135 - An Update on My Social Media Break
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Taking a long-ish break from social media has been on my heart for quite some time, and having Benji, our fourth child, just seemed like the perfect time to do it. So when he was born at the end of July, I decided to go off social media completely for six months.
I'm currently four months in and yes, Benji is already four months old, which I cannot wrap my mind around, but this episode is all about what I've learned in the last four months from my social media sabbatical so far, I can't wait for you to hear it.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.
Real talk because I have a baby sleeping downstairs and I have not recorded a fresh podcast episode in a few month—feeling a little rusty. I am just jumping right into the content today with the good stuff in hopes that I'm going to be concise and helpful, and that I'll stay on track. And most of all that my sweet sleeping baby won't start crying before it's time to finish. So let's jump in!
I am going to be sharing 15 things that I have learned since taking a social media break. Now I'm going to go quick. So don't think this is going to be a super long detailed podcast, but I do want to hit a lot of different angles of my experience in taking a break from social media.
So the first thing, and probably the biggest thing is that my brain has been freed up to focus on life, to focus on my family, to focus on my home, just to simply focus. I was talking with a friend and we had done this mountain getaway. We were in the mountains and I was talking about my social media break and my break from work and he said, you know, it was explained to me like this. And he put into words exactly how I felt. He said, “It's like a computer and there's this program running in the background and it's taking up a lot of space and you can't figure out why your computer is slowing down or why it's not functioning at full capacity because you don't know that it's running and taking up so much space in the background of your life. But it is in all other processes and the whole machine isn't working like it should. And when you take social media and you analyze that constantly running in the background of your life, it really does kind of slow down everything in your life. It slowdowns your brain, your capacity to operate and think through things.” And, and for me, I'm not saying this is how it is for everyone, but for me, that analogy was perfect. And I didn't know that I needed to be freed up until I removed social media from my life for a long time. So that's number one. My brain feels freed up to fully function and focus on what it needs to focus on.
Number two, my sleep has improved so much. I really struggled with insomnia after having every child, especially the first month after having a baby, my hormones are all over the place. And you know, people are like “sleep when the baby sleeps.” I'm like, I, I can't, I can't sleep. And this time it's the only time I've had a baby and I've removed social media in those newborn days, my sleep came back so much faster. And you know, I read the book, Sleep Smarter this year, and it really talks about the power of blue light and screens and how it affects your sleep. All I can say is I am a case study for this and my sleep has improved so much. I fall asleep faster. My mind is calmer and yeah, my sleep has just improved. It's the best way to say it.
Number three is that I'm spending less money. I just am because I'm not seeing all the cool things that people are buying. So I don't know, I don't know the cool new knives I have to have for my kitchen or the new rug that is on sale or the new pillows or the new, whatever, fill in the blank. You know, things that you see on Instagram all the time, all the time, you know, you're not aware of how much you see on Instagram until you take it out of your life. And I just realized I have not been spending money nearly as much because I'm not seeing things that I need to be spending money on. Quote, unquote, need to be spending money on. So I'm spending less money, which is a huge benefit. Side note—I'm also way more content because I'm not seeing all these things that I think I should have.
Number four, I'm happier with my home, my wardrobe, my parenting decisions. I'm happier with all of those things, because I just don't even know what other people are doing to their houses. I don't know how they're decorating for Christmas. I don't know what they're wearing. I don't know what the latest trend is. I might be outdated. I might not be very 2021 right now, but I don't care. It's beautiful. I love it. And guess what? I'm so much more confident in how I'm parenting my children because I'm not getting parenting advice on social media. I'm not, I'm just doing what's good for our family. I'm reading books. I'm talking with my husband and it just feels really good.
Number five, I'm not as stressed out or anxious. This is a big one. This is a BIG one. I talked to my friend who has been off social media for almost a year now, and she says her anxiety is down so much. There's just a correlation for me. When I'm on social media, a lot, my anxiety goes up like there's also this background feeling of like, I have to post this. I have to share this with the world. I can't just enjoy this pretty thing or this pretty moment for myself. This is too beautiful not to share. And now that that's gone, like I know I'm not sharing anything with anybody. I don't feel anxious about like, oh, I should be doing this thing.
…which moves me right into point number six: I enjoy moments and gifts and my children and fill in the blank of about anything in life. An outfit that I'm wearing: I just enjoy it for me, just me, which I know a lot of the world lives like this, but when you've been in social media and posting to it a lot, it is so refreshing to just wake up and say, this day, everything in this day is meant for me in my enjoyment and for me to experience with the Lord and with my family. And that's it, it's beautiful. I just feel like I'm enjoying life so much more.
