Hola amig@s! I’ve been sitting on this topic for a few weeks, so today I wanted to update you on why I deleted social media from my phone just about a month ago.

Essentially my train of thought was as follows: I’m in a new country, trying to build new relationships, trying to understand the culture, but yet still trying to stay in touch with my family and friends back home. Let’s be honest- social media has been a great tool to keep us connected to literally everyone we know and have ever known. But for me, the disadvantages started to outweigh the advantages.

For almost a month now I have deleted snapchat, twitter, and facebook from my phone. At first I thought it would only be temporary but soon after I realized I wasn’t going back. I have timers set on my phone to limit my usage of social media but sometimes I would completely ignore the limit and hit “remind me in 15 minutes.” I think I’m pretty good at limiting my phone usage when I’m with people, but when I’m in my room alone I tend to use social media more than I should. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to cut my phone usage in half (which I have successfully done twice), but I still felt like I was missing the bigger picture. Since I only have people I know and care about on snapchat, as opposed to Instagram, it was always easy for me to dismiss those usage limits because I care about keeping in touch with my close friends and maintaining strong relationships. Although snapchat allows you to send instantaneous photos and videos of your day to keep in touch, it was actually becoming more of a false sense of communication than anything. To send out a mass snapchat to 10 of your closest friends isn’t meaningful communication. I began to realize people only post on their stories to brag or show off what they’re doing, or in some cases calling out for help. This type of mass communication is actually a false sense of communication and works contradictory against the goal of human-connection- and I didn’t want to have any part of that anymore.

Some of my friends have wondered where I’ve gone and at times I do miss how easy Snapchat makes communication… However, it forces me to have real conversations with the friends I miss instead of just sending them a random snapchat of what I’m doing that day. Twitter and facebook are both two more distractions that I’ve actually gotten used to being without. It’s crazy how little you I miss these applications when they aren’t at my fingertips anymore.

Deleting social media was one step I took to work towards my goals of being intentional with communication and efficient with my time, but now I encourage you to practice some reflection.

We’re now almost 3 months into the start of 2019. How are you doing on your New Years Resolutions? Have you forgotten or dismissed any of them? Do you go through the motions of each day or do you take each day by the reins to accomplish your goals? Can you change your habitual actions into intentional actions? If you don’t like it- change it. Time is priceless and each day is a new opportunity to seize if we don’t let it pass us by. It’s never too late to start a new, even small, habit that can drastically change your life for the better.

Thanks for sticking with me and I wish you luck in your reflections!

Xoxo, El

Also, as Pessoa would agree, is it not enough to enjoy without letting others know we enjoy? To try to share or brag in this conceited way diminishes the enjoyment in the first place. Do you intend to make someone else’s day worse by showing off how great yours is? A penny for your thoughts…