Social media became a part of my life in which there were times that I asked myself, “Is this worth that I’m wasting my time here?”. My old self will surely answer that question, “Yes, definitely. Don’t you see it? You almost can’t breathe without it.”

I HATE IT.

I hate it when I was like that… when I was that person who almost waste my day especially my precious weekends scrolling endlessly with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, and Youtube. That’s when I realized that I need to do a little experiment, and if I can do it or if I can be successful about it.

Then… I took a social media break for almost 3 months.

I made it from March 2021 until May 2021. I posted a story before in my IG account in which I told that I will take a social media break. I didn’t say how long, I just said… see you soon.

Well, to be honest aside from that little experiment, one of the reasons I took a social media break was because I was tired of endlessly scrolling, that it was not productive at all. Plus, I took a break because… I want peace and calmness.

Anyway, that’s a little background story of why and how I took my socmed off that time.

So, what are the lessons I learned from my social media break?

1. The earth will continue to spin even when I stopped using social media

I have this fear before I took this experiment: I will miss many pieces of information in which I will not be able to keep track of it anymore.

But, for almost 3 months, I realized that the earth will not stop because I stopped using social media, and I realized that it’s okay to missed some “meme” or other information from it.

If we want, we still have other sources that we can gather or read. After that experiment, I realized that the fear I have before was not that significant anymore. I can continue with my life even without it. (Well, I want to roll to my old self why I was having that fear of missing out before)

2. I don’t need social media to make me happy

I have had this dependency before in social media, especially on Facebook when it comes to being happy. If I’m sad, I will look up some funny videos or memes, and I would laugh so hard because of it. My perception of it before was I’m glad Facebook was there when I’m sad because it made me happy.

But then I realized, I can still laugh so hard and be happy without that, right? I was born in 1993, and I lived and became happy before social media, so why worry now? Why worry before that I will become sad if I took social media off that time? Then I asked myself, why did I have that dependency before?

Happiness does not come only from memes and videos we see every day on social media, to be honest, we can create our happiness without the dependency on it.

3. I’m still a work in progress, and I’m okay with it

Before I always compare myself to other people, and it became worst when Instagram became a part of my life. I built this thinking “Why I was not like that?”, “Why is he/she more successful than me?”, and lastly “Am I enough?”.

And then because of that, I blamed myself for not keeping up based on the standards set by the people on Instagram. So to prevent any breakdowns, I took down the source of it.

After almost 3 months of break, I felt confident (at least), happier, and proud of myself. I still have those moments of doubt, and it’s okay. The best part of it when I have those moment of doubt, I know now and learned how to manage those thinking. And I realized that I have my own right time, and I’m still a work in progress.

So girl, don’t waste your time thinking those questions of doubt to yourself. Just keep going, okay?

I was glad that I successfully made my little experiment, and I’m so happy with the results and lessons I learned from it. I know it took me so long to post this update, but I know this day is the right time.

After that, I am back using my social media accounts but on a weekend and time-restricted basis only. For example on the weekend, I will use it at 4:00 pm (PHT) only or after lunch. On weekdays, social media was off. That’s my rule when it comes to my social media usage. You can use my strategy too, you may use a social media blocker to limit your time and usage of social media.

So that’s it, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post of mine, and I hope you get some lessons from my little experiment.

If you have comments or feedback, don’t hesitate to message me! Thank you!