I’m back from my 14 day social media break and goodness it was just what I needed to detach from my phone and re-focus on my priorities. If you’ve never intentionally taken a break from social media, I’d highly encourage you to do so! And for those of you who joined me on the 14 day challenge, I can’t wait to hear your reflections on your experience taking a break!

I wanted to share with you some things I noticed about my own habits during my social media break:

1. Mornings were more peaceful - Previously, it was my habit to wake up in the morning and check my phone - messages, emails, texts, social - all while my brain was foggy and waking up. Once I removed all of my social apps, I found myself waking up, snuggling my children, and getting right into the day. In my house, mornings includes breakfast ASAP (my kids wake up starving), diapers/change, family prayers, coffee. It was SUCH a nice way to wake up. I found that I was less irritable, more motivated and energetic, and our mornings were more peaceful.

2. Triggers - During the first week, when I found myself in a stressful moment, I noticed that I would sit down and want to check my phone. Since I removed all the social apps, there was like 3 minutes worth of apps to check (basically just texts/emails). As I sat there, I realized that for some reason, I have the habit of turning to my phone to de-stress. Which usually doesn’t help me. After a few times of this happening- sitting down and pulling out my phone and staring at nothing (since I removed all my “fun” apps), it was like a light bulb went off! Instead of taking that stressful moment and turning to God and asking for help, I was turning to my phone instead. The same was true for when I was bored. Making that connection was really helpful and insightful, and it opened me up to more opportunities to pray.

3. I didn’t miss it. I was surprised by this one. As you likely know, I LOVE the Instagram community and the connections found there. Some of my best friends in real life were made on social media. It’s been such a blessing in my life. But stepping away, I felt more free. Free to live my life without the pressure of taking photos and posting. As the 2 weeks drew to a close, I was conflicted about re-installing my apps. During the break, I found myself thinking a lot about social media; like what content I wanted to share in the future. But this time it was different. My ideas weren’t based on seeing what everyone else was doing, but rather, it was inspired by my personal conversations, my readings, and time spent in prayer. I knew I wasn’t going to walk away for good, since the Lord has placed more on my heart to share, but I’m determined to find a way to continue using social media in a way that was intentional.

4. I was less irritable - This one is hard to admit, but I did notice that I was much less grumpy while on my phone less. When I was on my phone, blogging or scrolling, I would constantly be interrupted by my kids, and there’s something about jumping in and out of phone use that made me easily irritable. This is was one area I knew in my heart I needed to change. My goal in this season of life is to bring my peace to our home, and this was not helping me towards that goal. Away from my phone, I was able to more easily lean into parenting and household duties with less of a “lag”.

5. I started to read again! Admittedly, I am not much of a reader. Well, I love reading to my kids, but when it comes to personal reading, I fail miserably. I have so many good books on my shelf that I’d love to read. I knew I wanted to set aside time each day to read, so I set out 2 books next to my usual sitting areas in the house so when I sat down to nurse or hold a sleeping baby in my usual spots, my book was right there! It filled up my soul to read a spiritual book, and gave me good thoughts to ponder on throughout the day.

6. I was able to develop a continuous thought throughout the day. This one makes me laugh, because as a mom, I’m being pulled in a thousand directions all day long. At any given moment, I’m either preparing food, changing children, helping break up conflict, cleaning up said food, modeling phrases like “say thank you” or “and how do you ask nicely?” cleaning or folding laundry, creating shopping lists, oh and also nursing 5000 times a day. Not to mention homeschooling and church! Needless to say, mom life is FULL! With that, comes the downside of not being able to keep my thoughts focused. But interestingly enough, when I woke up in the morning thinking about something, I was able to continue thinking about that same thing throughout the day. Instead of being bombarded by hundreds of images and/or captions on social media, my thoughts were organic. I found that I was less distracted even in my own thoughts.

7. Cold Turkey was the right choice for me- I found that deleting my apps was the only way to fight the temptation to open social media. In the past I’ve tried using the “screen time” limits on my iPhone but it didn’t work for long when I really wanted to just “see” what I was missing. I would always click past the safe guard. Deleting them completely was the best method for me. I also deleted anything that might suck me in, that wasn’t social media like games, Pinterest, and shopping apps.

8. “Where’s my phone?” - How many times a day do you say this phrase? I’m constantly losing my phone at home. I couldn’t sit down to relax without first searching for my phone. But after a little detox, I would often set down my phone and forget it for hours and hours. That was one of the most significant changes for me honestly. I was in the habit of constantly trying to find my phone - for no apparent reason - except for that feeling that I needed to have it with me at all times. And of course, the more my phone was with me, the more I was on it. One of my main motivations for taking a social media break was so that I could break myself of the habit of constantly checking my phone. Without these highly addictive app with endless feeds - I was able to set it down and walk away for significant portions of the day. It made me feel proud knowing I was using my phone intentionally and that my kids weren’t seeing my on my phone all the time too.

9. Phone zombie alert! Since I was more aware of my own habits, I noticed during the 14 days that everywhere I went, almost every adult had a smart phone in their hands. I started to see the world that my children are growing up in, surrounded by adults on their phones (myself included). I don’t allow my kids to play on my phone, just out of personal conviction, but what message am I sending by always checking my own phone? They are learning habits by watching me, and I want to model for them better habits. I need to do better, for them. Seeing it from their perspective reinforced that I needed to continue to be vigilant and intentional about my own phone usage.

10. Do you ever just stare into your kids eyeballs and soak them in? Well, I did this a LOT more when I wasn’t on my phone. I even sat down on the floor with my 2 year old to play with her, and she was confused. She asked me, “Mommy, why are you playing with me?” It was a dagger to my heart! Lord have mercy on me! I want to be the kind of mom that prays, reads, plays, prepares nutritious meals, goes to church, and helps others in need. As silly as it sounds, being away from social media allowed me to step back, look at my life, and re-prioritize and re-structure my days. I don’t have the answers yet on how I will continue using social media intentionally, but I am committed to continuously work on it.

Being away was an eye opening experience for me, and I don’t want to squander the gifts and lessons God is teaching me through this experience. I love the quote by Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is how we spend out lives.” I want to spend my days using every moment well, not sucked into a virtual world, glued to my phone. It’s no easy task, as these apps are designed to keep us using them constantly. I am intentional in so many areas of my life- so it’s no surprise to me that I need to also be intentional in my use of technology.

I didn’t set out to have some super deep experience by detaching from social media, but rather to address my own personal habits that I knew in my heart I needed to change. I included this quote above, but I want to write it out again because I think it perfectly articulates the importance of being diligent and self aware, so that we don’t fall into the many snares and temptations that are set before us by the evil one:

“Be attentive to yourself. That is, observe yourself carefully from every side. Let the eye of the soul be sleepless to guard you. You walk in the midst of snares. Hidden traps have been set by the enemy in many places. Therefore observe everything, that you may be saved like a gazelle from traps and like a bird from snares.”

- St Basil the Great

As I move forward, I plan to implement some “rules” for myself on using social apps. I’ll let you know how it goes as the week progress. I hope to share more insight on this journey of being intentional, if you’re interested. And I’m sure you know, but with most things I am learning as I go. I have no expertise in this area. Thanks for allowing me to share my own experience with you!

If you joined me on the 14 day challenge, I’d love to hear your thoughts on your own experience! Share in the comments!

❤️ Khouria Destinie