Every year for Lent, I ponder what I should fast from for 40 days. This year I was leaning toward taking a break from social media. My weekly phone usage report shows up on Sunday mornings. The Sunday before Ash Wednesday, my usage on Facebook was 24 hours for the week. Once I saw that number, I knew I needed to take a break. I decided to use this blog as a journal for what it's like to leave the social media world for 6 weeks. I will be deleting Instagram and Facebook from my phone. On Sundays, I plan to check Facebook. There are several groups that I am part of that do most of their communication on Facebook. I'm a 4H leader. It is BBQ season. I can't just ignore all of that information until Easter.
Week 1-
What a week! Ash Wednesday fell this year on the anniversary of Bryan's death. I never know how the anniversary will hit me. Some years I'm an emotional mess, and other years it's just a normal day. This year it passed without much emotion. This week, I realized how many times I blindly pick up my phone and swipe to an app to scroll. Sometimes I didn't even realize I had picked up my phone until my brain saw that I couldn't find the app I was looking for. Talk about a wake-up call. That weekend, I started having some pretty bad anxiety issues. Nothing had happened to make me anxious. It was like my body wanted to freak out. I shared with a friend and she pointed out that grief sometimes appears in weird ways. Once she said that, I realized that it was the week between Bryan's death and his birthday. She was probably right, and my body was processing emotions that I had not expressed out loud. That was until I read my devotion book the next morning. I decided to go through the book The Digital Fast by Dr. Darren Whitehead while I fasted from social media. Under his section on what to expect it listed all sorts of physical symptoms people have when they give up technology. Three that I experienced were anxiety, anger, and restlessness. The entire chapter was eye-opening about what the constant stream of information and scrolling does to our brains.
Week 2 -
Week 2 ended with me being at the capital with a friend. Our state is trying to add an amendment that will take away a lot of the homeschooling freedom we currently have. Due to that, I put Facebook back on my phone so that I could keep up with state organizations' real-time information. I took it back off that evening when I got home. All of my anxiety and withdrawal symptoms have gone away. I am so thankful for that. Jumping on the laptop to check on my groups only takes about 30 minutes. Scrolling on a computer is not as much fun as scrolling on a phone. I think the big take away this week is how much I see other people on their phones. Since I can't pull mine out and scroll every time I have a few minutes I tend to watch people. People don't talk to each other - everyone has their face in a screen.
Week Three-
Big news this week was that I got sick. I missed social media when I was so feverish I couldn't read. I scroll when I'm bored. This week pointed that out to me. I also missed being able to share with the world what was going on this week. I wanted to brag on my hubby and boys for taking care of me while I was down. The boys cleaned the house, and Trevor took care of food for everyone. I was a blessing to have big kids that I didn't have to take care of. They took care of me. I'm not missing social media as much as I thought I would. I'm starting to think of what it will look like if I choose to put it back on my phone when Lent is over.
I also decided this is going to be too long if I keep journaling for the next 3 weeks. I'll publish part 1 now and part 2 when I finish the social media fast.
