Down December Pt. 2

Down December was probably one of the best decisions I made in 2020. Taking a full month to take a break from social media and refocus on reality really worked wonders for my mental health. I thought it was going to be much harder than it actually was, but turns out it’s much easier to be happy when you’re not bombarded everyday with the toxicity that comes with the internet.

The first week was a breeze. After deleting all my apps (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat), I had so much free time. I mean, I had free time before, I just chose to fill it up with mindless scrolling. Now I was mindful about the things I was doing throughout the day. I wanted to fill up my days doing things I liked to do. I stayed true to some of my goals, which is a huge accomplishment for me. I started learning Italian, I spent more time engaging with my loved ones, and I loved myself more! I swear, I did not judge my body once while being off social media. I didn’t squeeze, probe, or try to “smooth” myself out. I wasn’t constantly exposed to society’s definition of a “good body,” and that made me appreciate my body and what it does for me everyday so much more.

The rest of the week kind of sum up how everything went with the first week. Some amazing things happened as well! I got engaged to the love of my life, I graduated with my bachelors in psychology, and started a new career. I did not even think about posting it on social media. It was nice to not feel some sort of expectation to share every moment of my life with the world, as if the gain some approval that would make it real. You know that saying, “if you didn’t post it, it didn’t happen.” I believe giving that much power to an app can be detrimental. So much so, I started doing extensive research on social media and it’s correlations to poor mental health. Let me tell you, the proof is in the pudding (data).

All in all, Im so glad I detoxed for the month of December. With all the commotion going on, social media really became a toxic place for me; always seeing people arguing, disagreeing, constant news articles spewing crap to push division, all the hate flowing through comments and posts, and constantly feeling like humanity forgot how to love each other and respect each other. I realize I was very privileged to step away from it all for a while, and I feel so much better for it. I can’t tell you how great it felt to not always be so accessible through social media (but I also have always kept my phone on silent for that reason. I never liked feeling like a Pavlov experiment– the ding goes off, conditioned to automatically look at/pick up the phone. So yeah, silent).

To sum this all up, I’m definitely going to continue to spend less time on social media and more time in reality– as it should be. Hell, I even deleted Instagram again because it just didn’t make me feel good to be on. That probably contributes to the fact that I need to do a “following purge.” I follow so many people from elementary school through high school, and so many celebrities, maybe the purging of some of my followers will make my timeline more tolerable. Like, why do I follow a girl I talked to for 3 minutes in elementary school and just happened to remember her name? News pages like “TheShadeRoom” with their toxic commentary and even more toxic comments section, why why why do I follow them? I’m like a hoarder for instagram following. This is so off topic (sorry I needed to vent about that).

Until next time!