This Lenten season, I took a break
from social media. That’s 45 days in a row without scrolling through news feeds
and observing the life events and photography skills of friends, acquaintances,
and—let’s be honest—several people I haven’t spoken to in years. More so
lately, I had found myself mindlessly perusing these pages during moments of
waiting, moments when my attention span felt especially short, moments when I
felt the need to seem occupied, and moments when I wanted to avoid contact with
other humans (as an introvert, I experience those quite frequently). I wanted
to challenge myself in a small way to embrace those moments and engage with
them differently. To pay more attention to the world and the people around me.
So I put it all away—all the photos and posting and newsfeeds and likes—and made
a decision to be more present in my reality.
A few days
in, I realized that I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would. I didn’t
have any “cravings” for the updates and notifications. I was enjoying the
break. As the weeks went by, I got to hear from friends about their lives in person….the big things and the little
things. I stayed up to date on world, national, and local news
through actual news outlets. I wished friends and family happy birthday with a
hug or call or card in the mail. I started to realize that, despite what I’d
come to believe, social media wasn’t a necessary aspect of my life. I could
remain connected to others and the world without it.
I had also
decided that in those moments when I had been drawn to scrolling through social
media, I’d instead commit to reading some of the many books that have been sitting on
my shelf, just begging for their spines to be bent. Now, I didn’t make it through
my whole pile….in fact, I only finished one book completely….but it was the
first book that I read from cover to cover in a very long time. My (very
frustrating) habit is to start a book, discover another interesting one,
unintentionally ditch the first partway through, and repeat. With every. single. book. But I finished this
one, and I am so, so glad I did, because it was amazing. (Check it out--The New Friars,
written by Scott Bessenecker.)
Don’t get
me wrong—I wasn’t always great at paying attention to my surroundings and
other people, or always grabbing a book instead of looking at a screen. Many
times I fell into the dreaded Netflix trap, or lost myself in pointless blog
articles, when I had a perfect opportunity to soak in all of the real life that
was happening around me.
But in my best moments, I found creative ways to engage with the world. I chatted more with strangers at the bus stop (a favorite pastime), I deepened relationships with my coworkers, was more attentive to the beauty of spring emerging, and wrote more letters to far-away friends. I will not be swearing off
all social media, but I have started asking myself, "why am I choosing this over something else in this moment?" And though it’s not always a wrong choice, asking the
question allows me to better evaluate how I am living into the things that are
important to me.
