A wee post from my old, still super relevant blog Dweebyrunner18.wordpress...
Social media has brought so many incredible things to the world; innovation, motivation, inspiration, the ability to communicate and build communities across the world...
However, it can also be a large platform that completely absorbs us. Creating hours of procrastination, self-doubt, judgement, comparison and negativity. It can leave us feeling left out or lost. Constantly comparing ourselves, our bodies and our lives to others. More often than not, we are left feeling like we have just wasted valuable time that could have been doing something else like creating real life memories.
“Comparison Is the Thief of Joy” Theodore Roosevelt
I can’t quite explain how awesome the break has been. I have always struggled with self-doubt and although I don’t know exactly where it stems from, I do feel that social media often reinforces the things we dislike about ourselves. We are constantly bombarded by incredible people doing incredible things. Making life look easy. Removing all the distractions has helped me refocus, gain perspective and realise what is truly important.
I also became more aware of how much we now use our phones. A bit like if you want a to start driving all you see is cars, or you want to a new pair of shoes everyone seems to be wearing them. When we focus on something it seems to show up everywhere.
isle of Mull
We all scarily loose ourselves scrolling through pointless stories and pictures. It has become such a habit that we now just accept it as normal. People glued to their phone waiting on the bus, travelling on the bus, waiting in the que, whilst eating their dinner, in between sets in the gym. It’s crazy even looking down the street more people are on their phone than not.
We can become so distracted looking at how other people are living their life, we forget to live our own.
The best part of this experience has been seeing other people’s reactions. When people realise they are on their phone and you aren’t. They spend a few minutes scrolling, then they stop, look at you phoneless, think you are a bit weird and then continue scrolling, then you start to speak to them, they put down their phone and start to blether.
PSPS I am 100000% not saying we should throw away all phones, chuck our computers out the window and get back travelling by horse and cart and start using inkwells and feathers to write and communicate….
I just feel this experience gave me a wee reminder of how precious the present moment is, how incredible our lives are. Most of all how fast time can fly away when we are distracted by our phone’s.
3 things you can do today to be more present
1) Mindfulness: Start by becoming aware of how often you check your phone.
Track how long you spend scrolling and try and reduce that time by using a time limit. Give yourself ten mins every few hours to reply to messages and see what everyone is up to. then….
2) Turn your Wi-Fi and mobile data off.
This has been the most effective thing I tried. By giving myself no option, it forced me to stop checking and reduced my temptation to have a quick check for notifications.
Psychologist suggest will-power is like a muscle, that can become tired the more we use it. The more habit changing decisions we make throughout the day, the harder they become. This is why it often feels harder in the evening to stay on track with a diet.
We can start out with high motivation and good intentions to change. Then slowly we start to fall back in to old habits and behaviours. We could start the day thinking I am going to eat healthy today. We have a good breakfast and lunch. Then we come home after a long day at work, tired, stressed and hangry. We have resisted all temptations and we have just spotted the flyer sticking out the letter box, 2for1 deal on a brand-new pizza from Dominos.
We started off the day with good intentions and it slowly changed into a nice big pizza and some ice-cream from freezer.
We might as well have that to because we’ve had a hard day and we have already slipped off the “diet”.
So, we say we will just start fresh tomorrow…
Psychologist call this ‘decision fatigue’.
Although this example has nothing to do with how we use social media, it provides a bit of an insight into how difficult it can be to break habits when we have other options. So, by switching off Wi-Fi or data, we give our self no other option but to stay off our phones.
3) Make a continuous effort to make conversations with people especially in situations where everyone is on their phone. On the train, waiting in the queue or in the staffroom.
We all have so much to give and share with each other and now miss out on. You will be surprised at how much better it feels finding out about a stranger’s day or family rather than your best friends crazy night out on snapchat story.
We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by stepping back and taking a break from social media.
Even if it just for a half the day. Challenge yourself, set goals to not check your phone when your wakeup or compete with your friends to make it till 5pm without checking. It sounds silly but I can’t tell you how much better you will feel and how much time you will have to invest in yourself and those around you.
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