A short break to Cornwall to stay with friends was the prompt I needed to initiate a self-imposed restriction on screen time. Feels actually quite sickening to think I would even need to do this. So whilst we were away there would be no scrolling Instagram or watching YouTube videos. I did take a book but didn’t manage too much of it. I did however get to read two graphic novels lent to me by my friend Mark that we were staying with. I’ll cover that in a separate post.

Anyway, we got back a couple of days ago and yesterday I went back onto Instagram. I don’t quite know how to eloquently explain it but it was a very stressful experience. My whole reaction was led by anxiety. That sounds like an over reaction to what is just an app on my phone but somehow that is how I react to it. So that was enough of a reason for me to delete my accounts, I have a personal and ‘business’ one. It will disappear from screens immediately but will take a month for them to confirm final deletion. Felt good to just rip the plaster off and delete immediately. What happens next I don’t know, but right now I don’t care either.

My relationship with YouTube never felt as stressful. In fact, I would always queue up lots of videos to watch later. When I was tired, I would turn on the TV and watch them, one after the other. I also had a stack of saved channels that would continue my feed to endless videos to watch. But looking with fresh eyes yesterday, felt like I was sat willingly at an all you can eat buffet and I was never full. Didn’t go as far as I did with IG as I feel I do get more from YouTube, but I did remove all of my Watch Later playlists and removed all of my channel descriptions.

There is relief in taking action. I also know I can undo any of these actions too but right now, I hope I don’t.

I realised, particularly with my Instagram accounts, I was continually looking at what other people were doing, how they were doing it, what they were achieving and in lots of cases, I was actively cheering them on through likes and reshares. And some of that I really enjoyed, particularly the cheerleading others.

But I have limited energy and I was spending it way to freely on others. When we fly, we are told in case of emergency that we are to make sure our own oxygen mask is securely placed before helping others. I think that’s what I need to do now. I need to focus more on what I am doing and take care of my own business first rather than that of others. And by business, I don’t mean in a literal sense. I mean more of focussing on what makes me feel better and what makes me a better person.

It has also opened my eyes to how large a consumer I was. I pride myself that in the retail sense, I am very careful not to overbuy and to be conscious. However it seems in the ‘content’ world, I am a massive consumer without seemingly having limits. Time to be more conscious. Of course socials and video sharing platforms have a space. Time for me to use them more consciously though, only taking what I need and not trying to digest everything I am served whilst still looking for more.

So the only place I will now be sharing anything will be on here. If you want me to let you know when I post new updates, I have a mailing list you can join. I also understand that you may not want to and that’s cool too.