No Screen Challenge

Each month I will be embarking on a new habit-changing challenge. I’m hoping that by being very strict with these challenges for 30 days, once the challenge is over I will be able to incorporate these healthier habits into my life in a more realistic way. They say it takes 21 days to create a habit, so I’m testing that theory with these challenges. At the end of each month, I will write a blog post letting you know how it went! 

Rules: No television, no video games, no YouTube, no social media. The exceptions are if it is a family experience I am sharing with people I love. I’m not going to leave the room if my entire family decides to watch a movie together, but if I’m by myself, no ma’am. Things that are allowed: texting, phone calls, podcasts, music, audio books, and necessary apps like the calculator or GPS. I’m not trying to go off the grid or make myself go insane.

Reason: I definitely have a screen problem. I’m addicted to television and to social media, and I typically can’t do one without the other. So this month, I will still maintain contact with the people I love and I will still listen to things that add value to my life, but I will not be a slave to the screen. More reading, more cooking, more eating dinner at the dinner table. This is especially important this time of year when families get together for the holidays. If I only get a couple days to see my family for Christmas, I don’t want to be on Facebook the whole time. Plus, I have a new book idea, but can’t seem to get the motivation to start writing. If I keep bogging down all my imagination time with constant content, I will never be bored. I will never allow my mind to wander. To create. To write in silence. So I’m hoping that by eliminating these distractions, my creative juices will flow again.

Result:

I actually did it! I had absolutely no problem giving up social media, although when I stopped checking the app every day, Facebook decided to email me “important” updates, which is a little ridiculous. But I deleted my Facebook app so I wouldn’t get the (over 200) notifications throughout the month. I logged out of Twitter and Instagram. And this time, I didn’t even post a “taking a break” status hahaha. And guess what? No one cared. Life moved on. I didn’t miss out on anything important. I didn’t get constant updates about the Trump crap. I didn’t waste time on pointless meme scrolling on Reddit. I didn’t check my phone first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 

But I did spend a little more time with the people I love. Colton and I actually got a recipe from a physical cookbook and followed it one night. I read 8 books this month alone and am hoping to keep up my reading frenzy in 2020. And I didn’t do things simply to be able to post them. This is something I realized this month and it really hit home: I had been thinking in tweets. Taking pictures for Facebook. Thinking of cool things to do for Instagram. And that is not okay. You should live your life without the thought of social media being in the back of your mind. So for the first time ever, since I first got a Facebook in 2008, I thought about deleting it. I thought about completely signing off so my life wouldn’t be dictated by sharing my every thought and action with my followers. 

But you need to remember that social media is a tool, and used in the right context, it can be good. So I’m not going fully off the grid. But I’m not exactly going back either. I’m signing off of Twitter for now, and we’ll see if I ever go back to that. I’m keeping the Facebook and Reddit apps off my phone so I’m not slave to scrolling in my free time. One of my favorite authors got his screen time down to 15 minutes a day, and I want to strive for that. It’s crazy how these little screens have had such an effect on our lives, but I don’t want to let them run mine. So I’ll continue to be intentional with my posting, with who I’m following and friending, and with my scroll time. I want to be more fully aware of what’s going on in the real world around me, and not what’s going on online.