Exactly 4 weeks today, I bid adieu to all of my social media accounts: Vine, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 4 weeks without knowing if Jessica hates her boyfriend, 4 weeks without seeing birthday posts accompanied with mini novels written by best friends. 4 whole weeks without seeing political posts, shooting stats, and baby goats. Now, out of all of it, the only thing I really miss are the baby goats. But let’s all be honest with ourselves, who wouldn’t?

Being absent from social media has taught me a lot of things. However the main one is that my main communication with friends is through social media. Commenting each other in funny instagram photos, reply tweeting and my goodness snapchatting.

I would snapchat constantly with anywhere from 10-15 people at a time. I found that it took my attention away from other things: going to bed on time, being with family, being with other friends, and school work especially.

I hate to admit this, but I am one of those “sharer or political post” people on Facebook. I do like to even it out with videos of baby animals and the occasional vegan post or two. However, when people would comment back (I am totally fine with people sharing their opinions and agreeing to disagree) they would be so rude and absolutely refuse to believe that people can have views opposing their own and would really bring me down. Also, people constantly feel the need to get offended at any little detail and make a big deal out of everything. Not only that, but people are constantly in everyone’s business and not having to see the photo album of prom 2016 which consists of the same photo 500 times just with a different person’s eyes closed.

Twitter and Instagram: I would always check the latest tweets and photos whenever all other social medias began to bore me, I wanted to procrastinate, and even in class and during break at work. I would be glued to my phone at any free period of my day. Without it, I am seeing new things (on my way home from work yesterday I saw a community college that I had never been aware existed) and talking and listening more to people around me. I must also seem more respectful seeing as my phone is not in my hand 24/7 and am actually paying attention to my surroundings and the people around me.

My phone has for so long been my safety blanket. So much that when I was at school I would find the need to bring it down with me to put my laundry in the washer/dryer. My whole journey was less than 5 minutes and it was all walking up/down stairs and actually doing laundry. I rarely used it on my laundry trek but I still felt the need to have it at my hip.

Now, I rarely use it, I play a few games: candy crush, solitaire, sudoku (‘m old don’t judge me) and when I need a quick picture, google, and to check my email. Life without social media has really opened to my eyes and made me realize that social media isn’t the only thing in life. Yeah they’re great to keep you updated and see what your friends are doing if you don’t talk to them everyday, but when you become dependent on it, that’s when it becomes an issue.

Alicia