40 days off social media: 5 things I noticed

For my 40th birthday I gave myself a gift: 40 days off social media. In not one, not two, but three books I recently read (Deep Work, Them, and The Common Rule) the authors recommended social media breaks of various lengths, all for different reasons–mostly spiritual, emotional, and mental health.

But the one that stood out to me the most was from a non-religious book called Deep Work, which asserts that distraction has a crippling effect on important, creative, deep, thoughtful work (and, I’d say, relationships). The author believes we must work to increase our ability to give focused attention, at-length, to projects and people. (It’s interesting to me that Charlotte Mason lists this as the most important trait to teach young children.)

He writes, “Don’t formally deactivate these services, and (this is important) don’t mention online that you’ll be signing off: Just stop using them… After 30 days, ask yourself the following two questions about each service you temporarily quit:

• Would the last 30 days have been notably better if I had been able to use this service?
• Did people care that I wasn’t using this service?

If your answer is “no” to both questions, quit the service permanently.”

So I did this, but stretched it to 40 days. Here’s what stood out to me:

1. I was much more emotionally stable for my family. I realized that often I can be short or taxed or moody with my family not because of anything they’ve done, but because of some post or comment or news opinion item (not the news event itself but the commentary on the new event) has frustrated or saddened or irked me.
2. I was more present for the people in front of me. I can easily live in my head. I’m always thinking, considering, debating, having conversations in my head. A quick hop on social media can easily send me into rabbit-trail of thoughts that are a world away from the actual people I’m facing and serving in that moment.
3. I was on my phone WAY less. This is probably obvious, but with no social media apps there isn’t a whole lot to do on one’s phone. It also just happened that on my bday (when I began) my phone quit taking a charge from all cables except one, and the battery-life dwindled drastically. So basically my phone has to stay plugged in, and when I’m out and about I turn it off.
4. I felt more clarity in how to thoughtfully respond to events rather than emotionally react out of guilt or anger. This was probably the biggest benefit for me. The challenge for me with social media isn’t that I compare my life with others, or waste time, or play games or get jealous. For me, the challenge on social media is that it feels like there is ALWAYS something to be outraged about. So. Many. Causes. So. Much. Anger. I recently heard someone describe themselves as a “bleeding heart conservative” and I had to laugh. I feel like that! I feel (deeply!) the need to respond to every injustice and and then my pride gets mixed in too and I don’t want to be seen as uncaring, so I want to somehow show my care or attention to some issue, but the problem is–on social media we tend to equate “action” with “posting something immediately.” Never mind that this issue (whatever it is) has probably been around for years or decades (or all of human history) if you don’t post exactly the right thing RIGHT NOW then you clearly aren’t a real Christian. What’s interesting, of course, is that research shows that posting about some cause on social media actually makes you LESS likely to do something about it. Probably because the post somehow satisfies our “need to do something” urge. We get the monkey off our back without having to lift a literal finger–thumbs and hashtags are all it takes! Of course I’m not saying that people who post on social media don’t actually do things–not at all! But for me, I found that without the social media “option” for action, I was much more inclined to pray, research, ask God for direction, and DO SOMETHING.
5. I was able to love people in person more easily, without their recent posts flashing through mind. I was recently telling my sister-in-law that in person I’ve never really met someone I didn’t like. I mean, there are some not-favorites 😉 but for the most part, when I meet people in person, I like them. Even the ones who are different, who think different, vote different, look different. But when I read someone’s inflammatory or emotionally-charged rant on Facebook, that’s what stands out in my mind and it’s like an invisible barrier to being able to just love that person. Sure, sometimes people say things to my face that are hard or hurtful, but that’s real life. There’s grace aplenty to process that. But online, people say different things than they would in person, so when I also have to factor in all the sound-bytes and snippets and political posts and hashtags and article links and rants…it’s just a lot for my poor brain to overcome when I’m trying to just love and listen to and understand the person right in front of me.

Did I miss anything? I’ll be completely honest: What I missed was sharing funny things about my kids or cute photos of Justice. And that’s what their grandparents missed too. In fact, it was interesting to me that no one noticed I was off social media except my dad. Not a single person asked me where I’d been. So my absence was not a big loss for the world! (Also, I still read and responded to messages via Messenger and in three closed groups, as I need to be present there as well.)

Oh, one last thing: I narrowed down my news intake to one Daily Digest. I receive one daily email with 6-8 headlines (World, US, Politics, Church, Opinion, etc.). I can scan quickly and look more into stories I feel need more attention. The articles are thoughtful, from a Christian perspective (rather than a certain political party), and seem balanced and gracious. I feel informed not inflamed. 🙂

Going forward, I won’t be deleting my FB or IG accounts (I can’t deprive the world of Justice’s cuteness much longer!), but I’ll be continuing to enjoy them on a limited basis. (These posts automatically go to FB) AND, one fun outcome of all this: We’re starting a podcast! More details to come, but I’m super excited to be able to share more via voice and discussion, along with writing. If you want to be sure to catch the podcast and blog posts, please subscribe over in the orange box to the right (that way you don’t have to rely on social media to see stuff!)

More soon. Thanks so much for reading.