During one of my health kicks in college (a time where I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be vegetarian, vegan, or pescetarian), I watched the Netflix documentary “Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead” and was inspired to attempt my own 5-day juice cleanse. No solid foods, just liquefied fruits and veggies for those five days. I'd heard that Beyonce and other popular celebrities had done it before the day of an important shoot or promo event. It was just for five days, how bad could it be?
Very bad, as it turns out. The first night -- the only night of my juice cleanse before I put the kibosh on the whole idea -- I slept very little. My stomach gurgled and groaned, begging for something solid or at the very least, salty. The next day, I ripped open a box of Wheat Thins like it was a Willy Wonka chocolate bar with a golden ticket inside. I’m happy to report that my 5-day Detox Data experiment went much more smoothly than my attempted juice cleanse of 2013, though not without a few hiccups. For my experiment, I chose to abstain from Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat for five days. Though it would’ve been more interesting to give up texting, email, and Facebook over the week, I’m in the midst of maid of honor duties, job hunting, and event planning. I’ve never been a huge fan of Twitter or Snapchat but have both on my iPhone for some reason. Instagram, on the other hand, is my social media vice. I’m a visual person and have a love/hate relationship with how easy it is to get lost on the app. It’s almost as bad as Pinterest. One glance at someone’s Instagram profile can give you a quick look into that person’s lifestyle and interests and the search hashtag feature gives me the ability to get endless inspiration for #fallfashion, #midcenturymodern bedroom designs, and #foodie dinner ideas. The two main criteria I wanted to explore in my experiment was 1) how many times I would be tempted to log into my ‘banned’ social media accounts, and 2) how I felt throughout each day, whether I logged into these accounts or chose to spend my time doing something else. I didn’t want to use an app like Rescue Time to track how much time I spent on every activity, since I figured it’d be ironic to use an app to reveal how much more beneficial it would be for me to allocate less time to apps. I did, however, like some of the tips from HumaneTech.com as it pertained to living “more intentionally with your devices right now.” Some of the tips I’d already implemented when I first got an iPhone, such as turning off all push notifications. Even back then, I knew I didn’t want all the added distractions that come with being a smartphone owner. I also kept my most important, non-social media apps on the first page of my phone so that I’d be less tempted to open Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. In hindsight, I would’ve been better off deleting them from my phone entirely but at least this way, I could intentionally practice the act of self-control. From Monday through Friday, I conducted this experiment. As one can see by my detox data results (see above), Twitter and Snapchat didn’t prove to be too challenging to abstain from, as I'd expected. But Instagram was more difficult. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m renovating my living space or am always looking for some travel inspiration via Instagram hashtags. Simply put, I love having access to a platform that is dedicated to aesthetics. I did notice that on the days I managed to not log onto these three social media accounts, or log on two times or less, I could spend that time focusing on more productive activities, such as my graduate work. It was also easier to abstain from social media on days where I had multiple commitments and appointments to attend, leaving no brain space for social media. The times that I did accidentally log onto social media were done out of pure habit. When I check my email on my phone, my fingers often automatically go through the rest of my most commonly used social media apps. I found this to be most evident when I first woke up in the morning, or if I was walking around, mindlessly scrolling through my phone. My usual routine for going through my phone goes like this: email → Facebook → Instagram → Snapchat, and if I’m truly bored, → Twitter. I learned, in reading the CNN article “Smartphone addiction could be changing your brain,” that I may not be much better than the smartphone-addicted teens writer Sandee LaMotte discusses. LaMotte uses the term “Nomophobia” to describe one’s fear of not having constant access to their cell/smartphone. In the Nomophobia Questionnaire, I scored a 62 -- yikes -- which means I “probably can’t go long without checking your phone.” I attribute this constant phone-checking partly due to the mentality I built during my time as a journalist. Missing that crucial text or phone call could mean losing my last chance of getting that quote I needed to finish my story and get my paycheck. According to Caglar Yildirim, an assistant professor of human computer interaction, smartphone addiction can result in severe anxiety for those who can’t have access to their phones. He says, “This might negatively affect your social life and relationships with friends and family. There are studies that show those who score high on the (Nomophobia) test tend to avoid face-to-face interactions, have high levels of social anxiety and maybe even depression.” I’ve definitely felt annoyed when I’ve been with friends who break eye contact with me every time their boyfriends text them but at the same time I realize that there have been moments when I too could have turned my device off. Being attached to my phone has caused me some anxiety, not because I fear not having immediate Internet access, but because I fear that I might miss an important email or notification. Yildirim also says that even when cell phone users attempt to be productive via multi-tasking, their attention is still divided: “We know that medium to heavy multitaskers, who engage in multiple forms of media simultaneously, tend to demonstrate matter area in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is the area of the brain responsible for top-down attention control. Altogether this means that if you are too dependent on your smartphone, you are basically damaging your ability to be attentive.” In reading Cal Newport’s “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World,” I found his comment about the “cacophony of voices” that try to tell deep workers what activities they need to be engaged in to be successful was compelling. He writes, “...we live in an era where anything Internet related is understood by default to be innovative and necessary. Depth-destroying behaviors such as immediate email responses and an active social media presence are lauded, while avoidance of these trends generates suspicion” (p. 75). Having worked in jobs where email, social media pages, and other administrative fluff were necessary, I can admit that I was often more stressed by these small, shallow tasks than by the meatier projects I also had to complete. “Many knowledge workers spend most of their working day interacting with these types of shallow concerns,” Newport writes. “...this is a foolhardy way to go about your day, as it ensures that your mind will construct an understanding of your working life that’s dominated by stress, irritation, frustration, and triviality. The world represented by your inbox, in other words, isn’t a pleasant world to inhabit” (p. 81). At the end of this week, I’ve come to the conclusion that my social media detox attempt was a thousand times more preferable to a juice cleanse. For one thing, I never once uttered “Dear God, please make it stop” during this week’s experiment. But I’ve also learned the value of using my time intentionally and not resorting to my smartphone when I’m bored or procrastinating on a project. Though I certainly could use more practice, I look forward to setting aside short bits of time for play and the rest for deep work and more meaningful life moments.
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