Feeling antisocial?

This may seem like a contradictory statement considering my full-time work, but I’ve gotta say it: being antisocial once in a while is great.

Now obviously I’m referring to social media, not personality traits. A couple of months ago, I first read about social media-free Sundays on – you guessed it – Facebook. It was a health-and-wellness site that had been shared by a friend and I took a look just for fun. I wish I could remember the name of the site to properly credit it, because it started me down a path of breaking my addiction to social media.

In the interest of full disclosure, I manage social media for a proprietary EMS service and a non-profit EMS agency. That means I manage two Facebook pages, two Facebook groups, two Instagram pages, two Twitter pages, one LinkedIn page, and one YouTube page in addition to my personal profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, and Twitter.

That’s a LOT of connectivity, so unplugging and reconnecting with the real world can be difficult.  So when I took vacation from my full time job on August 24th, I also became antisocial.  It felt so good…

For 11 days, I was free of electronic tethers. Sure, I still used my smartphone, just not as much. I won’t lie: I felt anxiety for the first few days. Phantom notifications, too. It got bad enough I moved the apps off the main screen of my phone just so they were “out of sight, out of mind”.

After those first few days, I became much more aware of my environment and found ways to better utilize my time instead of scrolling through my feeds for hours on end. I found the Mindfulness Coach app from the Department of Veterans Affairs and began incorporating its lessons into my daily life. I also transitioned my personal website to this WordPress platform and began writing again.

By yesterday, I didn’t miss social media at all. Then I logged in again today to begin the process of returning to work and handling the mountain of notifications that piled up while I was logged out. I also took a trip through my Facebook feed and within the first five minutes made a decision: I will be antisocial more frequently.

I won’t deny the powerful role social media plays in our daily lives. But taking time to disconnect with our electronics to reconnect with ourselves, our family, friends, and surroundings is so important. As adults, we need to take the initiative and teach our children that proper social behaviors don’t come from a screen. Being antisocial on a regular basis and interacting with real life is the best way to develop and grow meaningful relationships.

**Note: if you’re interested in the Mindfulness Coach app, you can read more about it here. You can also download it from the App store or Google Play.