I joined Facebook in 2009, Instagram in 2011, and TikTok in 2019. 

I have spent the entirety of my adult life with an online presence and a job that dealt with growing and maintaining social media accounts for various brands, influencers, entrepreneurs, etc. and I have been posting daily for either myself or a brand for all of my 20s. 

Over the past several years but especially this year I was struggling a lot with what it means to have a job that requires you to be very online. Both from a perspective of how do I make sure that I am contributing positively online and how do I make sure social media isn’t negatively impacting me? 

After hitting what I will kindly refer to as my breaking point, I decided to take the plunge and take a full week off from social media. Something that felt impossible, considering my job, but extremely important and necessary. Especially because part of my job has been about encouraging people to grow their own online presence. 

So what happens when a social media manager takes a week off?

Leading up to taking the time off I had been hearing people say how hard they thought it would be, or that they could never do that, or people were wondering what I would do with all that extra time. Luckily for me as soon as those apps were off my home screen, it truly was an out of site out of out-of-mind situation. 

I am not sure if it works like that for everyone, but I felt a weight lift off me when I realized I got to have an entire week without any input from an online community. I was excited. 

Taking an entire week off from Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok was such a breath of fresh air. Before starting this challenge I made a list of all the things I wanted more time for things like, decluttering(some stuff had really built up), reading, creative writing projects, making my Halloween costume, social events, working out, etc. I found myself filling my time pretty easily and honestly dreading going back after the week was over. There was never a lack of things to do and I felt less rushed in my day-to-day than I normally would. 

Part of that more relaxed energy had to do with the fact that I didn’t need to film everything or be planning out future content. Something that had been creeping in on my personal life rather than staying on the business side. 

But another part of that lack of stress and feeling of more time was because my day was not being constantly interrupted by social media. Before was constantly consuming content,  everything from what outfit I should be wearing to complex political issues that were being debated by people without any real context. The whiplash I was experiencing from consuming SO MUCH content all the time was making me sick. 

It’s already so difficult to process tragedies and understand complicated political events when you are actually present and calm. Watching snippets of a mass shooting (or war breaking out, someone fleeing their home because they felt unsafe, natural disasters, the list goes on) day after day while I was waiting for my workout class, or in the middle of a conversation with my friends, or right before teaching a workshop wasn’t sustainable. 

It didn’t seem like a problem at first, and I will be honest it took YEARS of being online the way I was for me to see the impact. But it was seeping through, I couldn’t go to an event or get through the workday without feeling the literal weight of the world, as portrayed through TikTok and Instagram. But, I had thought to myself that I was staying informed and remaining empathetic and thoughtful about the world by knowing. 

I am still trying to find my balance between being informed and educated on world events, personal stories, and breaking news versus just consuming thing after thing after thing. Instead of video content, I am reading more and being selective about when I am going to spend time online. 

*cough* not right before an important meeting *cough* 

So, what’s next?

Since returning to social media I have put some new boundaries in place that I am excited to share. I am still in the experimenting phase and I expect this to be a relationship that ebbs and flows like all good relationships do. 

• No social media before 9 AM.
• No social media after 7 PM.
• Dedicated time to scroll during the work day. *15-minutes for each app
• Stick to creating content during dedicated days or times. Your entire life should not become content. 
• Publish your post and sign off on weekends. 

If you have been considering a break from social media, especially if you are someone who finds themself online more than they would like, I encourage you to do it!