Necessary Detoxification

I love social media. By the time this past winter break came around, however, I was burnt out.

At the time, I was helping to manage social media accounts for Kayak Pittsburgh, Venture Outdoors, Pitt CHAARG, and Pitt's School of Education, as well as keeping up to date on my various social media accounts. As much as I loved creating a strategy and schedule, crafting copy for different types of content, interacting with the audience, and analyzing data, I was ready for a break. I still had a year and a half left of school-- I didn't want to already be sick of the thing that I want to pursue post-graduation by the time I got there. My internship was ending with Venture Outdoors and I decided, after much soul-searching, to step down from my position as CHAARG's VP Media. With a month of winter break ahead of me, I did what I had been wanting to do for so long.

I disconnected. Slowly.

It wasn't easy.

I first deleted the Facebook app off of my phone, but found myself opening a tab on my web browser whenever I was on my laptop and typing Facebook into the search bar. I stopped myself, but it was evident that visiting Facebook on my computer had become a habit, a ritual. It made it cringe.

I then deleted Instagram. This is my favorite social media site, by far. I have two accounts of my own--one personal, one fitness-oriented--so this was definitely harder. I would find myself taking pictures over break and thinking "I should put this on Instagram... oh wait." It made me realize just how frequently I thought about the ways in which I could translate what I saw in my day-to-day life to an image that would be aesthetically-pleasing in my feed and to my followers. That made me cringe even more.

I decided to keep Snapchat because, at the time, I had used it solely for the picture-sending and chat feature. As time when on and I didn't have Facebook or Instagram to look through, however, I began watching the different stories in the Discover section on Snapchat. It seemed as though I was looking for a distraction of some kind, in any way that I could get it. Something to fill the gaps in my schedule. I wasn't actively engaged in anything that I was looking at, but was actively engaged in the act of scrolling itself.

Push home button -- Unlock phone -- open Facebook -- check notifications -- scroll for a few minutes -- close Facebook -- open Instagram -- check notifications -- scroll for a few minutes -- switch accounts --- check notifications -- scroll for a few minutes -- close Instagram

It was habit, addiction, obsession. My social media use had become an integral part of my life and a significant waste of my time.

After taking a month off, I didn't want to redownload anything. I wanted to stay off of Facebook, off of Instagram, off of everything that I had used as a crutch. I knew that it wasn't realistic, however, since CHAARG does most of their communicating through social media, I was still working with the School of Education, and I was going to be a teaching assistant for a class on social media. I was, however, a lot more mindful about my usage of it.

That is, for the first week or two of the semester.

Now I am back to where I was before, finding myself lost in a trance, on my best friend's cousin's husband's uncle's daughter's Instagram account for her home business, a half hour into my first scroll. Over the next few weeks, I hope to explore the different ways in which I can manage my own hyperconnected tendencies and make my social media use more purposeful.