What Would Happen If I Left Social Media?
Some thoughts about the downfalls of virtual reality and embracing authentic life.
The theater was still mostly empty when we arrived. We had driven two hours, so my friend and I had allowed ourselves plenty of time to make the journey. We parked, ate our packed supper, and then devoted ourselves to taking in the excitement of the occasion. There is nothing quite like a live show to foster that feeling of anticipation. We waited in our seats, giggling, until the lights went down and the music started.
The musicians danced across the stage, dazzling us with their lightning fingers. It's toe-tapping, head-nodding, foot-stomping music. When I looked around at our unknown companions, many of them were doing all three. We just couldn't help ourselves. I let myself savor every bit.
I don't take videos at concerts as much as I used to. I realize that I'm changing in that way, in the part of me that used to feel an urgency to bottle up every sensation, every feeling, every waited-for thrill in a reusable form so that I could revisit it later at my convenience. I took a few pictures, but I have been making a conscious effort to put my phone away at times like these. I want to experience what's happening in front of me as it happens. This shouldn’t be difficult, but sometimes it is.
I've been doing a little experiment these last several weeks, called What Would Happen If I Left Social Media? I have done this sort of thing before in years past, usually for Lent. During college, when Ash Wednesday would come around, I would post the obligatory “I’m giving up social media for Lent, but I’ll be back.” I hoped my peers wouldn’t judge me for being holier-than-they, but at the same time I was coveting their respect.
If you've ever done a social media fast, you would probably agree that it's a wonderful thing. The thing about a fast, though, is it always ends, and then you are released from your commitment. That was really good for me, I would say, after having successfully completed three months without looking at the Instagram app. Then I would go back to the thing that I knew wasn't great for me, might actually be harmful for me, like I was resigned to a sub-par human experience. Like I was an addict. I didn’t want to be an addict, and this really bothered me for years.
We are all doubtless aware of the problems social media presents. You don’t have to dig very deep to find them. It’s even been called a public mental health crisis, and the internet is riddled with articles about how social media usage commonly leads to depression, anxiety, and loneliness. 1
That may sound alarmist, and it probably paints a more extreme picture than the average experience. But we all know social media has the tendency to encourage the mindless waste of time. We know it brings magnified opportunities for unhealthy comparison, dissatisfaction, and covetousness, and we’ve all seen the perfectly (and creepily) curated ads presented to us that glorify endless consumerism.
I have fallen into each one of these pits, spent some time in there, climbed out, and then fallen into it again. I know that I want to spend less time on my phone, and I know these feelings of comparison I can slip into are not helpful for me or glorifying to God. But the real tipping point for me, what made me finally decide to call it with social media, has been more than just this accumulation of bad habits.
I realized I was losing my wonder for “real life”, and I missed it and wanted it back.
Like most things you read on the internet, I am now going to provide you with a generous caveat. I am not trying to take the moral high ground here and suggest that people who delete certain apps from their phone are in any way superior!
It may also be helpful to just admit that I am not a very moderate person, even though it is my hope to become more so. I often need to do things 100 percent or not at all. Maybe you don’t have the same all-or-nothing bent towards temptations. I know many people who use Instagram here and there and don’t have an unhealthy attachment to it like I did/do, and I’m certainly not trying to create a problem where there is none.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Lady Agrarian to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.