Instagram: the person you know you shouldn’t go home with…
A couple of weeks ago I decided I was going to take a break from social media. I realized I was scrolling through hours of garbage content and wasting my life away. You know its bad when your thumb is bothering you from scrolling and your pinky hurts from holding your phone up so much. “You averaged 5 hours and 31 minutes of screen time this week.” Haha ha ha hahah YIKES. The multitude of warning signs was enough for me to log out and delete all social media apps.
Fast forward a month. My schedule has improved tremendously. I am up earlier in the morning, I am more productive during the workday, and I have time to start working on my own business. I have never considered myself someone who suffers from anxiety but we all have occasional run-ins with the anxiety devil. Since I have logged out of social media, I haven’t had a single anxious thought. Not a one. When everything in the world seems to be going wrong, I have found inner peace. That’s not a coincidence.
And then it happened… a moment of weakness. At this point, I haven’t been on Instagram in over a month. For some reason, I thought, “Why not just check? See if you have any messages or anything.” As if people slide into my DMs, HA! I honestly wish I was exaggerating what I felt next. The second my feed opened, I was overcome with a tsunami of anxiety. The kind of anxiety you feel when you leave the bar with the absolute wrong person. Kinda like that sinking feeling when you know sent the wrong text (“I miss you”) and you can’t take it back. It was horrible. But, why?
It’s not like I’m not allowed on Instagram. I have every right to be on social media. I made it about 12 posts before I signed off. It’s been a couple of hours now and I really still don’t feel right. I don’t know I will ever understand why I felt that way but there’s no question these apps are made to rewire your brain.
In those 12 posts, I saw nothing that should give me any reason to feel anxious. What insecurity do I have that is triggering that kind of response? What am I worried about? What is wrong with me? I don’t have any reason to feel this way.
Maybe it’s time to start listening to the professionals. Having that kind of gut check feeling is not normal. You always hear about the dangers of social media and the rising number of kids growing up with anxiety. Why are we ignoring them?
While it’s awesome and heartwarming watching David Dobrik handing out free money maybe it’s time to put the phone down and try to replicate that feeling yourself. Send a nice text to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while. Call your mom. Write a letter to a close friend. Literally anything to keep you from scrolling through get rich quick multi-level marketing schemes and influencers.
Until I can figure out for myself why I feel anxious when I open social media, you won’t see me on there anytime soon. I am enjoying the hermit life too much to bring that negativity back into my life. So, in other words, don’t slide into my DMs. But you are welcome to call. We will have a much better conversation that way.