Number seven, I'm not depressed or heavy about all that's going on in the world because I don't see it. And instead, my focus is on caring for myself and my four beautiful children and my husband and my home and my friendships. And I tell you what, it's really funny how many friends, even friends I haven't talked to in a long time, randomly texting me saying, “Hey, this is a great time for you to be off social media. It is heavy. It is hard. There are a lot of opinions. It’s feeling dark and you've chosen a great time to get off social media.”
Can I be honest? I don't think it's going to get better. I just don't. I don't think it's going to get better. I think social media is turned into something really big, and I don't believe that we were meant to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, by having access to it all the time like this, it's just, it's heavy. And I have felt when I've been in social media and hard things have happened in this world, I have felt depressed and heavy about it. And that has been lifted because it's just not in front of my eyes anymore.
Number eight, I have become really grounded in what I believe now. I have had a pretty solid foundation in my faith, and that has grown stronger, no doubt, but I've even become more grounded and more sure about what I believe about culture, about marriage, about family, life, about work, about politics, about all of those things and why I believe them. I know where I stand on those things. Not, not perfectly, not a hundred percent. I always want to be in a posture of learning and humility. There's always more to learn, but man, I felt pretty shaky last year at some points. So if I can be honest, I was really challenged and not as grounded as I am right now in this break from social media has given me a chance to read and learn and listen, and it has been good. And I am more grounded now than I ever have been about all of those things.
Number nine, I have re-learned what is real life and that social media is not real life. That sounds so basic as I say it out loud, but the power of social media can make you think that you're living your life through this platform or through this thing. And that's just not true. That's not your real life, your real life, or the things that you see in front of you and the people you can touch and feel, and the actions that you're taking and what you're doing every day. That's real life and social media can really steal from that. And so it's just been very clarifying for me. Like what is my real life? What are my real people? What is my real community? What is my church? Who are these people? What are these things? And having social media kind of removed from the equation has made me see just how full my life is and what it is made of.
And number 10 is that I have read more and I’ve really enjoyed reading more. And I'm still not where I want to be with reading. I was talking with my brother-in-law the other day about how reading is just harder. It's harder because it's like our brains have forgotten how to. It's like, they've lost the skill of reading in long form because we're used to ingesting things very quickly and taking social media out of my life has allowed me not to be the reader I want to be, but to read more and that's a step in the right direction.
Number 11, is that these, these, okay, let me just pause here for a second and say these next five are kind of like what I've missed. So the first 10 things were like benefits, things that I really have gained in the last six months or four months and the next five or things that maybe I've missed.
So I want to have like a holistic approach to this, right, and be honest about my experience.
So number 11 is that I still have an addiction to my phone. Taking social media away has revealed that I still pick up my phone and check my email and look for things to do and check Marco Polo and look at my text messages. Even when there's nothing there, I'm just constantly looking at it. So the last two months of this sabbatical that I'm taking, I really want to focus on just breaking that addiction to my phone, to having it with me all the time into constantly checking it.
Number 12 is that I really have missed updates from friends and family. It is a good way to stay in touch with people that you love. It really is. But what I've also found is, it's not the only way to stay in touch and it's kind of one sided. So while I can watch and see what my friends and family are putting out there, and I do love seeing what they're putting out and feeling connected to them. There's other ways to stay in touch with them that a lot of times are richer and fuller and more long form and more intimate than just watching their posts.
Number 13, I've been stopped opportunities. I mean, I've missed opportunities for partnerships, for getting paid for things. For the last, goodness, five or six years I've had my Christmas cards paid for because I love Minted and I partner with them and I'm a big fan. And this year I still love Minted and I still got my Christmas cards through them, but I paid for them because I'm off of social media. I've missed opportunities for free stuff. People have emailed me saying, “Hey, you want to try this thing. We can partner together to post about it. And I just say, no, you know, the last couple of years I've partnered with Great Wolf Lodge and we have had two amazing free family vacations to Great Wolf Lodge, which is amazing, in exchange for posting about my trip. I don't know that that's going to happen again. I've been off social media, you know, so there's been a cost to it, but it's been worth it for sure.
Number 14 is I've missed the opportunity to speak truth and to be a light. You know, I do feel like social media has taken a very, I don't know how to say this—it's like on a, a dark way that's really depressing. But you know, in the landscape of social media, there are people that I follow and that I listened to that have spoken a lot of truth and been a light to me. And I'm so grateful for that. And so in a way, I've missed the opportunity to show up and be that and to not bow down to fear and to not bow down to, you know, the things that, the pressure, the social pressures that I need to post about this, or I need to do this that instead, just to show up and be a light. So I, I missed that.
