Social media is an amazing way to share our lives with the online world. As a college student, I think it’s safe to say the majority of us are daily users of apps like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. While these apps are all very entertaining, it’s easy to get caught up spending more time on them than we intend to. For me, social media can become overwhelming and sometimes I just feel like taking a break. I’ve felt this way for years and have never truly followed through when it came to “not going on social media.” I’d stay off for a few hours at a time maybe and by the end of the day I had still managed to check all my accounts before bed. That’s why I decided to do a true social media cleanse, meaning no social media at all for my entire weekend.Â
I thought it would be my best option to do this “cleanse” during the weekend, since I would be able to relax more during that time. I decided to start on Friday night, at 5:00pm. At first I was like, “why did I do this?” but then I thought back to all the other times I desperately knew I needed a break from social media and still used it anyways, so I didn’t want to cave again. It was actually nice, I had dinner with my boyfriend, watched a movie, relaxed and went to bed, making Friday a successful start to my cleanse.Â
The next day I actually started at a new job, so that kept me occupied for some of the day. After not having spent time on social media for the past 12 hours, I didn’t feel an urge to check then. Mind you, I did delete all the social media apps from my phone, so I was taking it all very serious.
The rest of the weekend was pretty chill for me. I was able to just lounge around and relax before starting on the homework that I needed to get done. Before I knew it, it had been 48 hours from since I started my cleanse and I was finished! I was not urgent to check my accounts though because I can be very easily distracted by Twitter and Instagram, so I was just enjoying the rest of my distraction-free weekend.Â
Overall, I found myself super refreshed after not having been on social media or posting anything at all. It was nice to live more in the moment and focus on myself rather than what other people were doing. I enjoy sharing my life with others online but I definitely think it’s important for everybody to take a step back and just make more time for themselves. I’m truly glad that I decided to take a break from using social media, even though it was short, I would highly recommend doing the same to others who may find social media to be stressful at times!Â
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