Today is day 21 or about one-third of the way through my most recent break from social media.
This morning I read my post from the end of the first week and I can say that not much has changed since then. But, as a matter of exercise I’d like to answer the questions again.
How has these last few weeks been? The weirdness has worn off. I do not find myself grabbing for my phone. In fact, it can stay in my pocket the entire time I’m with friends and I don’t even think about it. It is very nice. I no longer feel like a terrible loser.
Have there been any benefits? My productivity is still at a much higher level than when I was checking social sites. The urge to keep up with news is also subsiding. In general, I feel more relaxed and less worried. Also, like I wrote above, I feel less like a phone addict loser when with other people.
Have there been any drawbacks? The “I missed this photo or that photo” feeling has almost completely gone away. I find I no longer care. It isn’t that I do not want to see photos from friends, it is that I no longer feel as if I need to see them. I have, however, sent more messages and photos via iMessage over the last few weeks than I had in the past. It is a nice change of pace to share a photo with someone or a few people rather than “the world”.
My YouTube viewing is still pretty high but has calmed down a lot since The Force Awakens came out.
What do I miss the most? I still miss sharing photos on Instagram. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever stop missing this. I’d be cool if there were an app to share photos to Instagram without needing to see Instagram. There probably is.
What do I miss the least? Now that I do not feel the urge to keep up with RSS feeds or News or Twitter I do not miss all of the hours wasted reading stuff that wasn’t really benefitting me in any real way. My Unmark queue is far lighter than ever. Which is actually a good thing.
In my week one post I mentioned that I was wondering what I’ll do when I have downtime and would like to be distracted. And I still find myself wondering how to fill those periods of time. Say I’m sitting and waiting for something… it used to be that I’d open Twitter or Instagram and waste some time. Over the last 21 days I haven’t been doing that. So I’ve found myself sitting there twiddling my thumbs. What I’d like to try to do over the next few weeks is use that time to read a book so I’ll keep one with me for that.
I’ll check back in in a few weeks.