Social Media Cleanse Diary – 2 Weeks to Go

Incredibly the end is almost in clear sight!

A whole 2 months of my life has been dedicated to the purging of social media and it is with sheer delight to announce that I remain on track to succeed in remaining t-total.

I’d love to predict that I’ll coast towards a triumphant victory in 2 weeks’ time and although everything has unfolded better than I could have envisaged so far, I dare not become complacent.

Once again, I am proud to declare that I am yet to succumb to social media since the 30 day mark; not even for one cheeky check on Facebook.

Although I have found this treacherous challenge easier and more rewarding than I had initially anticipated, I would be lying if I said there has not been instances where I’ve almost slipped up.

As per my previous observations, it is always in those moments of boredom where the urge to kill time kicks in that a strong and almost automatic impulse to check social media invades the thoughts.

Thankfully this hasn’t been too bad to overcome since I deleted all of the social media apps from my phone. This allowed time for rational thought to muscle in.

The other challenge I have found on occasions in previous weeks is a slight annoyance at being unable to utilise social media for some of the usages that are actually of benefit, such as finding out data to assist with my book promotion or to use the Marketplace function on Facebook to help me buy and sell during the process of our house move.

I guess it could be argued that I am now regarding social media for practicalities rather than simply to mindlessly kill time (in most cases). Perhaps this reflects a slight shift in my Psyche?

I guess the killer question at this stage is how do I feel?

Now I have given this thought a lot of consideration over recent days as I would love to say I feel great. Unfortunately, I can’t say this is the case. I think I am perhaps at an awkward stage in my life, a crossroads if you will. But what I can conclude is that I still feel better than I did before I started the challenge. And when I think about how I might have felt if I continued to bash social media during this phase in my life, I can only predict that I would have felt much worse.

I think to truly reap the rewards of not using social media is to give it up for good, or at least for a much longer period of time. And I can honestly say that I would be open to such an undertaking.

Anyway, as my world continues to remain hectic, I think this will be the last social media diary I log before I reach the end.

I’m confident I will manage to stay of the social until then, but make no mistake I will be keeping my wits about me to ensure I remain on the path of riotousness.

Wish me luck and see you at the finish line. 

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 30

I feel supernatural forces are in motion this year; hell bent on playing with the passage of time.

Only a moment ago I posted an update from day 5 of my social media challenge. Now here I am looking to catch up on my progress log, only to realise I have made it through an entire whirlwind month already. It has passed in the blink of an eye!

To be fair it has been a manic month as I have embarked on the exciting and also stressful journey of moving house.

Thankfully I have just about had time to keep on track with my tally of daily social media hits.

Given the lengthy delay in dishing out the dirt on my social habits, there was potential for this post to transpire as an essay style confession regarding my array of struggles encountered, accompanied with a huge list of social media useage logs.

I’m thrilled to use the word ‘potential’ as the past month has been anything but a disaster.

I can honestly say that my social media exploits have been practically non-existent since my last update. I still have to pinch myself to believe the words I write right now.

Here is an overview of how things have panned out over the past few weeks.

During week two of the challenge, I used Facebook twice for 2 minutes on each occasion, Snapchat once for 1 minute and Instagram once for 1 minute.

Now I could reflect on this with critical eyes, considering how well I had done in week one. The main plus here however is that social media usage has still reduced by about 30%.

Week 3 is where the magic really started to ignite. I only engaged with any form of social media a grand total of 3 times all week. This encompassed 2 minutes spend on Snapchat and 1 minute on Facebook.

I was in full stride during this period of time, fully absorbed into house viewings and mortgage discussions. This meant that even the idea of accessing social media, didn’t cross my thoughts for the most part.

Regrettably as the craziness from previous week simmered down ever so slightly I did regress a little bit in terms of my progress during week 4. I used Snapchat on 3 occasions for about a minute each time and Facebook twice, one of which to wish my grandad a happy birthday. I must admit the birthday thing did get me questioning this odd habit we have developed. Rather than actually saying happy birthday in person why do we feel obliged to send a Facebook message. This is something that may never have occurred to me in previous times.

Anyway this slight relapse just confirmed to me how insidious social media can be and how easy it is to fall back in the habit of having a cheeky check on it every now and then; particularly during times of boredom. This realisation prompted me to delete every social media App downloaded on my phone, with the exception of WhatsApp. And for the past 4 days I haven’t looked back.

In terms of how I’ve been feeling mentally during this whole time, it would be too good to be true to say that I’ve felt a million dollars every day of the week, but yes on the whole I am feeling pretty good. I am starting to no longer feel those strong feeling of envy that were becoming common place before and (if anything) I am actually finding peace in knowing other people are experiencing big moments in their life.

I don’t want to jinx it but I genuinely don’t think that the second half of my challenge will prove to be an almighty battle. I refuse to declare this with any certainty as I am all too aware how powerful the allure of technology can be during times of weakness.

As long as I keep working on my head space and sticking to my guns I’m hopeful this challenge will end in successful and enlightenment.

