’s voice. He always wants to talk to us, we just have to be available to listen!
