Why I Withdrew
Do you ever feel like withdrawing sometimes, just being in your shell. Alone with your thoughts, reflecting, like you just want the world to take a pause for a while.
This is something I do from time to time but the one that made the most significant impact happened 3 months ago. I was feeling a bit let down, antsy and drained. And as fun as the social media space is, it became a big source of noise for me. I found my WhatsApp especially very distracting and this not in a good way.
I discovered I was too invested in that app. Viewing every status and every story, with zero control on the kind of content I was consuming. Dishing out content every day like there is a race or a competition on whose life is more interesting. *Sigh*
It got to the point where I asked myself –
What’s the end point of all these posting? Like do I have to share everything so other people can know my life is so good. Am I sharing things for the right reasons? Right reasons being to motivate someone out there, to help my career, to entertain, for educational purposes or for comic relief.
And the wrong reasons being to compete, to seek validation or for attention. I asked myself again –
Will something happen to me if I don’t check every single person’s WhatsApp story. And if I stopped posting, can I handle being forgotten. Because the truth is people have so much they are thinking of and can be a little bit too preoccupied with their own life to notice if you’re there or not. So it’s easy to be forgotten.
In the social media space especially, you are only as good as your last post. And once you’re not there, the world simply moves on.
So why live for others? What’s with the race, the constant comparisons. The hunger for fickle social media likes and engagements. What’s the essence of it all.
Valid questions if you ask me. So I decided to do some soul searching, take some time away from all that noise and focus on myself for a change. Pacing myself, restructuring my mind, doing things my own way and not because of some mindless competition.
What I Learnt
It’s been 3 months now since I went on this Social media fast as I like to call it. And I can honestly tell you that it’s one of the best life decisions I ever made. What amazes me most is the bliss I’ve found in not knowing the “happenings” of other people’s lives, except my core friends of course. And now that I am back up, I find myself more productive and more conscious about how I spend my time.
If you’ve ever viewed any post online or scrolled through your feed and you came out feeling worse off than how you started. Chastising yourself, comparing yourself to others, then I think it’s time you took some time off social media and focus on your own growth.
I’m not going to tell you it won’t be difficult at first. Because it is actually not a very easy thing to do. But the thing is, it pays off at the end. Your mind comes back feeling refreshed and light, like a big weight has been taken off your chest.
You can then start using social media for what it was made for. Existing for you and not you existing for it.
Have you ever struggled with social media addiction? If you have, can you share some of the ways you were able to get over it ?
Please type in the comments section, I would love to hear from you.
