Wake up and turn alarm off. Roll over in bed. Grab phone and check Instagram. After scrolling through recent pictures, check Twitter. Becoming bored with the timeline, check Facebook. Finally, and only when everything has been seen, get up and get ready for the day.
This is my typical morning routine, and if I had to guess, many others spend their mornings in a similar way. If nobody had fallen into these bad habits, we would have a lot of extra time in the morning: time to eat a good breakfast, work out and organize the day, all if we didn’t waste it on social media.
If cutting social media out of mornings could drastically alter them, how else could daily life be affected?
Would we stroll down the street, actually noticing the people and our surroundings? Would we devote our full attention in class, not constantly worrying about the text messages and notifications we’re missing? Would we make better, unforgettable memories, being entirely present in every moment?
It’s easy to become wrapped up in a funny tweet, aesthetically pleasing Instagram picture or entertaining Facebook video, but how often do we take a step back and realize what we’re actually missing? Would our lives feel more complete by cutting social media out?
There was a time where people didn’t have to worry about constantly refreshing their applications, and as our parents and grandparents say, it was a much simpler time. We’re too stuck in our ways to reverse them now, but surely there’s a way to climb out of the social media hole that we’ve dug ourselves in.
I believe the main problem is treating our smartphones and other gadgets as a priority; we prioritize this technology over others and even ourselves, choosing to indulge in social media rather than activities that could advance our education, health or social lives.
If we could divert our focus away from our phones and social media for a small amount each day, it’ll start to add up, resulting in better relationships and a fuller life– the type of life our parents said they grew up in, without phones.
