5 Road Signs Telling You to Do a Social Media Detox

001. Scrolling brings you anxiety.

If you’ve never experienced anxiety, it’s not always just one symptom. Anxiety can be feeling like your heart is racing out of control, excessive sweating, your muscles getting stiff, headaches and stomachaches. This was one of my major road signs that I needed to log off of social media for a bit.

002. You’re in a constant state of comparison

If you suddenly find yourself unhappy with things you were happy with before; your house, your clothes, your appearance, your body image - you might be comparing your lives to the others you see behind a screen. Remember- you are only seeing their highlight reel. And more times than not - it’s probably been edited in some form or fashion. I didn’t realize I was doing this - but I was definitely comparing my life with other Instagram moms. They had everything I ever wanted, the huge yard, 5 kids running around - and they were always super happy, healthy & put together! This only made my infertility harder to deal with. Truth be told, everyone has their own struggles but nobody puts those on display.

003. You haven’t created anything in a while.

If you’re a creative person and you haven’t actually created anything in a while - you might be drowning in other people’s work. This is one good way to pull all your creative energy and motivation right out from under your feet. Take a few days away from your apps and see if you get a fresh perspective. Maybe you are not a creative person - but have you stopped doing other things you used to love doing?

004. You notice yourself not paying attention to the people right in front of you.

Social media is an amazing tool that was created with the best of intentions - to help us communicate and socialize. However, when we are face to face with people, it’s easy to forget to put our phones down and focus on the conversation right in front of us. Personally, this is the biggest sign that you might need to do a social media detox. When my husband lovingly pointed out that he had been trying to carry on a conversation with me but I couldn’t take my eyes off my phone - it broke my heart and I realized I needed to change a few things. Here I was with the love of my life trying to capture my attention but I couldn’t take my eyes off of a (most likely ridiculous political) Facebook post long enough to answer his question. That’s ridiculous.

005. You have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) when you aren’t scrolling through your social media apps.

I know this sounds crazy but “fear-of-missing-out” is a legit thing. For the first week of my “detox,” I would catch myself grabbing my phone to see what so & so was up to because it was probably something SUPER FUN that I was missing out on! (Even though I already knew most of my friends were playing it safe in quarantine like me.) Not having Facebook will definitely prompt you to text and call your friends more often to check in on them, and that’s never a bad thing!

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes... including you.”

— Anne Lamott