Things I've savored without the presence of social media

Yesterday was the last day of my month-long social media fast. I downloaded the apps again on my phone and spent some time looking through the list of notifications. Honestly, it made me feel like I was having the beginning of an anxiety attack. I got sweaty, my breath shortened, and I felt a sense of panic. Facebook now notifies me when a "close friend" posts something?!? WTF is that?! I mean, I like to know what my friends are up to, but I want to do that on my own terms and in my own time. I don't need a little notification nagging at me to do it. I spent sometime updating my notification settings and removing myself from groups in hopes that I could limit the anxiety I feel at social media. If I didn't have to rely on it so much as a freelancer, I'd totally ditch it. The month away was, for the most part, refreshing. I wasn't as productive in my writing as I thought I would be, but I had more time to read and think and to just notice things like:

Social media fast: Update #2

Five years ago, a colleague explained that a week earlier she and her family were hiking in the Rocky Mountains;when they reached the top of the mountain, the first thing she did wasn't to take in the beauty of God's creation. Instead, she admitted to pulling out her phone and writing a Facebook status about the hike while her husband and daughters gazed at the scenery from the top of the trail without her. This was a defining moment for my colleague, and since then, she hasn't had a social media presence. It's a conversation that has stuck with me for five years.

With Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, I've documented many moments through pictures and brief bits of narrative, but I can't help but wonder how much I've actually missed in an attempt to document each moment. How many sunsets have I viewed through the lens of a crappy camera phone? How much time have I lost with my kids because I've been busy posting about them on Facebook? Social media has encouraged us to document lots but miss out on even more.

Social media fast: Update #1

It has been 11 days....11 treacherous days without social media. Here's what I'm learning:

FOMO is more than a stupid acronym. It's REAL. SO REAL!!!! I texted a friend on day two and told her that I felt so out of touch with reality. She replied, "See the interesting thing is that you are more in the real world now..." I wanted to tell my friend to go to hell for being so wise. I wanted to tell her that the real world sucks...it's boring. I want the virtual world full of funny memes and entertaining stories. Honestly, I'm struggling to get my brain accustomed to more "silence." When I kicked myself off Facebook and Twitter, I shoved aside a constantly updated news feed of what my friends were up to, headlines from NPR and The Atlantic, articles from the many parenting blogs I follow, and lots of other worthless crap. On day five my husband asked me if I heard about Trump's latest crazy comment, and I realized that I hadn't read a single piece of news in five days. Because I'm also on my summer vacation, I'm not getting my two hour a day NPR fix during my commute to work. I had no idea what was going on in politics, world news, or state news. Apparently the Olympics has started.....I was a few days late to that party.