Getting Tips-y: 3 Things to do Before Quitting Social Media

The spring has arrived and with it has come a small vacation from my classes. 

I would say it is spring break but that would sound very collegiate college-y and might advertise that I am spending my holiday as a boozing party girl dressed in a bikini on some beach in Cabo.

In reality, my days are spent sleeping in at mom’s and snuggling with my big, black, beautiful 15-pound Maine Coone cat until nine a.m.; binge watching "Orange is the New Black"; and shedding my pajamas only when absolutely necessary (note: it’s the LBC. So pajamas are totes acceptable for leaving the house).

That said, I have been thinking a lot about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. My first inclination is to say it’s due to boredom, but when I think about it, more accurately I can attribute my sudden pangs of desire for a social media fix to a lack of over-stimulation. I have more time than I know what to do with when not multi-tasking.

Fortunately, this time has allowed me to look at some of the drawbacks of completely disconnecting from social media websites, and I figured I'd warn you (yes, YOU, fellow addict), of them, should you decide to take a little break from your relationship with Facebook:

• Birthdays! If you don’t have the little e-mail reminder set up, do that before you leave. I was, for once, grateful that I received e-mails alerting me to so-and-so’s birthday coming up during the week. I know I missed a few because e-mail is certainly not as in-your-face as is social media.

• Events!  I executed leaving Facebook too abruptly. I didn’t send a message to my closest friends letting them know I’d not see event invitations, and as a by-product, I missed out on my friends’ opening up their restaurant. I wasn’t able to attend and support them during their special event, and I really love to support my friends when I can. So, should you choose to bolt, announce publicly and message about a week in advance. Warn people so they can keep you informed as an individual. And speaking of that...

• Individuality is something you may realize you are bad at assigning to your friends. At least that’s what I have realized I had been doing. Group messaging had become more and more popular in my life so that I wasn’t communicating with my friends as their own people, but rather as little pairs or trios for convenience. So much so that I totally SUCKED at getting a group of people together in the same place, at the same time when I messaged each individually. To make your transition easier, consider giving individual messages or (OMG) phone calls a try for a week or two in advance to remind yourself how it feels to be real friends with fewer people. At times, I feel that we have become so used to having 200 “friends” that we forget to connect meaningfully with the handful or two that we hold dearest in our hearts.

Just a thought.

Tips today; tomorrow, confessions.