Why I'm taking a break from social media

As I mentioned in a previous post, I decided to take a break from social media for 75 days as part of a challenge that I'm doing. Mainly I'm just curious to see if it makes a difference with my mental health.

Social media has been such a large part of my daily life. It was a way of feeling connected and if I wasn't posting and sharing things, I was constantly checking to see what everyone was up to.

Remember how cool and exciting it was when Facebook first came into existence? We could connect with old friends that we hadn't seen in a really long time, we could connect with family who lived a long distance away. It was fun to see family and vacation pictures and I loved connecting with groups of people who shared the same interests.

And then social media started becoming something else. It became divisive and ugly. People started posting and commenting things that they would never say to someone's face. The computer board seemed to give people a false sense of security and removed all social etiquette. We started unfollowing and unfriending and people that we thought we knew really well turned into completely different people (or perhaps were just showing their true selves) online.

I did a pretty good job of filtering and soon the algorithms of my feed developed into mostly workout posts and cute dogs needing homes.

However, the original reason I enjoyed Facebook in the first place had gradually dwindled. Friends and family weren't posting as much and my feed became nothing but workouts and dogs with hopeful eyes. If I wasn't feeling sad and guilty about the dogs, I was feeling inadequate about my workouts. I was feeling terrible about not making room for more dogs; I was feeling really sad that so many dogs were being neglected and abused. Instead of feeling inspired by the workout groups I belonged to, I was often playing the comparison game and wondering why I wasn't as strong or physically fit as a lot of the other people.

And the mindless scrolling.....I was scrolling with my first cup of morning coffee. Between commercials when I watched TV at night. Between tasks at work. When I was bored. When I was anxious.

But I think what really convinced me to take a break was realizing there were so many events that I couldn't just savor and enjoy and be in the moment because I was focused on taking pictures and creating posts in my head. This happened with my workouts, too. Would this make a great photo? Is there something inspiring that I can post today about my workout?

I decided that I just wanted to live my life and enjoy the journey that I'm on. No one cares that I worked out for the gazillionth time. No one cares about what I ate at the restaurant last night.

What would happen if I just stayed off of social media? The thought was anxiety-inducing at first. Would I feel isolated and lonely? Would I be able to make it through the day without seeing what everyone is doing? Will I still be able to hold myself accountable with my healthy habits if I'm not telling people what I'm doing? Will I be able to complete my list of daily tasks for the next 75 days if I don't talk about it?

I guess I'll find out in 75 days, right?