3 Months Without Social Media
English
Română
For some time now I was planning to use my phone less, or at least more consciously. Since the beginning of the year, Philippe and I have decided to use the function that limits your time spent on some apps, so we have limited our time on Facebook and Instagram to 15 minutes a day (Philippe also added a YouTube limit). Somehow this didn't work out too much because after a few days, my phone forgot to send me the notification, and if Philippe wanted to see a longer video on YouTube, he would just press the “ignore limit for today”, so our limitation haven’t had the expected effect for neither of us.
In mid-January we decided to do an experiment and uninstall our Facebook and Instagram apps. I wanted to take it further and completely delete my Facebook account, but I gave up this idea when I realised that Messenger is important to me so I can talk to people and it is connected with my Facebook account. Plus, there is a lot of information gathered there from many years, and groups that I belong to, and I felt sad thinking that I would not have access to them anymore. The idea I started from was that I didn't felt good about using my phone around Albert, even though I was using it when he was asleep, and I wanted to do other things with my spare time than look at other people's lives constantly. I wanted for the information not to come to me, but to look for it when I felt the need. It seemed to me that my brain was constantly stuck with things that didn't even interest me, even though I was cleaning the content from both accounts several times, irrelevant information continued to appear.
Here are some things that changed as a result of the experiment:
• I am much more aware of what I do with the phone and I am the one searching for information, not vice-versa.
• During this time Albert became much more active (he switched to 2 sleep intervals per day), so I am always spending active time with him, as he is already crawling around the house and climbing all over the place.
• I talk a lot more with people close to me. I use the phone for this, because of the distance and time, but we talk directly through video calls so we have the opportunity to see and hear each other in the closest way to reality. And here I add that I have more energy to send updates with what Albert is doing.
• We made a massive house decluttering. For almost 3 weeks, every day we looked at each corner and each little box and went into all the things we possessed, trying to understand what we really need and what we can give up. Some kind of Marie Kondo, but we used as a guide tool "The Minimalist House” book written by Joshua Becker.
• I have read 5 books, which is a huge accomplishment for me considering the motherhood. I usually read while Albert is asleep. When we go out for a walk I take the book out with me and read on the street, and in the house I read while I’m fulfilling my role as a human pillow.
• Now, in the pandemic context, I feel that I got rid of a great source of panic and anxiety that I would have developed by scrolling on Facebook and Instagram. I keep myself updated by checking daily a few websites to see the figures, and talking to family and friends, but I try to limit it there.
Do I feel like I'm missing something?
Well, I must admit that at first I felt very strange, especially because I heard all my thoughts too loud and I didn't have anything to distract me. I used Pinterest as a compromise, but I felt much better finding a lot of inspiration sources, and I didn't feel like I was wasting my time, and I didn't want to spend too much time on it. I was saving the pins I was interested in, and I knew I would find them there when I needed some inspiration. Now, Pinterest is also occasionally used just when needed, not to distract my attention, but purely as an inspiration for our home projects.
However, I am missing a few people who I followed almost daily and I would have liked to be able to have access to the information they posted. Most of them have their own blogs, but I haven't been able to find the subscribe function on their websites, so I can't receive their latest articles directly via email.
Of course, I can always access both channels from the phone browser, or from the laptop, and I did it about 2 or 3 times when I needed to look for certain information (baby related) within the Facebook groups. It's just that this time I was the one searching for the information, not the other way around, and after I found it, I closed the page and continued with my own life.
This experiment made me realised that I no longer want to post the articles that I write on the blog on this two social media channels (at least for now), so I gladly invite those who are interested in my posts to subscribe to our website on the box below, or send me the email address within a direct message. I would like to write every two weeks, but I don’t guarantee that I will stick with it. It's a challenge for me too, in the whole pandemic context, so don’t be afraid that I'll fill your inboxes. Keep in the good mood and stay healthy! 🤗
For some time now I was planning to use my phone less, or at least more consciously. Since the beginning of the year, Philippe and I have decided to use the function that limits your time spent on some apps, so we have limited our time on Facebook and Instagram to 15 minutes a day (Philippe also added a YouTube limit). Somehow this didn't work out too much because after a few days, my phone forgot to send me the notification, and if Philippe wanted to see a longer video on YouTube, he would just press the “ignore limit for today”, so our limitation haven’t had the expected effect for neither of us.
In mid-January we decided to do an experiment and uninstall our Facebook and Instagram apps. I wanted to take it further and completely delete my Facebook account, but I gave up this idea when I realised that Messenger is important to me so I can talk to people and it is connected with my Facebook account. Plus, there is a lot of information gathered there from many years, and groups that I belong to, and I felt sad thinking that I would not have access to them anymore. The idea I started from was that I didn't felt good about using my phone around Albert, even though I was using it when he was asleep, and I wanted to do other things with my spare time than look at other people's lives constantly. I wanted for the information not to come to me, but to look for it when I felt the need. It seemed to me that my brain was constantly stuck with things that didn't even interest me, even though I was cleaning the content from both accounts several times, irrelevant information continued to appear.
Here are some things that changed as a result of the experiment:
• I am much more aware of what I do with the phone and I am the one searching for information, not vice-versa.
• During this time Albert became much more active (he switched to 2 sleep intervals per day), so I am always spending active time with him, as he is already crawling around the house and climbing all over the place.
• I talk a lot more with people close to me. I use the phone for this, because of the distance and time, but we talk directly through video calls so we have the opportunity to see and hear each other in the closest way to reality. And here I add that I have more energy to send updates with what Albert is doing.
• We made a massive house decluttering. For almost 3 weeks, every day we looked at each corner and each little box and went into all the things we possessed, trying to understand what we really need and what we can give up. Some kind of Marie Kondo, but we used as a guide tool "The Minimalist House” book written by Joshua Becker.
• I have read 5 books, which is a huge accomplishment for me considering the motherhood. I usually read while Albert is asleep. When we go out for a walk I take the book out with me and read on the street, and in the house I read while I’m fulfilling my role as a human pillow.
• Now, in the pandemic context, I feel that I got rid of a great source of panic and anxiety that I would have developed by scrolling on Facebook and Instagram. I keep myself updated by checking daily a few websites to see the figures, and talking to family and friends, but I try to limit it there.
Do I feel like I'm missing something?
Well, I must admit that at first I felt very strange, especially because I heard all my thoughts too loud and I didn't have anything to distract me. I used Pinterest as a compromise, but I felt much better finding a lot of inspiration sources, and I didn't feel like I was wasting my time, and I didn't want to spend too much time on it. I was saving the pins I was interested in, and I knew I would find them there when I needed some inspiration. Now, Pinterest is also occasionally used just when needed, not to distract my attention, but purely as an inspiration for our home projects.
However, I am missing a few people who I followed almost daily and I would have liked to be able to have access to the information they posted. Most of them have their own blogs, but I haven't been able to find the subscribe function on their websites, so I can't receive their latest articles directly via email.
Of course, I can always access both channels from the phone browser, or from the laptop, and I did it about 2 or 3 times when I needed to look for certain information (baby related) within the Facebook groups. It's just that this time I was the one searching for the information, not the other way around, and after I found it, I closed the page and continued with my own life.
This experiment made me realised that I no longer want to post the articles that I write on the blog on this two social media channels (at least for now), so I gladly invite those who are interested in my posts to subscribe to our website on the box below, or send me the email address within a direct message. I would like to write every two weeks, but I don’t guarantee that I will stick with it. It's a challenge for me too, in the whole pandemic context, so don’t be afraid that I'll fill your inboxes. Keep in the good mood and stay healthy! 🤗
