We live in a world where our voice is louder than ever. Anyone and everyone can broadcast what they believe in and what they are doing, all over the internet. Now, more than ever, social media has impacted every facet of our lives. Everyone from the president to your grandmother has some form of social media. We live in a world where we virtually have no privacy. The day to day status updates, likes and comments broadcasts you for the world. How can we disconnect? How can the addiction of social media be solved?
It is common knowledge that today, social media is a must for any person. It stops us from finishing our work, being with friends and family, and distracts us from our actual life. How can we disconnect? A couple of years ago I was staring at my phone for over ten hours a day nonstop. I couldn’t help but refresh Instagram and twitter repeatedly until my fingers hurt. I started slacking off in school and began to waste countless hours on my phone and not doing homework, or anything productive in that matter. I got sick of the constant feed and the pointless garbage spewing from my screen and into my brain. I ended up deleting everything from my phone and even went as far as deactivating Twitter and Facebook. I wanted to see how long I could go without even using social media. One day turned into one week. One week turned into one month. Slowly, one month turned into six months without being bogged down with my phone.
During that time, I spent time on things I have been putting off; projects that I said I didn’t have time to do or assignments that I said I would do later. I didn’t have an excuse anymore to put them off, all I had was time. I had so much time in fact, I even had time to finish a whole shelf of books that I never had “time” to read.
I felt such a weight off my shoulders when I didn’t use social media. The continuous comparison of my life to others was causing a lot of anxiety. Social media had just become a nuisance. The continual noise that it caused in my life stopped me from even being able to live my life.
You can’t quit social media cold turkey. It takes time, patience and a lot of fidgeting. Social media is a drug that half the world is addicted to. Disconnecting from the internet is like ripping the umbilical cord from your virtual self. Start by taking a day off from the internet; then add another day off and then another. Turn off your phone for a second and live life. The likes and comments don’t equal your happiness and it sure doesn’t define who you are.
