For my self intervention, I decided to not use any of my social media accounts for a week. This included my Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook social media accounts. Not using my social media accounts made me more aware of how much time I spend using social media per day. Not using social media gave me a lot more time during the day to do what I wanted. On my weekly screen time report on my iPhone, my week screen time usage went down by 22% from last week when I was using social media. This shows how much extra time social media apps take up my phone usage. During the first part of the week, I instantly pulled out my phone when I woke up. With my phone in my hand, I realized how I automatically resort to opening my social media applications to start my day. This gave me a lot more time in the morning because I was not aimlessly scrolling through social media. I also realized that I spent a lot less time procrastinating on my homework without using social media as a distraction. This week, I fell asleep a lot earlier because I usually scroll through social media before I go to bed. I was surprised by how I still was up to date with all of my close friend’s lives without the influence of social media. I put more effort into hanging out with them in person instead of communicating through my screen. I realized that the majority of the people who I look at on my social media accounts are mostly strangers and it felt so much better to spend more time putting effort into relationships I find meaningful in person.
Additionally, I noticed how I spend more time looking at news directly from news organizations like the New York Times, BBC, and NPR instead of getting my news from Facebook. I felt like reading the news from these news organizations was a lot more reliable than getting my news from Facebook so I will try and do this more. This intervention gave me a wake-up call to start using my social media accounts less because it does not give me any more satisfaction. I felt less stressed this week while I was not using social media because I was not subconsciously comparing my life to others I follow. This self intervention made me realize that limiting my social media usage will improve my well being.
