Social Media Break: Day 1

I’m still on that euphoric high of making a life changing decision, so day one as always really isn’t too bad. I distracted myself throughout the day making it harder to find time to pick up my phone. I didn’t let boredom set in or have a time to be still.

Today started out early as I wanted to get my piece written on how this choice came about, so I got up early before the rest of the family and dove into typing and editing. BUT not before I checked my email on my phone. That’s still on there (for now). Then I did a quick sweep of the weather and looked up something on my safari app.

Baby Steps…

Luci had a basketball game early this morning so I intentionally put my phone in my purse so that I could talk to the mom next to me and watch the game. Turns out when you aren’t looking at your phone, you can have interesting conversations. It also makes you hyper aware of how many times people are checking their phones.

Then the big distraction happened. We went down to Northern Kentucky for the circus, meaning we were going to be gone from 9:30 am -7:30 pm. I plugged my phone into the car, put my playlist on shuffle and off we went. With the circus being about 4 hours long, there were definitely times, especially during intermission, that I wanted to post the pictures I had taken of the kids. I wanted to insta-story our experience and I thought about logging in to Facebook about 5-6 times during the whole show.

But I didn’t let my thoughts take over the experience. I got to enjoy the moment with my kids and parents watching their eyes light up when the man jumped through the ring of fire while riding a horse. I saw the shocked look in Luci’s face when the motorcycles and their riders did 360’s in the air. I got up and danced with the kids instead of wanting to videotape their moves.

More conversations ensued with my mom on the way down and my step-dad on the way back from the circus in the car ride. I chatted it up with the usher who was working the event and learned a lot about him and his family. And guess what? Everything was interesting because I was present.

Then when we got home, we had some down time before getting the kids in bed. I immediately had my phone in hand checking emails, playing a couple rounds of Homescapes (a game the kids got me into), checking the weather for today, checking my workout planner for the gym in the morning, and again googled a couple things about the Super Bowl. I realized there are still things to habitually check on my phone even if the social media is gone, but the hours of endless scrolling didn’t happen.

I set my alarm before going to bed and googled a couple more things before dozing off. I’m thinking about getting an alarm clock and plugging my phone in the bathroom so the nighttime temptation of CHECKING is gone.