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- I realized I was spending a little too much time on social media apps like Instagram and Facebook.
- So, I decided to step away from the two apps for a week to see if I could handle it.
- Here’s a day-by-day synopsis of what happened when I gave up Instagram and Facebook for a week.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Whenever I am on my phone, you can pretty much bet I’m spending a majority of that time scrolling through social media networks.
Instagram is my drug of choice, so to speak, but I’ve also been known to lose long periods of time to scrolling through my Facebook feed, looking at my high school friends’ new babies and reading news stories.
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That being said, in an effort to gain some more productivity time — and in light of Facebook’s ongoing privacy scandals — I decided to step away from Facebook and Instagram, which Facebook also owns.
Needless to say, it was an eye-opening experiment. Here’s how my week without Facebook and Instagram began.
Day 1: I went to tap my Instagram app first thing in the morning without thinking
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I knew the night before I began this experiment that I was planning to start first thing in the morning, but I still unlocked my phone screen first thing in the morning and went to tap on the Instagram app icon without thinking. It was like I was on autopilot and it took me a second to realize that it was no longer part of my early morning routine.
With Facebook out of the picture as well and no unread messages in my email inbox, I was at a bit of a loss about what to do with the 30 or so minutes I had before I needed to get up and get ready to start my day. I ended up reading Twitter for a while, which I rarely ever do, and spent a few minutes taking my turns on the active Word Chums games I had. It was pretty boring.
Thankfully, I was really slammed with work the rest of the day so I didn’t really miss social media, but that was the calm before the storm.
Day 2: I found other things to do, like walk my dog or go to the gym
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I clicked on the Instagram app icon again first thing in the morning, just like Day One, but I remembered much more quickly that I was avoiding it and canceled it out before my feed even loaded on the screen.
Not interested in trying to find other things to occupy my attention on my phone until it was time to get up, I actually shut my eyes and got a bit more sleep.
After hitting the gym and getting a bunch of work done, I needed a bit of a break. Usually, that would come in the form of scrolling through Instagram or, to a lesser extent, Facebook. Since that wasn’t an option, I took the dog for an extra walk, which I guess was better for both of us.
Day 3: I felt out of the loop
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This is when things really got tough. My partner off-handedly brought up something a celebrity we both follow posted on Instagram and asked me what I thought about it. Of course, she then realized I hadn’t actually seen it since I wasn’t using the app that week and I kind of cheated by looking at the post in question on her phone instead of mine.
I also had her update my health and fitness Instagram account as I didn’t like being inactive for days on end. I told her how to caption it and what hashtags to use and, while it wasn’t as good as posting it myself, especially because I couldn’t see what all the people I follow were posting or what my followers were commenting and liking, I felt slightly less out of the loop.
I started to realize just how addicted I am not just to my phone in general, but to social media in particular, especially Instagram.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Jennifer Still)