It might sound out of this world, but who do you know that is not on the internet? Take yourself to a time before the internet or if you cannot connect with us older generations, just envision what it would be like.
No smartphone, no tablet, no laptop, no computer, no online gaming, plus many other devices you would not have.
Simplify it even further to just being alone. With nothing but you and yourself. Maybe it would be an opportunity to learn about what you would really do with your time.
What do you learn about yourself when you’re alone?
Before smartphones, the time you spent was truly alone or with those closest around you. Today, in 2022, you are connected to all different kinds of people all over the world at the touch of your smartphone.
Go back to an age where signing up for Facebook required a college email address. That’s when I left Myspace and was signing up for the new social media platform with my Central Michigan University credentials. I was in!
Through FB, I was able to connect with my college classmates and chat virtually outside of the classroom walls. I was also in contact with friends from high school and made new friends along the way through acquaintances. Somehow, the more friends you had–the more connections you acquired.
Fast-forward to 2020 where FB is almost the Meta and a lot of fake news was bogging down my personal newsfeed. It was the beginning of the pandemic, and the mental struggle was happening very early on with quarantines dictating my friendships, work, and overall life.
It was during quarantine number one, I watched a few things on Netflix. I quickly became engulfed in a completely new perspective about social media when I watched The Social Dilemma. It was like a very hot lightbulb exploded in my head and I had to leave social media…I had to cut it out of my diet completely.
I will not go into details about the documentary, only encourage you to watch it. Personally, after I finished watching it, I was looking at all my social media accounts: twitter, facebook, instagram, pinterest, etc. Oh my goodness, there are so many.
I decided to keep only one account, and it wasn’t FB. As a creative personality, I chose Instagram, it’s my jam! So, I deleted everything else.
Now, I was alone. I chose to fill my phone time with online writing classes and the dream to write my first book was coming to fruition. I don’t think I would have started writing my book unless I removed all unnecessary phone scrolling time. For me, that was the majority of FB time.
I found my mental health benefit from staying away from FB, and I was very productive with writing my novel. Now that it’s been a few years, I find myself warning new friends that “I’m not on FB” just so they know. I am okay acknowledging that I’m in the minority because I don’t choose to scroll.
I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to put my feet on the ground again, and keep personal communication with friends and family on a phone call or text basis. There have been times I’ve used FB like a phonebook, so I can get a hold of a connection, but I go back to deleting the app from my phone. I don’t want that scrolling habit to join my day-to-day life, ever again.
Maybe, I’ll write another book.
Disclaimer: you may be reading this because you clicked through FB. I am all about sharing my writing, especially when I have new publications, so my FB page will still show links from my site! Thanks to Meta, it’s easy to share from Instagram and across many social media platforms. Thank you for reading, I appreciate you!
Jenni Laplow 