Self Development (Social Media Detox)

 SELF DEVELOPMENT

First of all, what is self-development? Hmm, it's a big dilemma that everyone will have at a certain age, certain time. 

"Self-development is taking steps to better yourself, such as by learning new skills or overcoming bad habits."

OK, learning new things is cool but getting rid of an addiction is the main and toughest thing that everyone will consider. Today, in this blog we are going to see one of the toughest battles   i.e human vs social media.

Social media became the new great addiction of our modern age is similar to alcohol gambling on drugs. Notifications, likes, and new followers release dopamine in our brains, and we get addicted to that feeling. Social media companies are well aware of that and designed their platforms to keep us on them as long as possible. When we get asked if we could live without social media the answer almost always is sure I just don't want to which is what every addict says the last week's I realized that over the years I built an unhealthy habit of consuming a lot of social media probably because my work was always based around it. Due to the lockdown, I was trapped at home in my boring hometown so the online world was the place where the cool stuff happened. Therefore, the screen town on my phone got up to an all-time high of 4 hours a day as I saw and read many articles about it. I got curious.

So I decided to live the next 30 days without social media and see what I can take away from this all right here's the plan, I'm deleting Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat from my phone on my laptop. I have been the web sites with an app called self-control says you will be unable to access those sites even if you restart your computer or delete the application hitch already freaks me out.

From now on there will be no more scrolling no funny videos no posts of my friends having fun and no photos of beautiful girls. In the first week, I spent most of the time filming editing, and replying to emails where I already ran into my first problem a client of mine sent me an email with a video link to a video which is similar to the one he wants and it was a youtube link so I tried to open it but I couldn't because of the program. So I came up with an idea and I downloaded it with a YouTube downloader on the Internet, it's a little bit of cheating I guess but I mean I had to. I also spent a lot of time with friends on one day my buddy and I hiked up a mountain and made it to the top just in time before the Sun was about to set. The whole scenery looked perfect and the old me would have probably snapped a hundred pictures and Instagram stories to share. It was with the online world but as I couldn't do that I really got to enjoy the moment and took it all in without worrying about how many likes this picture would get the kind of felt liberating later that week. I fell back into old habits sometimes I caught myself tapping where my social media apps used to be I binge-watched several series on Netflix. As I needed another source of entertainment and I spent much more time in water not

only to text with friends but weirdly also to look at the different profile pictures of them probably there was which came closest to Instagram I guess.

Day seven of social media detox and today's my birthday nice come on usually people reach out by a Facebook or yeah mostly Facebook, to be honest. And they just say happy birthday

and post something on your page but today is a little bit different. Because I just can't look on my Facebook or any other social media. Still, some of my really good friends reached out they called me or us just FaceTime. Yeah, I don't really miss any of the comments where people just say happy birthday on Facebook and that's all it's so much better to have people just reaching out. Truly asking what you're up to just feels like a much stronger connection than just via social media.

Later that day some of my closest friends came over and we had dinner together which was really fun in the next two weeks a lot of things happened and changed. I felt something that I didn't feel for a long time. I was passionate about the work, I did throughout the whole day I barely used my phone and I felt like I really connected with filmmaking storytelling again in the weeks before I quit social media I was in a deep creative rut. I had no inspiration and no motivation to create anything but on this day everything turned around I felt reenergized and

active and I was ready for a new chapter after staying in my parent's house for 8 weeks due to coronavirus I decided to leave my hometown.

Okay so now it's day 20 and so far I'm feeling really good. I'm feeling really productive this week. When I was at home at my parents the house there were still people around me all the time. There was my mom my brother and there were always people that I could just talk to but here is just myself there's nobody else here. And because of that I actually had a stronger need to socialize with other people and therefore also to go more on social media apps. So that's why I became actually a little bit active on LinkedIn you take what you get right. Yeah, I'm not

really taking it seriously about still I feel like there's a deep need and us to see what's happening in other people's lives. I don't know why but yeah I feel the need to just see what's happening with other people. In the next few days, I spent the majority of the time in front

of my laptop editing videos I was motivated focused, and rarely distracted. I was in a creative flow and I got a lot of things done. While I enjoyed my work. Again and was passionate about creating videos there was still something missing in the evenings. 

When I finished work I would often just sit in my bed and I didn't really know what to do I was

exhausted and I didn't know how to fill these last hours of my day as I would normally spend them on social media. So I knew something needed to change that's why I started to read books and go running in the evenings I even set a new personal record holy I just ran 21

kilometers in 1 22 count. On my lack of social interactions, I started to meet up with different friends and old colleagues every other evening. Sometimes I went to the park on my own to just chill and eat something even by just sitting there and drinking with my duck friends, I already felt happy and social in some way. I would say that in this last week I definitely became more active.

Okay, it's now day 30 but to be honest, I wasn't even looking forward to going on social media anymore because I really enjoyed the last 30 days without it but for the sake, I still downloaded all the apps and I replied to my messages. I scroll through Instagram and I watched some YouTube videos one and a half hours were gone just like that. And yeah the time just flew by and I was just sitting in bed and I was kind of overwhelmed because my mind didn't have access to that much information in the last 30 days. The funny thing is that there was nothing really worth mentioning that happened on social media nothing changed and everything was just still the same. I didn't miss out on anything but still, my mind was just running wild again and I was distracted and I couldn't really focus. Therefore I decided to not use any more social media for today at least okay so what did I take away from these last 30 days while due to my job, it was sometimes hard to stay completely off social media it had

many benefits as I spent less time on my phone. I had more time for my real friends. I reconnected with people who I didn't meet in years and it felt like already existing friendships only improved I stopped comparing myself with other people all the time. 

When I scrolled through social media I always saw the amazing works of other filmmakers and thought to myself why can't I be this good at creating videos? why should I even try if it has been done before during the detox these questions started to disappear and I  reconnected with my passion and creating videos again. I started publishing new videos every week. Guys my productivity increased as well as I had no problem getting into a creative flow while working I was less distracted more focused. And had an overall mental clarity is the biggest

change that I saw happening was my ability to be in the present moment while normally the time seemed to rush by and my mind jumped from one thought to another a few weeks into the detox everything around me started to slow down and I was able to drown out the noise as I could only think about positive aspects that I took away from the social media detox.

I was sure that I'm not going to go back to how things were so here's what I'm going to change.

I turned off all notifications for social media apps in this way I don't get pulled into perhaps by themselves. But instead, I only use the apps if I really want to I started building a habit of going for a 30-minute walk every single morning without any distractions no phone no music just walking listening to the wind blowing through the leaves, and seeing the city come alive these walks make me feel very present and free up my mind, I will start to do no social-media Sundays. So every Sunday I don't consume any social media in order to connect with the real world and recharge my batteries so this 30-day detox turned out to be a much bigger project than I expected at the beginning it really changed the way I interact with social media and my perception of the things happening around me. 

I think all of us should do this kind of detox to reevaluate our relationship to social media and also to prioritize our time in the real world and in the online world so trust me on this give it a try don't use any social media for the next 30 days be strict with yourself and I'm sure you're going to experience as many benefits as I did. I hope you guys enjoyed this. It was a little bit

different to the other ones but I felt like it was an important topic to talk about and I wanted to try it for myself for a long time.

And that's all try this and let me know your resolution in the comments.

Thank You. 

-Tharun Kumar Reddy