The Benefits of Not Being on Social Media (Post-One Month)

There is a world outside of social media. From the age of fifteen until the present moment, I realised I was living in a type of world that was not beneficial for me.

This was social media. My first platform was Facebook, and I decided to head onto social media because I thought I would have a higher chance and a one hundred per cent guarantee of making friends and having meaningful deep relationships.

However, this did not seem to be the case for me. Looking back at my time on the social media world and its multiple platforms, it reflected and exacerbated my loneliness and fears more than creating a friendly environment of friendships.

There was always an argument or topic of debate, endless stories that caused outrage but very little change, toxic masculine and feminine groups, racism, and a poor reflection of the world, making the world's perception more dangerous and vicious than what it truly is.

There was a time before where I wanted to quit social media. However, what kept me on social media, was the fear of not making friends, fear of missing out, being alone, and not keeping up to speed with everyone else.

As I grew through my teenagerhood, I felt I was in high competition with many others. I fell into the trap of needing to like, fishing for likes, and craving to liked by everyone. It was one of the main causes that caused me to become a people pleaser and aim to please everyone, even when I was not happy.

Another factor was that I did intend and try to make friends with only wanted to remain friends on the screen. They seemed intimidated or resistant when I wanted to meet them face to face to create a deeper platonic bond. We, as humans, are socially constructed. It is up to us to use social media without it taking over our ability to communicate without it and lose a vital part of our humanity.

I carried on this charade even though I was going through a lot of anxiety and depression. I would say that everything changed for me once the pandemic began. Being at home put me in a position to be alone and truly reflect. Was I truly happy? What could I change? How could I make myself better? Did I love myself?

Through self-development and evolution, I discovered that the way to evolve is to remove as many programmed layers as possible from your mind and way of living instead of adding more layers.

The way I began this was first reading books, such as Neville Goddard Dr Joseph Murphy. They taught me that instead of going after something, I needed to realise I was already the thing I was looking for, and once I truly realised it, I moved on with my life from the person who already has everything they were seeking or needing.

I recommend these books on both authors to get started to change your mind and psychology:

The Power of the Subconscious Mind

Neville Goddard the Reader

Another factor that changed my life was the Backwards Law or The Law of Least Effort. These twos laws teach that when you do not need something (and you are not desperate for it), it will come into your world and flow with everything else in your life because you don't have the mindset that you lack that thing, which you think you need to seek and find in your life to be happy.

It goes along with the teaching that you have and creates into your world what you are, and what we have in our lives now constantly and in easy reach, is never needed or wanted desperately.

Thus, I made a huge change and decision. After a lot of reflection, work and shedding old negative programming from my mind. I accepted myself for who I truly was.

I stopped trying to make friends using social media. As I stopped thinking and believing that I need to be on social media and check every moment, the impulse to go on social media went away.

I was not passionate about being on social media, and each day I lost interest in it. After releasing I did not need it to make friends. Even in this present moment, when I think of social media to use as a social friend-making platform, I am completely disgusted.

I quit completely from it, removed every account, and uninstalled all the apps from my phone. It has been a month since then, and a lot has changed.

The removal of the constant bombardment of negative news, debates, and toxic fighting; did not inflate my anxiety or depression anymore.

I am more calm, peaceful, and happy. I also took responsibility that I choose how I feel, act, and behave every moment, and that has also helped me not be affected by the contents of social media.

I just decided to move on with myself, fully loving myself, my family, and what was in my life already. Making this conscious choice, and acting from that choice, caused a reflection of new people, a new social group, and now have a healthy fun social life. When I dropped it (and did not need friends as the main focus to my happiness anymore), it finally reflected me, flowed into myself unexpectedly; and became part of my present lifestyle.

Another benefit was now I do not feel the need to people-please or appease people. I am very confident and fully express myself as I am. If someone does not like it, I am very different to their reactions, and they do not phase me anymore. I still have people trying to pull me back onto social media, and some have rejected me because I do not use social media.

However, after finding my confidence, self-love and applying the backwards law to my life, I am no longer affected by people's responses and judgements.

Practising the art of indifference can be a very crucial skill to have when learning to love yourself, be confident, and live on your own terms only.

I never agreed with the statement that 'Life is Short'. Life is not short. One of the illusions to why people think life is so short is because social media can take up a lot of your productive time and take you away from experiencing the real world.

Many people pour their life and energy into these platforms, as if they are sacrificing their genuine human self and their humanity for a virtual avatar version of themselves, which would never be the original, and will not solve the void most people have.

If it is not handled well, social media can become a drug, cause addiction, and thus require a lot of self-awareness and the power of change to resolve.

Once I left social media completely, I had a huge span of free time to myself. I was at the beginning lost and not sure how to fill it up. I kept getting impulses and habit behaviours to go back onto social media, check for a video on YouTube, a story on Instagram, a picture on Pinterest, or a post on Twitter.

I, however, was able to see these impulse patterns and not follow them, decided that living my life most of my time off the screen was more important than constant information (whether the information is true or false) from social media.

As I continued to not go back on social media, I could fill my time with more impactful and productive activities.

Examples included blog writing, reading books and magazines, making art, selling my art, listening to audios books and podcasts, focusing on building my business, and attending more in-person events and meeting up as well. My focus is now on enriching myself and my experiences outside in the modern world.

Should you quit social media permanently? Only if you know it causes you to be addicted or cover over a deeper issue you have decided not to face but use social media as a distraction not to solve.

It is better to realise an addiction and solve it than lie to yourself and remain in that addiction, which not harms you in the long run, but also others around you.

Social media is great for business when it comes to marketing, expansion, reaching target audiences, advertising, promoting your product, and increasing your business and brand. It is great for finding ways to access opportunities and build passive income for you and your loved ones.

If this is not the case and it's used as the only feeder for you to know about the world and how you think the world you live in functions, in my opinion, it is time to come off and see what the world is truly like for yourself, in person, without a screen and a bunch of false narratives.

Take your power back, for your real power is your focus and your time.

Have a great day!

Alana Monet-Telfer