Weekend Projects: Try a Social Media Fast
Apartment Therapy Weekend Projects is a guided program designed to help you get the happy, healthy home you’ve always wanted, one weekend at a time. Sign up now for email updates so you never miss a lesson.
Social media isn’t all bad. But it most certainly isn’t all good. From increased anxiety and depression, memory loss and disrupted sleep to the more subtle impact of FOMO and missed opportunities to create meaningful in person connections, social media can be a double-edged sword.
One way to know for sure how being on social media affects you personally is to take it out of the equation for a bit. I’ve done this for a few days at a time and have been shocked at the peace and calm I’ve enjoyed during those periods.
This weekend, let’s experiment with a mini social media fast.
This Weekend: Take a break from social media.
Don’t count on self-control to limit your social media consumption. Take temptation off the table by deleting social media apps from your phone. You might be met with a scary warning about what happens if you delete them, but you will not lose your account or your data. All deleting social media apps from your phone does is … delete the apps from your phone.
Also, don’t feel like you need to make any announcements about your “departure” or need to worry that you’ll miss important information from the PTA or your plant lovers’ group; your fast only needs to be a couple days long.
Do pay attention to the times when you instinctively reach for your phone. Also take note of how much more free or unhurried time you seem to have without the distraction and time-suck of social media. Do you have the mental space to connect more with the people around you? Are you making significant progress in that book you’ve been reading? Most of all, tune in to any differences in how you feel without social media in your daily life.
At the end of the weekend, take a few minutes to consider what you’ve learned from the experience and whether you want to make any changes in how you re-integrate social media into your life.
Sorry, this list is no longer accepting subscriptions.
Feel free to subscribe to our other emails.
You can catch up with weekend projects right here. Share your progress with us and others by posting updates and photos on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #atweekendproject.
Remember: This is about improvement, not perfection. Each week you can either choose to work on the assignment we’ve sent you, or tackle another project you’ve been meaning to get to. It’s also completely okay to skip a weekend if you’re busy or not feeling the assignment.