A social media sabbatical

After almost two months into a social media detox, I think I’ve finally reached a point where I can look back and report on how this thing’s been working out. If you didn’t know, I decided to take a little break from my blog + social media on the 3^rd of March, 2017. I won’t go into the reasons why I decided upon this but I will say I had a lot going on in my life at the time with very little free time to myself. In those hours of peace, I wanted to be by myself, do things that can help me wind down instead of taking up more pressure than I could handle.

I’m not the one to fake post about how great my life is when it isn’t and nor did I want to be that whiny person complaining everyday – so I thought this would be the best bet. It was a spontaneous decision and one that I will stand by because it has helped me gain some perspective on my blog and how I want to proceed with it.

Now that I’m back and resuming a new schedule, I feel so much better and motivated to get back into it. I had a couple of insights during this break though and I think I ought to share those with you guys.

First off, I lost a ton of followers as one would expect. 100s of them on instagram, however only 30-40 on twitter which made me realize how much more considerate the twitter community is. I don’t know if it’s because they haven’t noticed (the algorithm tends to do that) or the people there simply aren’t as obsessed with their follower:following ratio when compared to instagram but I think I do have a more genuine following on there.

The users who followed me on instagram simply because they wanted a follow back left or at least a major chunk of them did and I realized how many real people I’ve got there. They are definitely fewer than what my following suggests and it made me see accounts with huge instagram following in a completely new light. Now I’m not threatened by lost followers as much but kind of relieved that I’m weeding out the people who do not want to be here or build a community but only want their profiles to look better. Consistency is way more important on instagram and there is absolutely no excuse for absence.

I will admit though that I cheated a little. I kept using pinterest during this sabbatical and it was the only social media account I was using. This was simply to keep the ideas flowing and to keep me sane. I don’t use it as a major tool for communicating with others, more so as a personal scrapbook of ideas and things that inspire me. I could still keep my silence on there and keep using it which I found liberating during this time. I saw my pinterest followers rise by more than 100 in about a week and so did my daily impressions and saves. I went from having 400 followers to 910 and I hope to hit a 1000 soon. I experienced how much of a difference focusing all your energy on one form of social media can do and without consciously trying either. It really shows! Hence, I’ll be concentrating on one at a time. That doesn’t mean I won’t post on the others. I’ll just pick one and give it a little extra time and effort.

For the first time, I appreciated the almost empty notifications bar on my phone and after a while I didn’t feel the desire to check my phone all the time (except my texts) which is unusual for me.  Now this could work out completely different depending on how much of social interaction you need but I can say that I came out of it as a much more relaxed and inspired person. 

It’s time to re-pump my new found enthusiasm back into my social media channels : Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Google Plus | Bloglovin

Follow along if you’d like to be a part of my journey!