- More alert and less clouded in my thinking: This is only speaking for myself, but whenever I get caught up in social media, I get this odd sense similar to walking through a dense fog, a little disoriented and not able to see where I'm going on a particular thing. I've suspected I'm an highly HSP, because of how many things in my environment affect me. My best thinking and ideas happen when I'm in total silence with limited distractions. I've discovered that the voices in the social media platforms can be too loud for me. I have noticed a lot recently that if I get overly involved in social media, my thinking can get confounded. There is a story I have been working on for (I'll admit it) years that I have been struggling with writing, because of this cloudy mindset. When I would sit down to write the story, it was a huge struggle just to get a few sentences out, but this week so far I have been able to write half a chapter, and the cloudy confusion was not there. My incoming ideas were quite clear.
- Increased interaction: It's generally known and sometimes even a joke that people are constantly looking at their phones instead of paying attention to what goes on around them. I haven't gone quite that far yet, because I like to watch people and things going on around me, but even then I haven't been excluded from being sucked into the vast intertwining internet connections out there. I'm a person who actually needs a lot of alone time, but the problem is that it is indeed incredibly enticing to turn to a device and look into a social media platform when I should be turning to quiet, and I can testify that going to social media is not quiet. Denying myself that much needed time means taking more time than necessary away from all the people you need to be around and communicate with. With the distraction put aside and doing my preferred full attention mode, I've been able to spend some pleasant moments and chats with those who should be my priority anyway.
- Increased productivity: I love ending days with the feeling that I accomplished something. It doesn't always have to be anything huge, though I do love a good challenge once in a while. Spending a lot of time on my social media left me feeling a lot of times feeling unaccomplished and so my days weren't ending quite as successfully as I wanted. I've found myself away from my devices a lot longer and helping more in other areas where I'm needed and to be honest, it's been refreshing to direct my focus on other things for a while.
- Decreased anxiety and stress: First and foremost, I don't care about numbers. I don't care about how many people respond to my things, and I don't care that I only have a small circle of people following me in the things that I post. Though I'm grateful for every single person out there who has expressed appreciation for something I contributed, I've never cared whether or not I was popular. There's more important things to focus on; however, despite all of that, I have noticed that even with all of this lack of interest, I still feel a sense of stress and anxiety that creeps in when I use too much time on social media. It's a little bit like what I was going through when I suffered burnout, and that is an overwhelming feeling of voices from every direction coming at me at once, and it's not just a fluctuation of words. It's also a fluctuation of emotions. It takes me on such a roller coaster ride (and I don't like roller coasters). I have felt a significant improvement in both my physical and emotional stress since the beginning of this trial.
- Increased creativity: It's been interesting witnessing the ways I've exercised my creative ways this week. I don't thoroughly enjoy cooking, but for this week, that's exactly where some of my creativity was directed. There's a person I take care of who can be particularly picky about eating, and so this week has become experimental week trying out new things to see if they work. Some things were a success more than others, but my greatest triumph I might say is the discovery of making a dip out of fish that works amazingly with crackers or with strong flavored chips (especially salt and vinegar). I'm not a foodie. I'm more excited about the new discovery than I am about the food itself. I didn't really officially start the 8-6 restriction until Monday, but I technically started to do it on Sunday, because I didn't want the distraction. As a result, I came of with the idea (out of nowhere) to pull out my flute, record it, and combine it with some of my pictures and videos in a little movie for YouTube. I was able to use all of that extra time playing, editing, and processing the little movie throughout the day, and was ready to share it by the evening. I shared it with friends and was happy enough that they enjoyed it. I've already talked about writing my story also. It's supposed to be the second story of a series that I need to get written (a personal challenge that I signed myself up for years ago). Hopefully, I'll have another chapter completed soon. There's not too much left to work on.
So there are a few insights I've received so far from my limit social media challenge. One word I would use to describe it is liberating. I'm able to resist better the ever luring temptation to grab the phone, I'm able to hear my own voice again, and the silence (physically and mentally) I need to recharge has become easier to obtain.
