why I left social media

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately of who I am and what I want my life to be like. For the longest time I have felt like my mind is just cluttered and I am not living as deliberately as I want to. So a few months ago I made the decision to leave Facebook, and I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I realized Facebook had become a burden in my life for two reasons:

1. I was using it to attain a false sense of validation
2. I was wasting my time and and filling my mind with useless content

I never considered myself to be one of the people who used Facebook to seek validation, but I was just lying to myself. No, I wasn't posting daily selfies or what I ate for breakfast. I actually wasn't posting much at all. But when I was posting, I realized all I was really wanting was for people to think that I was successful or doing exciting things or friends with cool people. And I would scroll through my newsfeed and feel better about myself when I saw that I was doing "better" than the people I went to high school with or currently in college with. Then I would feel worse about myself if I didn't get so many likes on something or somebody was doing something really awesome that made me regret what I was doing with my life. I was keeping up with the lives of people I didn't even really care about (because only about 10% of my friends list were actual friends). Checking Facebook became a habit and I found myself opening it up anytime I got online, or going to the app on my phone to occupy myself when I was bored. It served me no purpose. It began to bring negativity into my life rather than positivity.

And one particularly rough day, I was just fed up with it. I didn't want to log on and see everyone so happy when I wasn't. I didn't want to be reminded of what I didn't have, or have to use it to prove that my life actually is going well. I didn't want Facebook to control how I felt. And sure I could just stay off of it for a little while,  but the cycle would inevitably start again next time I logged on.

So I left. And decided I wasn't coming back. I deactivated my account so it was like I was never there. I deleted the link on my browser. I erased the app from my phone. And it felt so good. It has been 4 months and I have never once regretted leaving.

The night I deleted Facebook, I almost deleted all my other social media too. But the only other social media I was using were Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr (I don't consider my blog social media), and I decided those weren't affecting my life negatively like Facebook was. So I kept them. However, I've recently come to terms with how often I am using them and even if they aren't bringing negativity into my life, I'm still wasting away a huge amount of my time using them each day. And this is causing my mind to feel cluttered once again.

So I decided to try something I never though I could do- I'm not going to use any social media for a week. This includes Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Pinterest, Youtube, and other blogs. Basically, I'm only going to use the internet if I need to for school, or if I want to post on here (because if anything, my blog is a very positive thing in my life). I see this as a much needed cleanse for my mind, and I want to see how I feel at the end of a week without social media. I encourage you all to do the same if you too are feeling exhausted with keeping up with social media. If you have any words of wisdom for me, I'd love to hear.

xoJordan