On August 6 of this year, Kathryn Budig (a pro-yogini) wrote an article for MindBodyGreen about her week-long social media cleanse. I had no idea because I too was on a social media cleanse. I went a bit longer (2 months off facebook) and a bit deeper into the feelings and thoughts surrounding my own social media use.

Why Cleanse from Social Media?

Yoga is all about purification. A cleanse / detox is usually about taking out the crap and getting back to what your body, mind and spirit need.

For me, I had a life-altering event that shook open my eyes to where I was leaking my life-force and when grief was added in, well, I wasn’t really capable of scrolling through the mumbo jumbo. In the words of my therapist, “You have to trim the fat.”

I was given the gift of acknowledging what was real (I hope we can all agree that social media is far from it), what friendships look / feel like, and what true, authentic vulnerability is (not what parades around especially in the yoga communities as fierce vulnerability aka an open platform and a cry for attention).

A little bit of sciencey research:

• On April 30, Forbes published an article linking heavy social media use to depression
• Reader’s Digest reports that high social media usage is correlated to lower self-control, users are more open to peer pressure, and it hurts user’s self-esteem
• Users who are more reclusive naturally tend to have the most negative side effects
• In fall of 2014, Facebook conducted a study by manipulating the feeds of thousands of unsuspecting users to see if they could alter their moods by placing happy or sad content in their feeds… and they could!

A Simple Test

An easy way to see if you need to do a social media cleanse is to check in with yourself and your mood before and after going on social media. If you feel more inspired after social media, march on soldier. If you are anything like myself, you may experience a heaviness, a decrease in your happiness, or just a plain disconnect.

“Social Media is Meant to Bring Us Closer”

So the argument goes. But rather, it lets us press a “Like” button so we don’t have to make a phone call, reach out and check in with those who we care about. There is no substitute to the human connection – through voice, touch, and eye contact. Social media is an easy-out.

And it can even have negative effects on future real-life encounters. You may have experienced that weird interaction when you see someone and you already know everything about their recent travels so you have nothing to talk about. Or your new view of that person is shaped not by who they are but how you have categorized them through their social media posts. The election has been great business for the latter.

FoMO – Why We Continue Using

FoMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out, is the biggest culprit to why we keep logging in. FOMO is “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere” as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, which added it in 2013.

From Psychology Today:

Some of the negative consequences of FoMO reported by our participants included: Increased feelings of being singled out; increased dishonesty in the portrayal of one’s self-image; increased feelings of personal inadequacy; increased feelings of loneliness; increased unfair judgements of others; increased dissatisfaction with one’s life; increased detachment from family and friends; and increased jealousy in relation to the lives of others.

So, what did I learn?

• There is no substitute for true friendship and true friendship requires more than supporting and watching each other through social media
• The excuses I used to validate my logging in were not really substantial (i.e. “I couldn’t find certain news articles online on my own,” “I have to stay online for business purposes,” etc.)
• Social media is most commonly a waste of time, a self-deprecating antidote to immediate discomfort and boredom, and a ticket out of the present moment
• I felt better without it

My biggest takeaways?

After logging out for two months, I decided to share an article on grief on my facebook page. Since I hadn’t been current, commenting / sharing / liking, my audience became a lot smaller. Only my “super-users” were actually exposed to what I posted. Likewise, my feed was filled with those people who I am a “super-user” for. It was very refreshing to have almost a clean slate with my presence and support.

It inspired me to cleanse my friend list – made up of friends from elementary through college, travels overseas, yogis all over, and some people I don’t even know(!). I had read years ago that one cannot keep relationships up with more than 300 people at a time on social media (that number is now at 150) and new research is showing that over 300 friends can increase stress levels. I reduced my almost 600 friends to just under 300, and my apologies to anyone who may be offended.

I can remember telling my sister during my facebook cleanse,

“If you want to be a part of my life, be a part of my life. If you don’t want to be a part of my life, follow me on social media.”

My wish for you is that whatever social media you are using is adding to and not taking away from your life. The present moment is really all we have. Be present for one another, take your eyes off your phone when you have company, and keep diving deep into the “why” of your own social media usage.

Oh, and please like and share 😉

EDITOR’S NOTE: This blog was originally published on jesilee.com