15. Again, I don't mean to end on a down note, but this is, this is what I've got today with the sleeping baby. And this is what I've got it really, the last four months have shown me just how obvious it is that these apps, these things on our phones are created to be addictive and taking them off of my plate has realized, oh my goodness, I don't have to be addicted to it. I can put it down. I don't have to check this. I don't have to look at this. I mean, it got to the point, which I'm sure many of you can relate. I just found myself late at night, scrolling, not even remembering, like when did I pick up my phone? What was I doing? What am I even looking for? And then like 30 minutes passes. I mean, I could've done so much more with my time. It is made to be addictive.
Now episode 138 is coming up in three weeks from now. Yeah, because this is episode 135, it's a re-run, that's called Three Ways to Put Social Media in its Place. And it'll be interesting to go back and listen to that re-run in light of this episode being published now.
But if you want to learn more about how it's addictive, I go into a deep dive in that episode, which is why I'm mentioning it. If you want to learn more about that, I talk about it because I've learned about it a lot in the last couple of years, but taking it out of my life and being proactive about this has really shown me just how addicted I was to it. And I gotta be really careful as I re-enter, if I re-enter, to set some hard boundaries for myself because it's made to be addictive.
So all-in-all, there are really amazing benefits from taking a break from social media. And there are some things that you miss out on. There are trade-offs to everything. Will and I always—Will, my husband, if you're a new listener—Will and I always look at each other and we go “Trade-offs man, trade-offs. Life is made up of trade-offs.” But what I've found is that all-in-all I'd really recommend every person who feels like they might have addictive tendencies to social media, or you feel like it's sucking the life and energy out of you, or you feel like you might have considered a break, do it, do it. It can be any amount of time. It can be a weekend or a month or three months or six months or a year. It doesn't matter. You have to try to do something that will challenge you, that fits you and your life.
And I just, I can't say enough of the benefits of taking a break from social media and having it completely removed from my life.
Now that leaves you with the question probably: Am I coming back to social media? What's my plan, honestly, I don't know. I don't, I don't know yet. I'm still praying about that and trying to figure it out. Listen, if I do come back one thing's for sure: I don't care about the numbers nearly as much as I did. Like numbers of followers, numbers of engagement, a lot of blah, all the things that Instagram says, “you're cool” by. I don't care about that as much anymore. When I come back, I want to post about all the things that are important to me, not just a few things. Like, I want to show up as me and not shy away from hard things, even things that are culturally really uncool. And if I come back, I think the biggest thing is I'm going to have to come back with really hard and fast boundaries. I might just come back once a month. I might come back once a week. I don't know. I'm going to pray through that and try some things. What I do know is that it is a very powerful tool in our lives.
I also know I'm going to unfollow a ton of people. I follow way too many people right now. And that's part of why it feels like such a toxic place for me is because I just follow way too many as just, even if they're all good voices, there's just too many voices. So I'm going to unfollow. I'm going to try to calm it down to like 50 people. I don't know that's possible, but I'm going to basically follow the people that are like real life people in my life. If I unfollow you, please don't be offended. It's probably just because I don't see you on a regular basis, but truly I need to pare it down to people that I really love and need to follow. And that I'm going to have some really hard and fast boundaries for myself.
So that's it. That is my update. Four months into social media. It's been good. It's been good. You know, I'll close with this, this morning I was going on a walk and I listened to this song and over and over again, it just said: “Freedom is calling. Freedom is calling.” I think it was a worship song. And I just thought about recording this episode today and I said to myself, “yes, that is it. We don't have to live addicted to this thing. We don't have to live addicted to this thing in our pockets. We have the power and the authority that the Lord has given us to just lay it down and to break free. And so I'm just going to say that because I felt such power in the words that that song freedom is calling.”
And if you need to do that for a little bit of time, or indefinitely, do it. Freedom is right here. I mean, it's calling. It's right here and it's available to all of us. Thank you so much for listening to episode 1 35 of work in play with Nancy Ray.
And if you're looking for some Christmas ideas or you're starting to make your reading list for 2021, I just wanted to mention my Cornerstore. I've been updating it for the last several years that I've had this podcast. And honestly, in case you didn't know “Cornerstore” is just the name that I made up for my Amazon page. So you can go to nancyray.com/cornerstore, and it will redirect you to my Amazon page, which has everything that I recommend and love. And we'll give you some good reading ideas and good Christmas ideas.
Okay, I'm going to close with words from Andy Crouch, author of The Tech-Wise Family, and it's full of challenging words for you. He says,
“Because technology is devoted primarily to making our lives easier, it discourages us from disciplines, especially ones that involve disentangling ourselves from technology itself.”
You might need to rewind and listen to that one. Again, that's a challenging quote to end on, but I just want to say this: My hope is that this podcast episode leaves you feeling challenged, but also encouraged to do whatever you need to do to live the life of health and wholeness that God has intended for you.
As always, thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.
