Coming To a Screen Near You... Grandmaaaa Gattooooo

After taking some time this week and observing the people around me – especially in public – I have come to really and truly understand how self absorbed and screen obsessed we are as a culture. To avoid social interaction, people sit and stare at their phones when they are out in public. To avoid conversation with the people they are with, they sit and stare at their phones.

Am I perfect? No. I still find myself mindlessly scrolling when I am bored. I use my phone as a boredom killer – which actually makes me more bored. It’s a bad cycle, and I am trying to break it.

Just like I am trying to break the habit of posting every second of every day on social media. When I first got my hands on social media 10 years ago, I was posting every time I would take a breath – and it was obnoxious (Thanks Timehop!). I was posting every picture I took, every place I went, every grievance I had – it was all out there for the world to read. There was never anything to talk about with friends and family because my ENTIRE life was out on the internet for the world to read – and know what was going on in my life. That’s not who I am. It's not so much being secretive as it is keeping your life private. There's no need to blast every moment of every day - realize how unsafe it is to put your location out there all the time, how unsafe it is for you to air all your grievances. Companies can get through security firewalls, so be smart about what you put out there into the internet. 

I’ve started cutting back my social media/screen time exponentially. I started my mornings without checking my phone, without scrolling Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I started making Sundays my detox days. It’s hard – don’t get me wrong – because when I am bored I crave my screen. I crave the connection with people I either know personally or through social media. But it’s not a real connection. Posting on social media is the easy way to avoid talking to everyone. I would much rather get a text/call from someone telling me about their day or what's on their mind (even if its something simple!), than scrolling through novel posts on Facebook. DO NOT replace your family and friends by using your screen as your crutch. 

Social media has become a place for people to start/instigate drama, post nasty comments on people’s pictures, and essentially screw with people’s mental health. Social media has become a place where we compare ourselves to others, be it their lifestyles, their body type, their lives. People gossip about what others post, rather than scroll by a post they don’t like. We are all guilty of doing this – and it has got to stop. The only way we will make a difference in this world is to be supportive of others, to lift each other up. Rather than sit around and make others the topic of our conversations. This is childish behavior that really needs to stop. Again - I am not innocent of this, and am working on cleaning up my social media behavior as well. 

Social media is meant to be used as a SOCIAL entity. Meaning – people post what they want, and you either decide to interact with them, or scroll past it. There’s literally no need to sit around and talk about it with anyone else. As a society, we sit and nitpick every post that we see. “Was that meant for me?” “what did I do to make them mad?” Social media has taken self esteem and self confidence – and drowned them. The negative comments that others post is clearly a reflection of how cowardly they are, hiding behind a screen. Remove them from your life! 

All too often, we find ourselves questioning why someone didn't tag us in memes, or why they tagged someone else and not us. We ask ourselves what we did wrong - it weighs a LOT on our mental health. We feel as if people don't like or comment on every single one of our posts that they just don't care. The truth is - sometimes people don't see it, or sometimes they don't feel the urge to like/comment on the post. THAT IS THEIR CHOICE. However, this is becoming an epidemic, and the only way to stop feeling like social media is running our lives is to fix it ourselves. 

So how do we fix it? 

For starters (and to slowly start the changes), unfollow/unfriend those in your world that don’t bring any sort of happiness or joy to you when you are scrolling. If you are scrolling social media and every time you see a post from someone – and you get upset/angry/annoyed – UNFOLLOW/UNFRIEND. You do not need the outside negativity in your world. You are better than that.

Secondly, we start to disassociate with social media all the time. Start with a few hours. Toss your phone in airplane mode, shut your laptop, and do something. Go outside, read a book, meet up with friends for coffee. Go for a drive, visit family and friends. NO PHONE. We need to be present in the moments we are in, rather than sitting and photographing every moment to post on social media. Does it mean to never take pictures? No. But with apps like SnapChat, we are less likely to truly be present in the moment, because we have to share with the world instantly how amazing that moment is.

What if, for a week, you only posted pictures/videos once every few days? And they had to mean something. Rather than posting/sharing for likes. We have become SO self absorbed that we don’t post anything just to share it. We post it, then constantly refresh until our likes increase. I posted in my first post on here about how we are lucky if we get the time we want with those we love before we lose them forever. Use that as motivation to truly get your nose out of your phone.

Repeat after me: THE AMOUNT OF LIKES I GET ON AN INSTAGRAM OR FACEBOOK PHOTO/POST DOES NOT DEFINE ME. SOCIAL MEDIA DOES NOT DEFINE ME. I AM MY OWN PERSON AND WILL NO LONGER LIVE MY LIFE RULED BY SOCIAL MEDIA.

My challenge to you for the next month, should you choose to take it: Take one day off from social media per week, truly be  present with your company, and share/post things that truly mean something to you  - NOTHING because you feel obligated to share/post. And the second part, if you so choose, is to disassociate from your phone for one day a week to start.

Take this time and truly listen to the sounds around you. Spend time with the people around you and don’t focus on your phone. 

BE PRESENT.

DISCLAIMER: I am 29 years old, not 75 like this post makes me sound. I am an old soul (or so I have been told) and crave simpler times.