Disclaimer: I should probably clarify that I was Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter free for a total of 46 days and counting. I did still sparingly use Messenger and Snap Chat as I have a sister that currently lives in Japan and that is how we communicate a majority of the time.

My family has been telling me for awhile now that I need to "put my phone down more" but I never really listened. I just kept telling them "I'm working on it" without really working on it. It wasn't until my son started telling me, on more than one occasion, that I was always on my phone did I truly start to listen.

Not only that, I started to feel like I was always connected to people in the sense of social media, but not really connecting to people in real life. So on March 22nd I decided to go 30 days without being on the platforms I used the most and found myself turning to when bored; Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I also limited my time on Snap Chat and Messenger as well, just not completely because I use it to communicate with parts of my family.

I have now exceeded those 30 days, and this is what I have learned about myself...

1. I had been so connected to social media, I forgot how to truly connect with other people.

It might sound cliche, but it is 100% true. I no longer felt comfortable connecting with people in real life. I found it extremely difficult to be in the moment and enjoy the company around me without reaching for my phone. Honestly, the realization made me extremely sad and a little bit disappointed in myself. Now, putting away my phone is something I make more of a conscious effort to do when I am with others. I no longer have it out when sitting down to dinner with my son or when meeting friends for coffee. It's still an impulse, but it's getting better.

2. I couldn't really stand to be with myself.

Another sad realization, but I couldn't. Every time I was truly alone I found myself reaching for my phone to fill the space. Instead of cultivating a relationship with myself, I cultivated a relationship with my phone. Sitting in silence with my thoughts wasn't something I was comfortable with. For the past seven years I have been on this journey to better myself, this past year I have really tried to dig deep inside to start healing and working on the things I need to to continue to grow. Those things I've buried because dealing with them wasn't something I wanted to face. And I've made a lot of progress in dealing with certain things and understanding why I buried them in the first place. So to find that I had let myself fall into the trap of no longer enjoying my own company was more than a little bit upsetting.

3. I had started to measure my self worth by likes and comments.

Of all of the things I've learned about myself over the past 46 days, this one is the most upsetting. Before I started on this social media cleanse, I would have told you that I was definitely not a person who cared about likes or comments, I decided my self worth and it wasn't based on something as superficial as "likes" or "comments". Imagine my surprise when I started to actually spend uninterrupted time with myself and found out just how much of a liar I was. I had convinced myself I wasn't worried about them, yet I was.

4. I was basing my life and where I am now off of someone else's highlight reel life.

Another cliche, but another completely real realization that came from staying off social media. I was getting so caught up in where I am now, and where I though I should be based off of what other people's accounts were showing. I, a long time ago, stopped following or allowing my news feed to show posts from anyone whom I didn't consider a positive influence, people who didn't encourage me to always have a growth mindset or grow within my faith. I have to stay, that on a positive note, my newsfeed is now full of amazing people who inspire me beyond belief. People who challenge me to think in new and different ways. People who are constantly pushing me to grow. But it is also full of people who have found their life purpose when I myself haven't. And I found myself starting to compare my life to their's, comparing my chapter 3 to their chapter 10. I found that I was judging myself based off other people's lives without truly knowing their lives. I was unknowingly putting so much pressure on myself instead of being okay with where I am at, and knowing that it isn't where I am going to stay.

5. I wasted SO much time.

Now this one is something I think everyone can relate to. We all waste a ton of time on social media, time that could definitely be spent doing something better and more worthwhile. I was extremely guilty of it, I found myself complaining and wondering where all of my time was going. I just never had enough time in the day to get everything I needed to get done, done. It was completely bogus. I would start doing something and soon catch myself reaching for my phone and become completely lost in something other than what I needed to get done. I couldn't seem to figure out why I was never getting ahead...well, it was because I was constantly worried about what was going on in someone else's life instead of my own. I can't say it's all magically better now, I'm a procrastinator by nature and it's been something that has proven hard for me overcome. But it is slowly getting better, I'm aware of it now and stop myself most of them time when it happens.

6. I missed out on moments because I was to preoccupied with statuses.

Looking back now, I realize just how many life moments I missed while having my nose stuck in my phone. Moments that will now, never happen. Because no matter how hard we try, we can never get moments back. We can always scroll back through and see a status update we missed, but we can never turn back time to experience moments we missed. How many people did I never meet because my eyes were too busy looking at my phone? How many things went in one in ear and out the other while spending time with those I care about? How many times did I miss a moment to impact someone else's life for the better? Or have them impact mine? Home many lessons did I never learn that I was supposed to? How many? I will never know, and that truly saddens me. I missed out on life for what? Status updates and highlight reels? I missed out on life for something so minuscule in the grand scheme of things, and I can never get any of that time back. But I can make the most of my time now, and I can promise you that I will make the most of it. Life is so much more than status updates, pictures, likes and comments. Life is what is happening all around us every day that we miss because we are so worried about what others are doing.

I can tell you that leaving the social media world has opened my eyes to many different things in my life. I enjoy things again that I didn't even know I had forgotten how to enjoy before. I actually connect with people in real life, not just over the internet. I am starting to truly enjoy my life again. I'm rediscovering who I am, what my self worth is, what I still need to work on and what I have improved upon. I'm learning to be content with where I am while continually working to move forward. I'm learning how to connect with myself again and to do things that make me truly happy, and to stop doing the things that don't.

Life is continually a work in progress, I'm probably going to mess it up more times than I get it right, and I'm going to take a few more steps backwards before I take that one step forward. I'm okay with it, because those steps backwards teach me more than the one forward and all we truly need in life are moments and memories, and we can make neither one with our faces buried in our phones missing out on the life that is surrounding us.

I am in no way saying that social media is bad or that we shouldn't use it, I completely agree that social media has its place and has made so many things possible that never were before. I also have full intentions of using those to my advantage when the time is right. I'm using them now. But also, I think we all need to sit back and analyze why and how we use social media. Because it is all too easy to get caught up in it and forget the life we live day to day, to lose sight of what is truly important.

XOXO

~Cassie Ann