60 Before 60 Project: #9 - Unplug From Social Media for 1 Week
I’m a pretty big social media user. I estimate that I am probably on social media between two to three hours a day. Surprisingly, I’m not that far off the average baby boomer’s social media usage. This is estimated as being one hour, 48 minutes a day.
First the good news.
I believe that most of my social media activity is for good reason. I’m quite active using it for work in sharing different articles or content and interacting with our online community. I also extensively use it to research different topics and stay current on what is happening in the world.
But there is the dark side of my social media use that I’m not so proud of.
It’s when I use it for either distraction or procrastination. It starts out innocently enough. I’m browsing my newsfeeds and the next thing I know I find myself heading down some social media rabbit hole as I follow some topic that has very little with what I initially set out to do.
Then there is my procrastination relationship with social media. This happens when I would rather sit idly scanning my feeds than doing something else that I really should be doing.
It doesn’t seem that I’m the only one.
An article published in the Washington Post shared how older adults are busy staring at their phones and becoming distracted – not that different than the behaviour we may have accused our kids of.
So I decided for one of my 60 before 60 experiences, I am going to unplug from social media for 1 week. By doing this, I’m hoping to discover a few things;
Do I have any type of addiction to social media? Will I be able to last a week without feeling any sort of anxiety or stress without looking at social media.
Will I get more things done? If I don’t have social media as a distraction, will I use my time more effectively or just find some other way to procrastinate?
Will my sleep patterns improve? I check my social media feeds first thing in the morning and last thing at night. If I stopped doing this, will the removal of the “blue light” help improve my overall sleep?
From December 24th until December 31st I will be unplugged from social media. I’m not taking a complete technology cleanse as I will still be checking email but my social media feeds will be unplugged.
The Results of My One Week Disconnect from Social Media
Day 1: The urge to connect is real. I woke up in the morning and had to quickly catch myself as I went to press a social media icon on my phone. I’m going to have to keep a close eye on this and if necessary, actually take the apps off my phone to remove the temptation.
Day 2: Given that it was Christmas Day, it was pretty easy to completely disconnect as there were so many other things going on in my life. I must admit though, I did miss seeing my connections pictures of their festivities but reminded myself that the people that were most important to me were either with me or I connected with in some way throughout the day.
Day 3: Again, another day of festivities so to stay away from social media wasn’t too difficult as I had many other things to do and occupy my mind. What I have started to notice however is that the notifications to my email of posts from people I know are starting to increase.
Day 4: The holiday festivities are starting to slow down and I’m finding that my mind is starting to drift to what may be happening online. The email notifications are really starting to increase now. I’m not sure if you have had the opportunity to watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix about how the social media platforms are actually built to be addictive and based on the information that you share on the platforms they entice you with more to have you stay longer (if you’re interested in learning more, here’s an earlier article I wrote about this topic). I’m starting to feel that pull now. I can even feel myself saying “only 3 days to go” which is a bit disturbing….
Day 5: The number of notifications I’m now receiving are very high. I counted over 20 notifications in less than 24 hours from all the social media platforms I’m associated with. It is interesting how the urgency seems to be increasing in the notifications tone. One even has an alarm bell attached to the notification. It is hard to ignore as they keep popping up on my phone.
Day 6: Our guests have now all left and our house is quiet. It will be interesting to see how things go now I don’t have any significant distractions at home any longer. I decided to only look at my phone should I receive a call or a text and that seems to reduce the pull quite significantly.
Day 7: Knowing that this was the last day of my social media cleanse week came with some strange sense of relief as I found myself thinking “only one day to go”. I kept myself busy doing other things and keeping my phone out of reach helped in managing the onslaught of notifications.
My Observations From Being Unplugged From Social Media
The good news – I am not addicted to social media. I did a quick review of the 6 questions posed by the Addiction Center on whether someone may have a potential social media addiction and none of them applied to me.
But I can be easily distracted by it.
I do think about it occasionally and believe that the ongoing onslaught of notifications may be the reason for this. My situation is slightly different than other people’s as I do manage and monitor it for business but still, it does need to be balanced within my overall life experience.
I also have to admit that my experience was likely made easier in that it was done over the holiday season when there were plenty of other distractions to take my mind off what may be happening online.
I didn't notice any significant changes to my sleep patterns but did find that I the first thing I did in the morning was not check my social media newsfeeds. Because my days were pretty full already, I didn't miss doing this.
Moving forward, I’ve decided that I’m going to timebox the time I spend on social media. I will set a specific amount of time to be active during the day. And if I find myself heading down those social media rabbit holes I mentioned, I’ll consciously check on whether it’s valuable or if my time would be better spent doing something else. I’m also going to double check my notification settings to see if there may be a better way to manage these.
My 60 Before 60 Lesson: Time is our biggest currency that we don’t want to waste.
Interested in seeing all my 60 Before 60 experiences? Click here.
