Social Media Breaks

I've been avoiding social media. I find it really good for me every now and then to just take a step back and let my brain breathe a bit. Most of the time I love looking at everyone's stuff. The internet is amazing. I'm so nosy, I love to see people's lives and I love art so much, it's amazing to be able to follow so many amazing artists and most of the time it's great.

Sometimes I'll realise I'm not actually looking at what I'm scrolling past which then feels like a waste and sometimes seeing all these amazing things makes me feel bad about myself. Seeing people with things I don't have makes me feel poor and unsuccessful. Seeing cool drawings makes me feel uninspired and incapable of good ideas. When I realise that is happening I take a break. I don't set a time on it, I just stop opening the app until I feel ready to again. I've taken complete breaks and I've done, like this time, breaks from looking but I'll still try and post. (and then I wonder if that's hypocritical of me, why should people use the app to see me if I'm not using the app to see others?) I've consciously done it a few times now and it always helps. I spend the time looking at other things and I spend more time with myself mentally and I start to feel more creative again. I don't think social media is the cause of my problem but I've noticed it can sometimes make it worse so I just stop for a bit, get some air.

I've started looking at twitter again so I'm sure I'll be back in instagram soon too, and I'll try to be more intentional in how I use it so that maybe, eventually, I'll be able to use them in a way that doesn't contribute to me feeling bad about myself because I really do love seeing everyone's posts but obviously when it starts having a negative impact on me it's a good idea to stop until it will be positive again.