Regardless of the outcome I’m sure there will be some more twists and turns as I approach the end of this journey and so I’ll try and be on the ball a bit more with the updates from here on in.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 5

Looking back it this time last week…

I made it to the end of my first working week in surprisingly good shape.

I figured it would be most difficult to kick social media to the curb during working day as the impulse often becomes so strong at times of boredom whilst in the home office.

I must admit Friday could have been a potential banana skin as the workload started to die down throughout the day, thus introducing opportunities for boredom to take hold.

I’ll also admit I encountered some strong urges at various intervals, mainly as I craved to find sports updates in preparation for the weekend’s fixtures.

I ended up using social media just the once in the end, which I am chuffed about. I am however a bit bitter sweet about it too, as I felt it was a temptation that could have been prevented.

The indulgence consisted of a quick check on Instagram for updates on the climbing centre that I attend and had plans to visit at the weekend.

My friend had told me the centre was to be half closed due to a leaky roof and flooding and this threw our plans into disarray.

I tried to find out more on the situation through their website, to no avail. My friend advised updates were being provided on Instagram.

Great!

Due to this lack of consideration of those who do not use social media, I found myself too demanding of information to resist. Obviously, this meant I had a cheeky check on my Insta feed whilst I was at it.

As I say, very frustrating. But the good news is that this just ended up being a one off and I managed to steer clear of all platforms for the rest of the day, which was great.

Things since Friday have been crazy busy and so I haven’t had time to log how things have progressed in the week that followed. I plan to post a week long summary over the weekend so do keep your eyes peeled to find out how things have gone in week 2.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 4

I feel like the honeymoon period of my social media cleanse challenge is coming to an end today.

I don’t feel cocky in saying that I smashed it yesterday, but today has been a whole different ball game.

Looking at the logs, I have used social media 3 times altogether today which still isn’t bad considering there is no real urgency to go t-total as yet.

That being said there is no denying that it is worse than yesterday. Aside from the stats, it is more the urge to kill time on social media today that I found crippling. After the busy start to the week, I have had a day littered with periods of boredom and the weather has also taken a slump. I found that during these dull periods I craved some interaction and entertainment through actions such as sending Snapchats or scouring for news on Facebook.

I did allow myself to indulge somewhat, but I feel if I hadn’t enforced some serious restraint I might have been on and off the platforms like a yoyo all afternoon.

Maybe this is time where things do start to get taxing. It is a challenge after all.

The good thing this time is that I felt accomplished for showing some willpower. I have also been lucky in that my state of mind has remained pretty upbeat throughout the day. Hopefully this indicates that even though I did use social media a few times, I might have been hitting a healthy balance.

So even though it’s been tough, plenty of positives to take forward as we approach the latter half of my first week I would say.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 3

After yesterday’s myriad of mind games, I feel like today has been much more straight forward in terms of my emotional response to this social media cleanse.

The great news is that I have managed to build once again on yesterday’s success and in fact only used social media once all day!

In my wildest predictions I would not have expected myself to curb the habit to such an extent at this very early stage.

Oh I do hope the whole 2 months will continue in this vain.

The one time I did use social media, it was a quick 1 minute check on Facebook. I was immediately greeted once more with the social media post that has annoyed me all week and so I went straight to refresh the newsfeed wheel of fortune which decided I would like to read about a burned out car instead. How lovely.

It is worth mentioning at this stage that my partner is a bit sceptical about my methodology for this challenge.

She believes I should go cold turkey from the offset and she also doesn’t believe that I should keep Direct Message platforms such as WhatsApp available for usage.

She even believes that using my blog to post updates is in fact using social media and therefore contradicting what I am trying to achieve.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and my other half doesn’t hold back with her opinions I can tell you that much for sure.

Perhaps her observations are valid to some extent and maybe this is why I have found things rather easy so far. It is difficult to say.

In spite of this I will continue on with the same plan, but I am now contemplating whether to up the anti for the final few weeks of the challenge and simply ghost any and all online avenues until I reach the end.

Maybe I could go as far as chucking my phone out and communicating via barn owl. Who knows?

All I know is I’m feeling good at the moment and hopefully this will be a feeling that grows as the challenge goes on. Only time will tell.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 2

So, I breezed through my first day of cutting out social media yesterday and this injected me with confidence as I prepared for day 2.

All things considered my second day was another great success. Looking back at my log, I can see that I did in fact access social media one time less than yesterday which I’m ecstatic about.

I should note however that not everything was as rosy as it sounds. I experienced a strange complex whereby I found myself instinctively reaching for my phone in search of social media but then stopping myself before deciding to click on the App. Sounds like a good thing right? Maybe it is, but the problem here I feel is that this prevention tactic is actually preventing me from getting a clear picture of my social media habits. It has also meant that the few times I actually did access social media, it was accompanied with feelings of guilt and shame for some bizarre reason. 

Perhaps this is just helping me to achieve my full social media blackout more quickly? I do hope so.

Worse still the very few times I did access social media, I was displayed with the same update from an individual that filled me with anger and sadness. I felt as though Facebook knew that the post hit a nerve and decided to keep throwing it in my direction.

