How leaving social media changed me and my life.

Anyone who was connected with me on Facebook would have never thought I would get off Facebook. I didn’t only delete my account on Facebook, I deleted all my social media accounts. I was very active on social media, specially Facebook. I would be live doing workouts, or hanging out in a park or playing with my son. My life was pretty public since I posted about every good, bad and ugly detail of my life on Facebook. I was on Facebook while I was eating, while I was watching TV, while working, while not doing anything. I could not stay few minutes without looking at what was going on facebook. I got all my news from facebook or twitter, I followed friends on Instagram. My brain was so occupied by all the details that I didn’t really need to know about.

In last few years, social media became extremely toxic with extreme political polarization. Most of my closest friends are in my words “Lefties”. I consider myself a classical liberal. I was getting too attached to what people posted on social media. I took personal responsibility to respond to something I didn’t agree with and to post my views about everything — specially politics and religion. It had become an addiction to post on social media and then see people react and respond to my posts.

One day I watched a stand-up comedy and the way comedian described people on facebook, I felt he was describing me and I felt humiliated and embarrassed. He was telling the truth, he was speaking to me without speaking to me. Yes, I was one of those crazy people who thought they could change other people by posting on social media. I was also trying to preach other people how they sound when they post their comments or make a post and how unprofessional and impolite people were on social media. What I didn’t realize was — people were out there behaving that way because it was easy to be impolite, disrespectful and mean on social media. People were out there taking their frustration and anger out on others. I saw myself being affected by it. I was disgusted to see so many people I personally know or I am friends with behave in a way I never thought they would. It showed me a completely different side of these friends which I never saw in person and I was trying to change them.

So how did getting off social media changed me and my life.

1. I feel more relaxed and calm.
2. I sleep longer — don’t spend extra time in bed going through facebook anymore.
3. I don’t see the details that I don’t really need to know so I have more space for useful information.
4. I can focus on my work a lot better.
5. I spend more time paying attention to my son.
6. I spend more time in the gym.
7. I am not connected to people that didn’t add any value to my life.
8. I am happier as I don’t see the toxicity and negativity going over on social media.
9. I am in control of how I spend my time.

If you are thinking of getting off social media and struggling, I would say give it a serious try by deleting your account not just disabling or deactivating it. Once its gone, there is no way you can log back in, unless you create a new account. That’s what I did and it was super easy then to not think about what was happening on these platforms.