Why I Have A Love/Hate Relationship with Social Media
These last two months I decided to take a much needed social media hiatus. I’ve wanted to take a break for a while, but honestly I felt like I would be missing out. And fomo is real people. I didn’t want to miss a friend’s birthday or a new Tasty recipe drop or anything else of importance that you can “only” see on social media. But if these last few months of being quarantined have taught me anything, it’s that it’s okay to slow down and to shut down. It’s okay to remove myself once in a while and not engage in every little thing that comes my way. So I took a break from it all. I deleted Instagram and made the conscious effort to put my phone down and be more present to my life. And in a lot of ways, this little hiatus was exactly what I needed.
FOMO IS REAL.
Ugh.
So why do I love/hate social media? I’m sure a lot of the same reasons that you also love/hate it. It looks lovely. The colors are bright and fun. It’s engaging, amusing and downright addicting. Which brings me to why I also kinda hate it. I’ve become addicted to looking at other people’s lives and by default comparing them my own. I’ve become addicted to checking it in the morning, during the day, when I’m in a room with my friends, even in my bed at night at night. Other people’s lives are the last thing I see before I go to sleep at night, wtf! I’ve become addicted to the scroll. And the only way to numb the addiction is to scroll and scroll and scroll some more. I finally got to the point where I realized, I am looking at things that I don’t even care about. I’m happy that people are living their best lives but I don’t need to see every last meal pic and detail of someone else’s life. Especially people that I haven’t spoken to in months or years! I realized that I was paying more attention to what others were eating and doing with their time than what I was eating or doing with mine.
Why did I feel like I wasn’t being productive with my time? Why did I feel like I was lacking things when in reality I feel like my life is filled with the people I love and I am doing the things that make me truly happy. Why was I feeling like I wasn’t enough? And it hit me. I was so preoccupied with what everyone else is doing and not with what I needed to do for myself. So I hit the reset button. I figured quarantine was probably the best time to try to kick the habit of comparing my life indoors to anyone else’s. It was what I needed to do for myself.
If you are struggling with any area of your life, I would encourage you to take a look at how you are spending your time. That is what I always come back to when there are things that I want to accomplish but I find something is in the way. We have to remove the distractions and everything that is blocking us from doing the things that push us forward. We have to remove all of the obstacles and distractions that are holding us back. Social media was just a distraction in my life that I needed to clean up a bit and get a better handle ;) on.
Today I am back on social media. You can expect my Instagram page (@faithflynn) to be filled with all the things that I love, that make me feel good and that I want to share with you in hopes that it will be useful for you in your life. I am also going to be a lot more open about the journey. Where I am at right now, the process of figuring it out, and what has been working for me to get through what I think a lot of us will look back on and call one of the most difficult times in our lives.
Don’t get me wrong I also see the importance of social media all around us. It can be used as a tool to get news updates, to see touching stories from people around the world, and to pass information along that can inform and inspire and reach mass amounts of people. There is good and bad in everything. I think I was just focusing on the bad rather than appreciating and utilizing the good.
We are all here together figuring out our lives one moment, one day, one step at a time. Let’s use this amazing tool of social media to enhance and enrich our lives and to make it better! So unfollow the people who make you feel like crap about yourself and follow and like and share the people who are amazing and who do amazing things and who make you feel amazing about yourself. Let’s let social media be a place where good news lives and positivity thrives and where we are using our voice for good and for justice and for peace in the world. To raise awareness. To come together. To connect with each other.
