In the middle of September, I did a 7 day, 6 night trek on the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island where there is NO cell reception. It meant that I had a 7 day day digital detox.
I’ve made it a goal time and time again to do digital detoxes, and each time I’ve failed because I’ve had a “reason” to go on social media.
I need to post for the podcast. I need to share this blog post. I’ll just check for 3 minutes.
Having an opportunity to do a 7 day digital detox with no opportunity to go on social media, even if I wanted to, was such a blessing, and it taught me the following things:
1. I’m not missing anything important
When I turned my phone back on, I found that I hadn’t missed much in the social media world. People continued to post photos of their food and their dogs and beautiful landscapes, but I hadn’t missed anything truly important on social media.
2. People didn’t miss me
I had no one sending me DM’s on Instagram wondering where I was. I’m just another person who pops up in people’s newsfeed’s, and my presence is easily filled by someone else’s. I’ve often felt like I would lose followers or people would wonder what happened to me and my podcasts if I didn’t post for a few days, but as it turns out, people don’t really notice when you’re gone short-term.
3. My mind was clearer
Social media triggers a lot of emotional responses in all of us. It can make us feel like our lives aren’t as interesting or like we aren’t good enough compared to the masses, and having a break from this allowed me to see how toxic that thinking is. Having a week away from social media helped me to clear my mind and refocus on what I want out of my life and my social media presence.
4. More free time
It is actually crazy how much time I waste in a day on social media, tuning into other people’s lives instead of focusing on the life I live right here and now. Not having Instagram and Facebook to distract me meant that I had a lot more time to connect with the people around me, write in my journal, and focus inward. It was really refreshing to spend less time online and more time engaging with people in real life.
5. I use social media to escape
To be honest, after the first day or 2 of not obsessively checking my phone, I found that I rarely even thought about checking social media and I stopped worrying about what I was missing out on. Except, we had one really challenging day on the trail where all of our gear got soaked in the rain, and my friends and I had a pretty massive disagreement. I caught myself wanting to disappear into other people’s lives so that I didn’t have to feel the things in mine, and it made me realize that I use social media as a way to escape feelings I don’t want to feel and tasks I don’t want to do.
When I went back online after my digital detox, I was happy to be back online, but I also vowed to do a week long digital detox at least every 6 months. If you spend a lot of time on social media, I would also encourage you to try it too.