‘I Gave Up Facebook and Twitter for 7 Days and This Is What Happened’

This article was written by Jen Hubley Luckwaldt and provided by our partners at Rodale’s Organic Life.

The night before I embarked on my social media fast, I refreshed Facebook and Twitter so many times that my phone developed a stutter and I had to do a hard reset to make the touchscreen acknowledge my existence. It took less than a minute for my phone to come back to life, but in that time, I worked myself up into a froth, thinking about how I was going to be cheated out of my last few minutes of liking people’s puppies and babies and home renovations. (As well as judging all their life choices, of course.)

Getting so upset over momentary loss of access to a couple of apps felt like proof that I needed a break. I make a lot of excuses for my social media addiction, but sometimes scanning my feeds feels uncomfortably close to a lab rat pressing a lever. Also, before I turned off my notifications and logged out for the week, my husband asked me if I was having some separation anxiety, and I said yes…totally forgetting that he was about to go on a trip for a few days. He pretended to believe me when I said I looked sad because he was going away, but we both knew what I was really obsessing over. I think that we can agree that people who love their spouse should have their travel schedule top of mind, instead of their news feed. Was spending the bulk of my time looking at carefully curated versions of other people’s lives taking too much time away from my own?

Related: 10 Ways To Keep Your Marriage Strong

So: For seven days, I went without Facebook, without Twitter, without Tumblr and Instagram and LinkedIn. Technically, I suppose I also went without Snapchat, but to be honest, I never use it, due to my old-person conviction that it’s taking pictures of my butt and mailing them to my friends and colleagues.

This is what happened during my week without social media.