offline time

reflections on a social media break and the downfall of individuality

pinterest. source unknown.

Summer is in full swing. Although you don’t need to hear it from me to know it. The brutal heat wave sweeping across the country serves as a reminder that time passes slowly and seemingly collapses in the blink of an eye. June went by quickly and already we’re nearly two weeks into July. My skin burns when I step outside and I’m quickly covered by a layer of dampness as I walk to get my morning coffee.

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I recently took two weeks off social media, deleting Instagram and TikTok off my phone. A decision that stemmed merely from a desire to get more connected to myself. I didn’t set a date for when I’d go back, often romanticizing the idea of an entire summer spent offline (I’d read books, connect to nature, take walks without my phone, write more, and simply spend more time being where my feet are). In the end, I lasted about two weeks, the caveat to my return being I simply felt inspired to create from my own voice again.

As a result of my time offline, I naturally consumed less, my screen time dropped in half, and I became increasingly aware of time passing. My commute no longer measured by the minutes I spent mindlessly scrolling on my phone, but by the number of pages I read in a book. I reignited my love for an all-consuming fiction novel; for getting lost in a world that is not my own. I paid closer attention to how I felt in my body and noticed how social media played a role in shoving down my anxiety rather than acknowledging it was there in the first place. By slowing down and paying attention, I connected to things I organically felt drawn to and became more interested in understanding why.

I think it’s important to spend time offline when we notice our lives are becoming more influenced by the lives of others, rather than by our own interests and desires. It’s easy to get caught up in what other people are doing when we’re bored or we don’t know what we want for ourselves. We look to others to have the answers and so we try to replicate a formula for happiness based on what we see online. Social media has made it increasingly more accessible to let other people make our decisions for us with the increase of viral videos like “a day in the life”, “what I eat in a day”, or “how to spend a weekend in [x city]”. If we’re not careful, we’ll get so swept up in someone else’s individuality, that we completely forget our own.

What I’m saying is that I think it’s important to distinguish between drawing inspiration from and copying how someone else portrays their life online. It’s important to remember that what is one person’s happiness or success is not your own. However, the way the algorithm promotes viral sounds and videos makes it feel like we all look more alike than different. In such that, I’m seeing an increase in posting for validation and virality that makes being online feel like a homogenous pitfall of wasted potential.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’ve never fallen victim to any of the aforementioned pitfalls. As a twenty-something woman with an online presence, I often find myself caught in the trap of creating with one eye on an audience. I think it’s hard not to when so much of our success depends on the number of likes we get on a photo or the number of shares we get on a post. The ability to monetize our art in today’s world has forced many creatives to focus less on what we want to create and more on what we think our audience wants to see. I often wonder what it would be like to live in a world where the algorithm pushed content that was different from what we were already seeing rather than more of the same. Would we feel more free to express ourselves from our unique perspectives; or rather find we have nothing more to say?

I took some notes during my time offline, a few of which I’ll share below:

1. Inspiration comes from the way I live my life, not by consuming the way others live their life.

2. Time passes slowly in the in-between - waiting on a friend for dinner, on my commute to the city, and after dinner before bed.

3. I have time to do the things I’ve been telling myself I want to. I no longer have social media as an excuse for not having time.

4. Social media is a comparison trap. Without it, I realized half the things I thought I wanted, I didn’t actually want.

5. Spending intentional time with loved ones makes me feel whole and supported. I realize the connections I make IRL are so much more important than what is perceived on social media.

Finally, I learned that life on the internet goes on, even when we don’t participate in it. That despite how easy it is to feel insignificant (in such a large space), we still get to decide how we show up in it. To live a life online is to do so intentionally, to be aware of one’s consumption, and to remember to take breaks when needed.