This semester I took a course where one of the assignments was essentially to break a bad habit (I told you in my last post that psych majors tend to have touchy feeling assignments). Unfortunately it didn't take me too long to come up with a VERY long list of all of the bad habits that I could break.
When I really thought about it, I realized that a lot of the habits I needed to break (getting distracted, going to bed late, missing out on what was around me) all had to do with me depending on my phone too much. So I thought about it (and prayed about it) and I knew that my ultimate goal would have to be to spend less time on my phone.
I needed to go extreme. Like delete all social media apps off of my phone and log out of my accounts extreme.
No Instagram.
No Facebook.
No Pinterest.
No SnapChat.
As one of my friends affectionally called it: I went Amish for a month.
You know the saying, "You never know a good thing until it's gone?" Well, you really never realize how important something is in your life until you can't have it. Like a best friend trapped in the woods with no cell service, or the sweater you left in your closet at school (not like this has EVER happened to me or anything) you only realize how much you rely on something when you don't have it.
The first week was weird, because I was still going on my phone often, only to realize that I couldn't do anything except *gasp* call and text on my phone. I would grab my phone out of habit, only to realize that I couldn't get distracted on it like I had in the past. Then week 2 came around and I noticed that I was carrying my phone a lot less (to the initial frustration of everyone who tried to get a hold of me). But that wasn't the only thing I noticed:
I also noticed people on the way to class that I would have normally blown on by, head down, eyes glued to my screen. I talked to friends, strangers, professors, lost guests and myself (maybe I shouldn't admit that). Anyway the point is that because my eyes were on my screen less, I was able to notice those around me, and I was actually having FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS... who would have thought?!
Not only was I noticing people more, I was spending more quality time with those closest to me. No longer did I want to eat lunch alone (since I had nothing to distract me) which meant that I went out of my way to eat with my friends. Over time, I simply stopped bringing my phone to the table, and started finding out the stressers, joys, prayer requests, jokes and aspirations of others, from them, rather than their profile page. I started being more intentional about investing in others, simply because I was focusing on my real friends rather than my Facebook friends.
The month went by, and I wasn't itching to have the social media back.
I'm sure I missed about 5 proposals, 2 pregnancy announcements, 49 recipes, and 6 "for sale" ads. Not to mention the many, many, snapchats that people were disappointed that I would never see. No wedding planning was being done, and my Pinterest boards were a wreck.
But I no longer missed it.
No, social media isn't a terrible thing (after all you probably got here from my link on Facebook) but I had given it an unhealthy position in my life. After some reflection since my purge I realized some hard truths about the place that my phone held in my life:
I would wake up and pray for God to use me that day to build His kingdom, yet I'd spend my day looking at my phone, rather than at the people He had
placed around me. I'd spend more time communicating through pictures,
than through words. I gave a man-made invention more of my time than I
would give to the people around me, the very ones who ACTUALLY could
love me back.
So what's changed?
Well, as far as the little habits, I've decided to keep most of the apps off of my phone (which is why I will never get your snapchats, although I'm sure they really are hilarious). I log out of Facebook on my laptop so that it's more effort the next time I want to go on, usually I'm too lazy, so my notifications go unchecked. I rarely check Instagram during school, and Pinterest is left untouched during the semester.
But it wasn't just the little things that changed. As silly as it is to say: that month of no social media, really changed me. Overall I'm more present in my own life. I'm less plugged into technology, and more connected to those around me. I became a better friend, student, tour guide and Christian. All because I gave up social media for a month. All because I trained myself to use my phone less. All because I took the time to realize my priorities and refocus my attention.
That's what I realize that I needed all along: a wake-up call. I needed to realize how out of line my priorities were. Is the phone of reality ringing in your life? Are you going to ignore it forever? I'd challenge you to answer it, after all, it might just change your life.
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