What I've learnt from my recent digital detox

If you asked me last year if I could go a week without social media, I would have quivered at the thought. For the last seven years my life has revolved around social media, so much so that I've spent family occasions glued to my phone, missed out on spending time with my friends as I was too concerned about picturing the moment than speaking to them and every evening instead of enjoying precious time with my husband, I would be on my phone from the moment I got home to the time I went to bed.

Social media is a great way of staying connected, but at times it can turn into a bit of an obsession and really affect a person's mental health. I got to the point where I began comparing myself to other people, getting FOMO seeing people I cared about spending time with others and not me and I turned to Instagram filtering my life to make everything look perfect when it wasn't.  This isn't social media bashing - I love social media and it is such a large part of my life and my job, if it wasn't for social media, I would have never built a successful blog.

I never intentionally went on a digital detox, it just happened. One day I just decided to log out of Instagram and put my phone down and hours later, I realised that I didn't feel the need to check my phone anymore. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks and I began enjoying the pressure-free, digital free life.  I spent the time that I would have been editing photographs or on social media, learning how to cook, going out with my friends and husband and not worrying about curating the perfect Instagram shot, it was liberating.

My mental health improved

One of the biggest improvements I saw since stepping away from social media was that my mental health improved. I felt like I didn't have to be someone I'm not anymore and live up to the Instagram perfect life. I could relax and sleep better on a night without checking my phone at ridiculous o'clock too.

I learnt who my real followers are

Since taking a bit of a blogging break, my engagement across social has dropped tremendously - it is like starting from scratch all over again. I've lost a lot of followers and only get a handful of likes on Instagram now, but the people who are liking my posts are the ones who have stuck around for months or years and supported me through every step I made. I'm happier to have those people in my life, than a dozen fakes.

I'm beginning to love life again

Social media took me to quite a dark place after I experienced some horrible comments from trolls.  It made me doubt myself and I became quite paranoid of the people hiding behind a screen name - do I even know them and if not, what do they have against me? Thankfully time is a healer and my time away has made me realise that the people who made those comments were just jealous of my life and right now I'm in a happier place than I've ever been.

It has made me reevaluate my blog for the better

My break from social has made me reevaluate my blog for the better and take a thorough look at the content I'm creating. It has made me realise that I would rather write about what makes me happy and what could be helpful for other people than write content just for the sake of it.

I can look forward to my life off my screen

The time I spend offline has given me the chance to focus on my life off screen by learning new hobbies and taking a closer look at my career. In the last few months, I've been able to spend more time cooking, I've made some improvements to the house and I've recently accepted a new job.

Have you ever taken a digital detox?