Off the Grid

Happy New Year! What has everyone been up to?

No, really. WHAT has everyone been doing the past 30 days? I’m so out of the loop! Did anyone get engaged? Were babies born? Who broke up and why? TELL ME EVERYTHING!

If you are one of the dozen people who follow this blog, you’ll know that I started my #oneless thing challenge in January. If you are new, allow me to explain: In addition to some lofty 2019 goals, I decided to examine all of the things in my life that have had negative impacts on my happiness in some way or another. Each month this year, I’ll abstain from one of those things and then tell you all about it. Let’s break it down:

Challenge: Social Media Black Out

Rules: No access to Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat. I’m not on Twitter so nothing to cut out there. I AM in the staffing industry though, so I kept LinkedIn, which is basically Facebook of the Professional world.

Why I cut it out:  Where to start… I’ve been weaning myself off Facebook for a while. You know that notification you get every day that reminds you what you did on this day a few years ago? Every day, I would open that page up, scroll through my memories, and manually delete every single one. No flashback was safe. The time we closed on our first home? Deleted. Pictures from girls night? Gone. Video of our son’s first steps? Buh-Bye! Obviously, I have the good memories backed up elsewhere because contrary to popular belief, I am NOT the worst parent in the world, but there were just so many pointless posts on my newsfeed. No one cares that 7 years ago, I was eating Jimmy John’s for the 3rd time that week (#gradschool life). I don’t need to be associated with emo lyrics from Bright Eyes anymore. Who cares about my thoughts on the 30 Rock finale (it was Golden, BTW). Finally, I knew if I really needed to cut myself off of the platform, I had to take a scorched earth approach and burn it all to the ground so I would have nothing to come back to.

The real problem is Instagram. What a time-suck that app has become. It’s like the Angry Birds of social media apps. Angry Bird’s lead developer said the success of the game was attributed how easy it was for people to use and that you could play for as little as a few minutes in between other activities on your phone. Instagram definitely took that approach because checking my newsfeed has definitely become a mental pallet cleanser that I couldn’t live without. Any lull in activities or break between meetings gave me permission to open it up and scroll on down. It seemed harmless enough until I realized that I was pulling it up when I should have been more present, like having dinner with friends or playing with my kids. Finally, I really made the connection that I was using it to distract myself in moments of anxiousness or sadness. If I started feeling too overwhelmed or stressed, I would pick up my phone and pull up IG. If I just got into a fight, I’d start scrolling away. If I felt lonely, I would post a story. Though doing this seems innocuous, it really prevented me from dealing with my emotions and sometimes you have to just sit back and feel your feelings. So, I made the decision to cut it out for a month and see how I felt.

The Results: Do you know what the most boring and uneventful day of the year is? January 1st. Nothing is open. It’s usually cold and gross outside. Everyone is either tired or hungover. When you have kids and nothing is open and it’s cold and gross outside, January 1st is the absolute longest day of the year. Everyone is either tired or hungover except for your kids, who are wide awake at 5am and full of energy. Once I was able to get them off and playing on their own, there is NOTHING I wanted to do more than scroll through the internets. January 1st was MADE for binge-watching TV and distracting yourself with your Smartphone and I had so foolishly chosen this day as my first day of blocking social media.

I got myself through with the reminder that all I was missing were pics of people way too dressed up for a house party and boomerangs of champagne toasts. I knew I could power through.

In the first week, I still found myself compulsively checking my phone. For what? I don’t know. It was such an ingrained habit to check Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat that it was like phantom limb syndrome to be without it. In fact, in the 1st week, my screen time didn’t change at all. Frustratingly enough, the most amount of time spent on my phone was STILL social media, as Apple counts Photos and Messages as social media. (Which, real quick, can we just talk about how passive aggressive the new Screen Time feature is on the iPhone? Like, dude, you CREATED this problem. Don’t try to tell me to scale back now. It’s like the barista at Starbucks slipping me a brochure on the harmful effects of caffeine. You really want to go there, Stephanie??)

As the month went on, I was starting to feel a bit lonely and out of the loop. Though I go to a vibrant office every day, I’d come home feeling like I didn’t talk to anyone. “I wonder what my friends are doing,” I’d think. “I sure do miss them. Can’t wait to get back online”. Here’s what is so funny about that though: some of my absolute closest friends are NEVER on social media. If I post a picture of my kids or something personal, I usually have to text them separately because I know they’ll never see it online. They didn’t even KNOW I was doing this #oneless challenge because they are completely unengaged with my socials. We communicate with each other intentionally, not by sending posts or tagging memes. We call each other. We text each other. When we lived in the same zip code, we SAW each other regularly. I’ve never needed any platform to stay connected with them. So why did I feel so disconnected now?

Instead, those poor souls who I call my best friends have just been INNODATED with texts and picture messages from me. “LOOK AT MY DOG” I’d send or “HOW CUTE IS MY CHILD!” Then I started reaching out to other people I hadn’t talked to in a while; people I would normally stay connected to by just liking a post. I also genuinely asked people how their weekend was and was surprised by the response, as opposed to before when I would say “What did you do this weekend?” when I knew full well that I already saw it online. I feel like I was a better listener and was less distracted in conversation.

Nothing, though, compared to the impact it made on me as a parent. At the end of a long day and a long commute, my nights with my kids fly by. They get out of that car and come in the house HOT, ready for snacks, shows, games, books, potty breaks… you name it. All of this while I am cleaning the kitchen, making dinner, prepping for lunches, and all other adult things at the same time. When I finally did get to sit and relax with them, I’ll shamefully admit, I spent most of that time on my phone.
“Mooommmmmmy! You’re not watching!” I’d hear them say, and I’d put my phone down momentarily but then right back up a few minutes later. So much time wasted. But this last month, I really tried to be in the moment with them. We played games, worked on puzzles, made forts, and told jokes. (They are hilarious, by the way. My oldest just started telling Knock-Knock jokes that make zero sense but he thinks just absolute zingers. Clearly my child). During all this, there was definitely the urge to get my phone and record it to share with friends and any other creep that follows me, but then I’d remind myself to just savor this moment, this one fleeting moment, and it would always be with me. My youngest started mangos “flamangos” and I’ll remember it forever. No video can ever do justice to how cute it is.

The Take-Away: Will I keep off social media? Um, no. I’m already back on Instagram and posted a story that included a SuperZoom so I pretty much never left. I’ll probably start un-following the meaningless accounts that end up on my feed and take more time to reach out to people that I care about. I will also pledge to keep my phone upstairs when I play with my kids in the basement, though they love making “funny faces” on Snapchat. Finally, when I’m starting to feel anxious and overwhelmed and confronted with really uncomfortable emotions, I’m not going to reach for my phone to distract myself from these feelings. I’m going to stay in the uncomfortable for a moment, take deep breaths, and wait for the moment to pass, as it always does.

But for now, I gotta get this blog out so feel free to like and share the shit out of it!

Next Up: Sober February! CHEERS!