The Great Social Media Detox of 2018

My iPhone does this new thing where it sends me a message once a week to tell me how much time I spent on the screen in the past week. It even breaks it down for me: how much time do I spend reading, or on social media, or playing games. I’m glad that most of the time seems to be spent reading and not playing, but still. Last week I had a screen time total of 28 hours and 36 minutes.

Holy. Cats.

I saw a picture that said, “Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to connect.” It was the illustration for an article on why taking a break from screens can be a good thing. The article got into different ways to take a break from screens, including a social media detox. Since I do read a lot on my phone’s Kindle app and use the map app quite a bit, it’s unrealistic to go cold turkey no-screens ever. But a social media detox? Now that sounded like a good thing.

I decided I would take a seven-day social media detox: no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram for seven days. Monday I put up a message that said I’d be gone, though I would still check messenger.

Day one. I kept accidentally opening the Facebook app. I had absolutely no accidental openings of Instagram or Twitter, which I guess means I usually open Facebook first. It’s amazing how mindlessly I sit down with my phone and click on Facebook. I closed it immediately every time I opened it, but it’s amazing how many times this happened.

Day two. I opened the app less, but still accidentally opened it. I shouldn’t say accidentally. Let’s say mindlessly. I mindlessly opened it. Once I opened it on purpose because I attended a really important interfaith prayer vigil and I needed – felt like I needed – to post a picture of the crowd who gathered together to stand in solidarity and love with those who lost loved ones in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. As a pastor who also has to post on the church Facebook page, a social media detox poses an interesting question: should I really be ignoring the church page, too? Or should I be at least checking that?

Day three: This were my day where I absolutely did not open the Facebook app. I never missed it, either. I thought I would feel a weird withdrawal from social media, and I really didn’t. That probably says something about how connected being connected actually makes me feel. Or lack thereof.

Day Four: Okay, I went on Facebook today. The weather outside was terrible. The rain was so bad that it flooded our window well and came into our basement. My husband and I both pulled muscles squatting and wringing out towels. I went on Facebook because there was a tornado warning and I wanted to see if anyone posted anything about it. To reach the leak, we broke a big hole in the drywall. Now we can actually see the side of the window where the water is coming in. I took a picture of the hole and my first instinct was to post it on Facebook. But I did not. I messaged it to my mom and sister instead and my best friends, who were the people I really wanted to see the hole in our wall anyway.

Day five: Did you see on Facebook? How many people asked me this today? Many people asked me this today. We take it for granted that people know what’s going on in our lives because of social media. Not being on social media forces us to talk to each other and actually ask each other, “So, what’s going on in your life? What funny pictures have you taken lately?” Disconnect to reconnect.

Day six: I just glanced at my calendar and election day is Tuesday. I think I might extend my detox by one day (that makes up for getting on Facebook last Wednesday, right?). I am so glad that I don’t have to see the political stuff spewing around on social media. I will vote. You won’t need to see a picture of my “I voted” sticker in order to know that I voted. After the election, all the political ads go off the tv and out of my mailbox, right?

Day seven: I will say this: I miss seeing artwork on Instagram. I follow some international artists who post really beautiful pictures of their work, and I do miss seeing what they’re working on. But I don’t miss anything else. I don’t miss Twitter. I would probably be fine never logging into Twitter again. I will because I read news on Twitter that tends to be more rounded than the news app on my phone. I follow people on both sides of the aisle so I see multiple perspectives. While occasionally (read: often) frustrating, it is helpful to see both sides of the issues.

Facebook is trickier. It’s trickier because Facebook is connected to church work, especially since the church has a Facebook account. So I stay on Facebook, but the week off definitely encouraged me to stop opening the app so mindlessly.

It also means less screen time. I connected to people better in person and had some good conversations about social media with people. Lots of us are exhausted by social media. Why don’t more of us do social media detox? I highly recommend it. At least limit how much you’re on. That’s my new goal: Only go on social media once a day. Have social media be the smallest chunk in the screen time graph on my phone.

So what do you think? Is a social media detox something you’d like to try? If you do it, post below and let me know how it goes!

In the picture below, you can see my screen time page. I was surprised how much time “social networking” still took on my screen time since I was social media detoxing. iPhone includes things like text messaging and Pinterest in its calculations, which I do frequent. So I’m okay with the screen time’s report. 

My new goal should actually be making sure the number of hours spent on "games" goes WAY lower. That's sort of embarrassing!