Category: about me

Honestly, I didn’t know if I would succeed or not.

There were little moments when I did miss having those apps to turn to on my phone such as when we were out and Jonny would go to the loo, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs and people watch without my phone to hide in.

My morning’s have changed, I no longer waste the first hour of my day living through the updates of others. The social media ban has forced me to focus on my own life rather than comparing it to that of others.

Mental health wise I’ve noticed a definite improvement to my anxiety.  I’m finding it easier to have a positive outlook on things without thinking that I need to constantly share what I’ve been up to.

I do think there are good qualities to social media, however. I’ve met some lovely people through social media, and the sewing community and the support/cheerleading therein are truly lovely by-products of it.

Instead I’ve found myself with a lot more spare time which has been amazing. There’s been more listening to music, more being creative – knitting, sewing, blogging, journalling and reading. Things that feed my soul rather than draining it. I’ve also managed to finally declutter our home and create a calm home environment.

Now I’m not going to cut social media out of my life completely. I am, however, going to manage it so that it can’t take over again. I’ll be using the iPhone screen time app to set time limits of 20 minutes per day for social media. I even got Jonny to create a pass code so that I can’t continue scrolling even if I wanted to. (I know that my terrible willpower would mean I’d just get sucked back into the scrolling without this!)

Once I’d downloaded the apps again I had a mass un-following/muting session so that I only get accounts that bring positivity into my life.

Do I feel happier? Honestly, I think I do. It’s empowering knowing that now I’m choosing when I want to access social media, rather than letting it become an all-consuming autopilot and that’s a really happy thought.

How do you manage how much time you spend on your phone? I’d love to pick up any helpful tips you’ve got!

Towards the end of November/into December I had a bit of a rough ride with my mental health. This culminated with me pretty much completely drained after 2 weeks of almost constant socialising and general people-ing. I’m an absolute homebody and very much need my quiet downtime to recharge!

I did the usual end of year reflection and tried to pinpoint if there were any specific triggers that were making me feel worse. I kept coming back to social media. I’ve mentioned on here before my love/hate relationship with it but by December it was definitely straying into the unhealthy territory.

After a lot of deliberation, and a serious wake-up call from my phone’s screen time update, I decided that I needed a complete social media detox. At one point I was using my phone for up to 5 hours on my days off, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Turns out that old saying is true: comparison really is the thief of joy. The more time I spent looking at the highlights reel of other people’s lives, the worse that I felt. Yet I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself. It’s something I’ve blogged about before more than once!

The coming New Year gave me the final kick up the arse that I needed to do something about it. I didn’t want to enter another year feeling awful so on December 31st I deleted all social media apps from my phone and iPad.

Day 1 wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I had been expecting. (The hangover probably helped me not wanting to look at a screen!) I spent the day curled on the sofa reading and watching trashy TV and didn’t miss stalking the lives of others at all. There was one moment during an ad break when I picked up my phone without thinking and opened up the folder where the Instagram app had once lived before I truly realised what I was doing. Slightly worrying that it had become so much of an autopilot for me.

Day 2 was a real eye opener. Without social media apps to procrastinate on in bed, before I dragged myself out, I turned to YouTube. Now I very rarely watch vlogs at all and I’d certainly never watched any of the big YouTubers’ stuff. They’ve never held any appeal for me. That is, until that morning. I woke up, Jonny had left for work and I had an hour and a half to kill before I needed to be leaving. I spent an hour watching vlogs. AN HOUR. I even fell down a Zoella rabbit hole. I had never watched a Zoella blog in my life prior to then. I casually checked my screen time app and was honestly disgusted that I’d wasted that much time. And it was wasted. I gained nothing from it other than a feeling of disappointment that I’d not managed to instantly have a more productive morning routine. I deleted the YouTube app in order to avoid this happening the following morning.

Days 3 and 4 were easier; I had high hopes that I’d be more productive with the removal of the apps that my scrolling had transferred to and it did work. I was starting to spend less time on my phone but I still missed stalking the lives of others.

The weekend was far easier – we were away in London so had plenty of lovely distractions (including the incredible Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play!) A friend we met with did mention that she’d tried to find our how long we were in London for so had looked on my Instagram, only to find no posts which made me think I maybe need to live my life more rather than just posting about it on social media!

Now I’m a week in and I’m honestly not missing it as much as I thought I would, it’s by no means easy but I do feel like I’m having a more productive January than I would have done otherwise. I’ve read 3 books already and had a massive wardrobe clear out!

Have you ever tried a social media ban/detox? If so, how did you find it helped or what do you do to minimise your screen time? I’d love any ideas to help if/when I do feel ready to reinstall the apps.

Happy New Year you lovely lot! 

Rather than make my usual super prescriptive resolutions (that I very rarely stick to) I thought about what I wanted more and less of in my life for the upcoming year. 

More time to be creative and less screen time were my instant thoughts. 

My self-enforced social media detox started yesterday and I’m already getting back on the blogging wagon with the extra time I’ve got! I’ll definitely blog about how that’s going at some point over the next month. 

New years are a funny one. As they approach I always find myself reflecting on the previous year and dreaming about the ‘perfect’ life I could have in the next if only I change a couple of aspects of my current routine. Of course, I know that this is very much a rose-tinted spectacle view of the world and that in reality I need to be less hard on myself and really think about being grateful for where I’m at.

More gratitude is another thing I want to incorporate into 2019. Less comparison. 

Little things to get me back on track for a more positive year.

For one thing, I’ve enjoyed writing this post and spending some time thinking about other future posts.

Here’s to a happy, and healthy new year. I hope it’s kind to you all x