This is why I'm never leaving social media again

If you’re a frequenter of my blog, then you know that I gave up all social media minus the blog for lent. Needless to say, my readership went way down because I wasn’t barraging everyone asking them to read every week. I did still have some faithful readers, however, and those people carried me during my Lenten period. Much like Jesus in the desert, I, too, felt weak and alone without the comforting arms of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.

The first few days were tough. It was hard to not whip out my phone and get on everything in an uncomfortable situation. Imagine, I actually had to talk to people before class. And I found myself getting super irritated at my friends when we would hang out and they would check their phones every five minutes. If you’re laughing thinking, “that’s totally not me,” trust me, it is you. They probably didn’t even realize they did it because it’s so instinctual. But I kept whining to myself “HANG OUT WITH ME! TALK TO ME!” but I know I’ve done it in the past and will probably do it sometime in the future so I can't be too mad.

But seriously, I was able to enjoy little things when sitting outside before class or riding in the car or at a friend’s house. It was easy after the first few days but then it got super hard the last few days as I waited ever so impatiently. I’m not saying what I did was heroic because truth be told I hardly feel like I did the true Catholic Lent (honestly it was more of a social experiment), but I did gauge how much I rely on social media.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I missed tweeting and posting about a lot of major events because I chose to give it up. So while it was nice interacting with people face to face, I also think it’s important to interact via any means possible. Plus I spent the first few weeks trying to cope without having something to do with my spare time by spending a lot of money online shopping. And that’s not any better.

At the end of the day I am happy that I was able to last 40-something days without it but I would never ever ever do it again.