Day 1 of my social media Detox – Tue 2 Mar
Yesterday, I received a Nokia 2720 flip phone. I watched videos of how people felt after 30 days, and thought… I want that too. Don’t worry, I am not going off Social Media altogether, just on my phone, and using my laptop to post work related stuff instead. Today was weird, I spent the morning actually doing stuff instead of swiping on my screen.
I started off using my iPhone, solely for the purpose of moving some money and paying some bills – (note to self: must investigate internet banking on my laptop), and then I slung my phone and iPad into the wardrobe with about 4% battery on my iPhone, and flat battery on my iPad.
Due to the fact that I removed the phone and iPad, I also packed away the lead and charger, then realised how much space I had between my bed and bedside table (which is where my iPad usually lives). The fold up table which my iPad usually goes on was also packed away, creating more space.
My wife and I had breakfast, and I found myself using my diary, and pen instead of my phone, or social media. (Apologies to anyone who has a birthday today, and I didn’t celebrate with you on Facebook or Twitter).
Among some of the things that happened today, I wrote an email out for work, that I otherwise would have forgotten, or put on a todo list, and then watched an informative video, making notes to help with my author business.
I did feel fidgety, and time went slowly at times, but I also had a chance to relax and just “be” for a moment. I must have flipped open and closed the phone well over a thousand times, and although I played with it, flipping, and going through the menus almost most of the day, I still managed to only chew up 65% battery, and squeeze in more stuff, and not feel so wiped out at the end of the day.
My wife and I also started something new, we have never seen before, which we have called a ‘wellness walk’. Basically, we went for a walk, for an hour, leaving our phones at home, and made sure we didn’t talk about work, but about other things instead, and just soaked up the beauty of the world around us.
In a world where going out for a walk is a luxury in a covid world, we were pleased to get out of the four walls, and meant that we could disconnect with technology, and reconnect with each other for a bit.
It’s now nearly 10pm at night, and I have had a chance to do more than I usually do, and even feel more relaxed than usual. The fact that this has made a difference this early in the experiment has quite intrigued me, and I look forward to tomorrow, where I will be logging what else I get up to 🙂
I am now going on Twitter to post this, on my laptop, and it will be the first time I have used social media all day.