Social Media Addiction

A week ago at church, we had a speaker who talked about addictions of all shapes and forms. What I got out of it was this:

My name is Katie Derrick and I’m addicted to Facebook and Instagram.

Here’s the thing. I really enjoy social media and I don’t think it’s bad. It’s a great way to check on friends and family who live far away, and share with others about what we’re doing. I’m grateful that it makes it easy for the grandparents to see Eva since we live thousands of miles away from them. I enjoy taking photos of our daily life because it helps me remember the details and gives me a reason to blog. I have all of our married life documented in this blog, pictures and all. And I LOVE looking back and reading old posts. It’s my journal. But just because I like social media doest mean I need to do it ALL THE TIME, especially in front of Evabug.

The amount of time I spend checking those programs adds up. I’m never on it for a long time in a row, I just check it throughout the day whenever I have a minute to spare, which turns out, I get a minute to spare often.

So, I decided to do something about it. I didn’t want to cut it out completely. Nor did I feel like making limitations on other applications, just on Facebook and Instagram because those are the two I look at all the time. But I knew I had to make some sort of concrete goal. Not just, “Stop looking at it so much during the day.” I came up with this:

• From Monday through Friday, only check it once in the morning before Eva is awake and once at night after Eva is asleep. I really liked the idea of Eva not seeing me spend so much time on my phone.
• Go five days without posting a photo on Instagram.

At first, it was really difficult. I kept catching myself scrolling on my phone, mindlessly. I hadn’t even realized I had opened up the app on my phone. It was actually nuts at how often I caught myself doing it on Monday. It happened so much that I decided to delete the apps all together on Monday afternoon. I’m glad I did because it made the rest of the five days much easier. At night, when I’d check the websites on the computer, I would just tell myself… it’s okay to not look at EVERYTHING. Life will go on. IT DOES NOT MATTER. TURN IT OFF (I told you I’m addicted, but I’m pretty sure a LOT of people are so I don’t feel too embarrassed).

Yesterday and today, I decided to give myself a break and just go back to normal habits. I posted a bunch of photos, did a lot of scrolling, but I was much more mindful of it all and didn’t ever pull up an app without thinking about it. So, I’d say that’s a bit of success. But I’m going back to the limits tomorrow, plus taking the morning viewing out.

It’s all about baby steps, y’all.