Last August, I undertook my first social media detox and removed all my social media apps – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat and Pinterest – from my phone for two weeks while I was on family vacation with my three girls in Calgary.
It was my first taste of freedom from our instant update, click bait, thumbs-up gratification life.
I was rewarded with mental clarity, focus, and presence. The boredom gaps that I was filling with my mindless cell phone wandering were replaced with being in the moment with my girls – a richer, more fulfilling, and in-tuned way of life. I decided to make it a quarterly routine, and I’ll share why you should consider a social media spring detox.
I’m in the midst of completing my Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Athabasca and I’m always staring at a screen. All of my textbooks and readings are digital, I constantly write in word documents, and if I add social media to my day I tally an unnatural amount of screen time. I can feel my body protesting with strained eyes, tight shoulders and a sore wrist that I suspect may be the beginnings of carpal tunnel.
The majority of our workforce now survives from starting at screens; we are an army of digital slaves. The leader of this digital army is Facebook CEO, Mark Zukerberg. His testimony before the US Senate last week, a deadpan performance that left me wondering if his company sent an android in his place, is the type of robotic affect I see in people.
His answer that Facebook should not be regulated, even after the privacy invasion of 87 million people in which their data was harvested by a quiz app and obtained to Cambridge Analytica, and the fact that Zuckerberg lied about users being able to delete their data (it’s not deleted, just moved around) was my incentive to take a FB break.
Besides our privacy invasion, social media steals something sacred from us that no generation before us has had to combat: our spaces of boredom, and the time we need to tune into ourselves, our thoughts, desires, dreams, and awareness of our wounds that need healing. The only way for these spaces to open up requires stillness and silence.
It’s a challenge to find stillness and silence in a society filled with screens. Friends, family and corporations douse us with a fire hose of information/misinformation, fake realities, and we build a comparison chart that breeds contempt and self-loathing. How can she afford that vacation? How did he get that promotion – I should be further along in my career! Their kids are perfect, but do they have a post about it every day?! How did she lose all that weight, and why can’t I?!
Even the creator of the most famous screens in history, the iPad and iPhone, Steve Jobs stated in a magazine interview on that he didn’t allow his children to use his technology, "We actually we don't allow the iPad in the home. We think it's too dangerous for them in effect."
The “effect” Jobs speaks of is the rewiring of our brains due to the dopamine feedback loop built into social media. The former vice president of Facebook’s user growth, Chamath Palihapitiya states in an interview posted on the website, nakedcapitalism.com, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works.” He’s referring to the instant gratification we receive through artificial “likes, hearts and thumbs-ups.” This fake form of communication is destroying our ability to have relationships built on face-to-face interactions.
It’s only through a social media detox that I realize the insidious nature of artificial connection at our fingertips. How all these small stolen moments of scrolling lead to a spiritual deficit and create a barrier to authentic relationships.
It also reminds me to stay in my own lane, and take responsibility for my thoughts, and deeds. When I do so, I become more productive, the quality of time I spend with people increases and most importantly, I feel peace. I don't feel pressured to “like” anyone or anything. I “like” myself without social media.
If you're considering a social media detox my best advice is to quit cold turkey. Note all the times you go to pick up your phone, and I promise you’ll be stunned by the realization that it has become an extension of your arm. Then lean into the uncomfortable silence and stillness and let your soul exhale that deep sigh it has been holding in all this time you have been disconnected from yourself.