I am on a social media break. I wonder if I can call it that seeing as how it’s been three months since I decided to cut back from social media and all it’s temptations.

Somewhere towards the end of 2018 I realised just how many of my decisions were actually adopted from someone else’s page or social media feed. The books I read, the music I listened to and the interests I threw myself into. Most of them were dictated by some stranger on the internet.

I think one of the pros of the internet is that we all have access to information. Whether it be through a trusted news sources, an article found on google scholar or a really attractive woman’s Instagram page – information is out there and with that comes the obvious temptation to consume and take it all in. The danger in doing this is that it also encourages us to be lazy in our thoughts and opinions, it allows us more room to follow and it fosters an environment where being the so-called black sheep is the worst thing you can possibly be.

I started noticing that my self-awareness was starting to chip off a bit as I deferred some key opinions to other people on the internet.

This of course doesn’t happen to all of us; some of us have the ability to see social media and the rest of the internet for what it is – a big blue ocean of information whereby careful discernment is necessary prior to drinking from the fountain. And I used to think of myself as one of these people until I started noticing some changes in how I made decisions big and small. I’d walk into the bookshop and I’d reach for books whose covers I recognised from my social media feed. I’d deliberately search and listen to music I saw propped up online as revolutionary and I’d never really stop and ask myself if I really enjoyed the melodies, what about the words? The meaning of the song? Was I truly listening or was I finding noise to fill my mind. I saw myself skim through articles, jump to the end to confirm an opinion I’d already seen a few minutes before on my twitter stream. It became a lot, I was wondering if there was any semblance of authenticity left in me. I needed to find that out for myself, I needed to discover what I liked, what my opinions were and whether they would stand solidly without the backing of followers and faux friends.

I needed my mind to get lean. I wanted small decisions such as “which music should I listen to” and big decisions such as the decision to cut down on animal products to be more mentally strenuous. I wanted to work for my decisions, I wanted to be intentional in my consumption and most importantly I wanted to create in a way and space that did not have outside opinions seeping through the cracks and killing any chance of authenticity.

I wanted a lot and I needed a break and so I took one.

As I get a bit further in my break I hope to write more on the benefits I am experiencing from spending a bit more time inside my head, with my head calling the shots and making big and small decisions autonomously.

For now, I just wanted to write this down for myself, and anyone else who needs it, just a small reminder to get me through on the days when I am wandering and I miss the quick fulfillment that comes with over consumption; a reminder to take a breath, ask myself why, to look within myself, find the answer somewhere deep in the pits of my intuition and make an intentional decision from there.