checking out

I am one of those people who is never without her phone.

Not because I have children who need to contact me 24/7;
or because I use it for work;
To be perfectly honest, if it rings, I probably won't answer it....

But I keep my phone with me At. All. Times. simply to keep connected to the cyber world.

To Facebook

To Instagram

To LinkedIn

To Emails

And most recently (and perhaps embarrassingly) to Tinda

Yup.. I went there.

And shortly after downloading this new app for singles, and the fun wore off, I realised how much of myself I was dedicating to these connections.

I was checking all of the above several times a day.
It was the very first thing I did in the morning upon waking.
And then it came full circle, when I found myself clutching my phone in the dark doing one more scan right before I went to sleep at night.

At work, I had a complete inability to stay focused on any given task without stopping to have a quick (and sometimes not so quick) peak at my phone.

I could barely sit through a meal without checking out if anything new was happening in cyberspace while I ate.

I, like many others, did not merely sit in front of the television and solely focus on whatever was on the big screen. Nope - dual screens all the way for me, thanks very much.

And also like many others (although I'm sure they wouldn't admit to doing it) having a sneaky scroll whilst driving.


Here's the thing though -

I was putting a lot of emotion into all these connections.

Constant comparisons between me and my 'friends' on Facebook.
Watching people I knew 10 years ago get married and have babies.

Jealousy over others' Instagram images - Travel adventures and food envy

Feeling validated by how many people 'liked' my status update or photo;

Feeling depressed when it didn't receive the response I had anticipated;

And worse - feeling confused when someone I barely know 'likes' a random photo (weirder still if it's an old photo, as if they've been creeping my account)

And then came Tinda.

The straw that broke the camels back.

A little swipe to the right and suddenly I had matches and feelings of a soaring ego..

Then came the conversations

And suddenly I found myself feeling obligated

To write back quickly, to seem interested. But not too eager.
To come up with something witty. But ensure it would come across the right way in text.
To sound interesting. Be engaging.
Fun. Flirty. Fabulous.

urghh

I didn't even know these people.

Why was I so invested?

And then I realised this was true of all my connections.

These apps should be used for keeping up to date with people I want to.

So I reevaluated my investment; my time and my effort.

I deleted Tinda within a week of downloading it.

Then, I culled 'friends' from my accounts

And now I am going one step further and putting boundaries in place.
You know, just a little distance between my phone and I.

We're not breaking up, we're just having some space. Time to think.

No more phone in bed;
And no more phone during meal times.

And now I feel much more at peace.

And my news feeds are suddenly full of people I actually care about.

Instgram @thegoodquote

xx