THE IMPORTANCE OF LOGGING OFF

So much of our lives is online these days, social media has a very clever way (it's in the name after all) of making you feel like you're being social, when you're usually doing the exact opposite. I don't need to interact with half of my family, because I can read what they're up to online by scrolling through their photos or commenting on their status updates. It's so easy to think that you've 'caught up' with someone, when in reality you read a few tweets or watched an Instagram story. I am guilty of this, without a doubt and whilst social media and the online world has an unfathomable amount of perks, it has it's pitfalls too and this is definitely one of them.

Working from home has understandably saw an increase in my presence on social media, I can be active throughout most of the day, something that wasn't possible in my old job. It's helpful in many ways as I don't miss a thing, but when it comes to sitting down to work, it can be the biggest hindrance too. I can lose hours scrolling, just whizzing through my feed and the minutes tick by almost as fast as my hands glide up and down the screen. Even though it doesn't seem like the most obvious time wasting process, it really is, because I'm not being productive and achieving anything, yet they are minutes and moments I can't claw back, invested into apps that invest nothing back to me.

If I left the house without my phone, would I turn back to go and get it? The answer was yes. Why? Because I could break down, there could be an emergency, anything could happen. I told myself these were the predominate reasons and quite frankly the sole reason I would have to do a u-turn to go and grab it. I was lying to myself, sure the reasons are logical, but they're not probable and I can't tell you a time when I've left the house and needed to use my phone for an emergency. I can't tell you because I don't think it's ever happened. What's the worse that could go wrong in a 5 minute car ride to Asda? What's much more likely is I'd run back to grab my phone, sit in the car for ten minutes scrolling before I found the energy to turn the ignition and then I'd repeat the process when I arrived at my destination. Effectively turning a thirty minute trip into something closer to an hour. Ridiculous, and a clear sign it's time to log off. The excuse of work is another one that sits right at the top of the list. Part of my job is, as much as it cringes me, to be a social media influencer. Audiences can be as fickle as algorithms and if you're not seen in a couple of days, then you disappear into the black abyss of nobody seeing anything you do eventually post anyway. It's a viscous circle and sometimes you have to cut your losses and accept that you don't have to, or need to, be active every single day. Scheduling tweets don't have to be links to your blog posts, you can chime in conversation and it doesn't mean it's any less authentic because you're putting it in a queue. Never feel guilty for putting down your phone in favour of picking up a book, or spending quality time with someone, there has to be balance.

For me the most obvious sign that it was time to log off, was my phone battery. Sure iphones are not renowned for lasting days, me and John joked about having old sony ericssons that could last a week before we charged them. It's obvious now that are phones are more mini computers than a bog standard mobile, actually making calls or texting is probably near the bottom of the list on what I use it for. The correlation between our usage and amount it needs to be recharged is undeniable though, and if I'm heading into the red battery stage up to four times a day, it's a sure sign that the phone needs to be put down and part of my life reclaimed back. The fomo is real, I would buy flowers for everyone who can tell me they can leave their social media accounts to the side for a week and miss nothing, I don't think I'd be much out of pocket.

My Instagram likes might dwindle for a few days after my absence, and I may never gain new followers on a weekend, but what I'll get back in terms of everything else far outweighs that. I don't feel the pressure anymore to have my phone glued to my hand, I can enjoy my days with the boys without having to refresh social media every hour or be capturing the day on instagram stories. What I miss across social wont compare to what I could have missed in life whilst I was busy scrolling.

*This is a sponsored post