I feel all of this emotion is making me more determined to get rid of the damn platforms as quickly as I can, which is surely a good thing.

Another interesting conclusion I found from today is that I felt less likely to use social media as I knew it would involve making a log of it, which I simply could not be bothered to do.

Maybe I have just been overthinking things with the challenge today and hopefully tomorrow will be less tubulous and even more of a success.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 1

Let the fun and games begin I say. I have started the first day of my 2-month long challenge with surprising vigour.

This positive midframe and approach has already helped me reap rewards as I have in fact barely touched social media all day!

I have certainly surprised myself.

I must say however it does feel less of an accolade when you consider that I have been super busy with work all day, having just returned from a week-long break on the South Coast. This was further assisted by the fact we had a house valuation after work and lots of household chores to contend with thereafter.

I ended up utilising social media sites a total of 4 times throughout the day; twice I used Snapchat and twice Facebook. Total time spent was 10 minutes.

Not to blow my own trumpet or anything but I think this is quite impressive when you bear in mind that the time spent on Facebook was primarily to post about this challenge.

So far so good and my mental headspace is so far in check.  I am under no illusion that these are very early days though and I know not every day will be cluttered with so many welcomed distractions.

Let us see what tomorrow brings.

For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510

Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

See you later social media, time to practice what I preach!

Isn’t it ironic how I created a work of fiction that explores powerful themes on how social media has the potential to cause harm, but yet social media is my main outlet in which I use to promote it?

A bit controversial I know and maybe this makes me a hypocrite? On second thoughts don’t answer that!

In my defence I feel the world we currently live in left me with little choice in this matter if I was serious about reaching my intended target audience.

None of us can seem to live without our trusty platforms and so for months now I have bit the bullet and utilised them more than I should, in spite of my beliefs.

From the start of my self-publishing journey, I have pleaded with myself to approach the book promotion with a military mindset, go in, spread the word and leave. There would be no lingering to snoop on everyone’s latest Insta post or scroll mindlessly through Facebook.

And for a long time, I convinced myself that I was doing just that.

One day however it struck me that book sales had well and truly simmered down and I hadn’t posted any meaningful content of relevance in ages! In spite of this it occurred to me that I was still spending the same amount of time (longer even) on all the usual social media suspects. If I wasn’t promoting my book then what was I doing I hear you ask…?

In truth I’m not entirely sure. Looking back, I think the best way to summarise is, I would almost instinctively go on each platform and scroll mindlessly at content at random intervals throughout the day. At first, I think I assured myself I was doing it as a way in which to build my networks. Maybe at first, I was. But after a while it became clear that the network building had come to a complete halt.

So what is the big deal I hear you ask…?

I felt terrible is what. For months now I have been battling with depression and I’m all but certain social media has a lot to answer for in making me feel this way. 

All things considered I figured it was time to set my own example. I have therefore come up with a challenge to cleanse my soul of social media and keep a daily diary of how I feel to record the experiment.

I figured it would be a cool idea to tie this is to the 1^st Anniversary of my book The Invite on 31^st October- aka Halloween.

The plan is to undertake a gradual withdrawal of my screen time over the coming months until I reach the stage where I am T-total. Research suggests that this is the best way to obtain a healthy benefit from the online break.  

On September the 6^th I will embark on my 2month-long quest which will include a phased approach to my ultimate goal of achieving online freedom. I have created a week-by-week plan, which (fingers crossed) will proceed as follows:

• First week – Figure out the problem and note down how many times I used a social media platform, detailing which one was used and when
• Week 2- Try and reduce overall useage by half
• Week 3 – Delete the platform I use least and try to reduce useage of the others by half again
• Week 4- Limited social checks to every other day
• Week 5- ‘Cold turkey’ This will be the time to delete all social media. I will only be keeping chat options such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
• Weeks 6-8- Remain social media sober

To monitor the impact of my challenge I plan to create a daily diary which will outline the specifics of how I am finding the experience and more importantly, how my mental well-being is being affected.

I will post my daily entry right here on the blog (which will hopefully be the most online interaction I have throughout the 2 months) but will refrain from engaging with any kind of responses my updates may summon.

It is going to be a fascinating and possibly excruciatingly difficult task, so do come back to check out my daily up and downs in just over a week’s time.

In the meantime, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits. 

All that is left to say is, wish me luck!

Ever wondered if you are obsessed with social media status? Buy your copy of The Invite and find out!!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invite-C-P-Riches-ebook/dp/B08MCDYPPL

A fruity call

Her natural beauty is hidden for all to see

Desperate to share her love she waits patiently

She remains invisible to most who pass by

Until one who looks deeper and gives her a try

At first glance you might miss her treasure

But under the surface lies unlimited pleasure

Once discovered you’ll be ever so sure

To go back and see her, she’ll always have more

Get in there quickly, to ensure delight

But always remember her love might just take flight

Others are blinded, but true they can see

She may well be patient but is egger to flee

Do not despair though, where true love is sow

You can be pretty much certain more raspberries will grow