I gave up social media for 40 days. Here’s what happened.

Nothing.

Crazy right? The world kept on spinning.

Now, when I say I “gave it up” that’s not completely true. A big portion of my job is managing social media accounts. So, I kept at it for work only.

Was it hard? Not exactly. I didn’t miss it, but it was difficult to break the habit of mindless scrolling. I also had to be acutely aware of using my work accounts to mindlessly scroll instead of my personal accounts.

Not surprising at all, I had a lot more free time on my hands. And I was so much more productive! Instead of sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning playing on my phone while the kids watched cartoons I folded laundry instead. I was more present with my family in the evenings.

One thing I didn’t anticipate was missing news, announcements, and events. For example, I follow our local organization that our kids play sports through. Without having a Facebook post to tell me baseball sign-ups were happening, I almost missed signing Reese up for T-Ball.

I did miss seeing the photos that friends and family share. My sister would say to me “Did you see that picture I posted of the girls!?” and I’d have no idea what she was referring to.

Since my social media fast, I have kept Twitter off my phone, I deleted snapchat, I cleaned up my Instagram follows, and muted a whole lot of folks on Facebook. And other than checking Facebook for work, I have found myself going back there less and less.

I’m approaching it all with the “does it bring me joy” mentality from that book about tidying up, or whatever. Am I experiencing more anguish/annoyance/eye rolls than joy from this person I’m following? Unfollow.

Talk about refreshing!

I don’t think I will ever “quit” the internet completely. After all, I have social media and blogging to thanks for three of my favorite people on the planet. But, overall, I am so so happy I did it.

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