Five Things I Learned While Taking a Break From My Phone
“But I love what I gain: time for nearly every pursuit, curated content I get to choose, and peace of mind that I’m not selling my soul for a chronological grid of my daughter’s face, my son’s grin, and the next dopamine hit of being noticed.”
This past year, I fluctuated between two extremes with my phone: either I was mindlessly scrolling too late at night or I was obsessively attentive to a few accounts I thought were really helping me — both at the cost of actual time with my family. My feeds infiltrated my thoughts to a point where I wasn’t sure where social media ended and my real thoughts began. I had convinced myself that I was using Instagram intentionally because of how carefully I curated who I followed. My feed was full of beauty and joy, homeschooling, theology, inspirational expats, real life friends and funnies, and I was super interested in it. I was interested in keeping up to date with the tragic story of #evalove, as well as what to think about the president’s impeachment. I was interested in reformed theology and what the church is doing now with such-and-such celebrity pastor/teacher. I was interested in where to put all the houseplants I wanted in my tiny home. And let’s not forget the enneagram memes, puppy videos, and story templates.
And that was just Instagram.
Currently, WhatsApp is not so much of a thing in my passport country, but it is the thing in my host country. So, in addition to all my invested time in the idealistic world of Instagram and the nostalgic take-me-home world of Facebook, my phone buzzes 49 times an hour with messages, photos, and sparkly GIFs from members of our community wishing each other well, sharing encouragement, or posting important details about an event coming up. I’m also in WhatsApp groups for my son’s soccer team, our ministry team, and the kid’s club we run. Then there are the subgroups: our ministry team ladies, kids club leadership, members of the team who are attending an upcoming conference, a small Bible study, and, like everyone else, a number of individual text threads.
Friends, I won’t even get started on my email inbox, which, of course, I can access on my phone as well. But one day, as I was marking endless unread messages as “read,” I paused to read the latest text from a good friend. It occurred to me she doesn’t have an Instagram account, nor do my other two best friends. My dearest host-country friends, three women I believe God gave to me specifically to love and cherish, don’t use the same social media I do — no Instagram, no Facebook. Just text messages, usually used for the purpose of meeting face to face. It was like a DM to my soul.
“Do not come closer.” Get off those things. I want to tread reverently when it comes to choosing relationships with eye contact over the pseudo-relationships on my screen.
So I just quit. Maybe forever, definitely 30 days, until I’m not (as) addicted anymore.
I hate what I miss when I’m off social media: life updates from real-life, faraway friends, Grandma’s comments on photos of the kids, a running photo journal of our family’s adventures with the simple click of a hashtag. But I love what I gain: time for nearly every pursuit, curated content I get to choose, and peace of mind that I’m not selling my soul for a chronological grid of my daughter’s face, my son’s grin, and the next dopamine hit of being noticed.
Maybe your new year's resolution is to spend less time on your devices. I encourage you to try! Here are five things I learned while on my social media break. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t perfect.
1. Your favorite influencers have fun feeds and stories, but they save their best content for their newsletters.
Before I gave up social media, I didn’t feel like I had time for any of the personal pursuits I wanted to enjoy. I was extremely late to the podcast game because I am a chronic late adapter and because I was too occupied with what I was already doing. Then, once I got addicted to Instagram stories, I was practically ruined for podcasts. Who has time for that? I unsubscribed from every email newsletter ever, or just deleted them the moment they arrived, because I was “caught up” by the influencer’s feed. But here’s what I learned on my permanent break from their quick content: their stories and insta feeds are fun, but they save their best content for subscribers. Now I have time to read their newsletters, and I’m always glad I did! I LOVE @takingrouteblog on Instagram - don’t click unfollow! - but the newsletter is my real jam. This was the most surprising and best lesson I learned from my social media break.
2a. The memories are pretty meaningful
I look forward to some of the memories from Facebook’s “on this day” feature all year long. There’s one of my son “reading” Barnyard Dance and another of my daughter singing “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz in her high chair that bring me so much joy. I allow myself this one social media luxury most days. It’s fun to show my kids their baby photos and talk about what they were like before they became so darn grown up. I’m motivated by the fact that joy is contagious, and this is one element of social media that brings me joy. When my kids see my face light up with joy at the fond memory of their baby years, we form a joy bond. This is an invaluable tool, and I’m thankful for it. Memory keeping is one of the reasons I started social media accounts anyway, so for me it’s worth it.
2b. But it’s a slippery slope, so choose wisely
Reading those memories, I’m also disgusted by the number of times I’ve talked about catching a cold, posted terrible photos of mediocre food, and “vaguebooked” about things I can’t even recall. Some days, the temptation to refresh the feed after checking those memories was too strong, and I’d find myself looking up from my phone thirty minutes later, having perused all my feeds without even realizing it. During one of these weak periods, I scrolled my Facebook feed and what I saw was a lot of loss: one too-tiny baby, two beloved dogs, a bread-winner’s job, a mom’s health, a marriage. It was overwhelming. Instead of feeling informed, I felt ill-equipped to deal with the emotions and unable to offer anything helpful to those facing the real loss. Sometimes, it’s just too much. Here in my real life, people are experiencing those same losses, and I want to be ready to offer the true comfort of a hug, a heartfelt prayer together, or a meal delivered.
3. Time is the real gain
When I’m on a break from social media, I read more, listen to podcasts, enjoy the monthly newsletters from some of my favorite influencers, and spend more time communicating by text and video messages with my real life friends - the ones back home and the ones here. I would much rather have a fifteen minute video call with my bestie back home than mindlessly watch thirty of her stories.
5. It’s a creative kick-in-the-pants
My digital communication game is still millennial-strong, but it feels more intentional, more authentic, more like me. I’m also writing, rewriting, and thinking more creatively than I have in a long time. Sometimes my fingers are so itchy I can’t help but spend fifteen minutes on a free write. It feels like real self-discipline when I use my itchy fingers to write instead of double tap to like.
In the future, I hope to use social media in a healthy way. There are benefits to online community that I want to enjoy and I think they can be enjoyed in a reasonable way. First, I need to prove to myself that I don’t need to capture every detail in a pretty square or share every thought without an edit.
After all, the good stuff isn’t found amongst the perfectly curated squares, anyway. The best content can be found when I log out and look up.
