Why Do You Still Have Social Media

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,680 You know social media is bad for you, yet you're still using it every single day. 2 00:00:04,680 --> 00:00:07,320 I know because I was just like this. 3 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:10,440 I remember I would go on Snapchat every single day. 4 00:00:10,440 --> 00:00:15,840 I would receive hundreds of pictures from a bunch of strangers that went to my school. 5 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:21,600 And I would open all these images, see all of their faces, and then I would send my own 6 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:23,520 image to hundreds of people. 7 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:26,280 And I would do this all the time, every single day. 8 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:29,280 And the thing is that I didn't even know why I was doing it. 9 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:34,680 I just felt like everyone else was expecting me to send them a picture and expecting me 10 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:36,680 to open their images. 11 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:42,240 It got so repetitive all the time, sending the same image over and over and over again. 12 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:43,680 And that wasn't even the worst part. 13 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:48,440 The worst part was that I would look at every single person's story every single day. 14 00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:52,840 And I would just see all these amazing lives that they led hanging out with people, going 15 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,400 out to eat, doing all this stuff. 16 00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:57,000 And these were people I didn't even know. 17 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,160 I just went to the same school with them. 18 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:00,800 I've never talked to them in my life. 19 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:06,200 Yet I was looking at their stories every single day and it was destroying my mental 20 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:09,480 health because I was getting jealous of the life they lived. 21 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:17,920 I became attached to them even though I was nothing but a statistic to their view count. 22 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:23,560 I was so attached to them that it became habit to look at their stories every single day. 23 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:25,880 And it was destroying my life. 24 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:27,160 And I knew it too. 25 00:01:27,160 --> 00:01:29,640 So that's when I started to question. 26 00:01:29,640 --> 00:01:32,640 I started to ask myself, who am I doing this for? 27 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:34,440 How is this going to affect my life? 28 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:36,600 Why am I even doing this? 29 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:40,960 And then I started to realize that I couldn't answer these questions. 30 00:01:40,960 --> 00:01:43,040 I didn't know why I was doing it. 31 00:01:43,040 --> 00:01:45,600 So I started to reduce my usage. 32 00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:50,360 And then eventually I just decided to stop sending streaks. 33 00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:55,320 And I was nervous because I had some pretty big streaks, like 100 days, 200 days. 34 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:56,320 But guess what? 35 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:59,360 Nobody cared because I was nothing but a number to them. 36 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,440 And then I decided to delete the entire app off of my phone. 37 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:06,240 And when that happened, it felt good for a couple days. 38 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:12,040 But it was almost as if for my entire life that I had social media, I was wearing a weighted 39 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:16,880 vest carrying 20 extra pounds of dead weight all day long every day. 40 00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:22,640 And then when I decided to delete the app, it was almost as if I just put a coat on over 41 00:02:22,640 --> 00:02:23,640 it. 42 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:27,440 I didn't see the dead weight, but it was still there and it was still affecting my life. 43 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:31,440 And so after a couple of weeks of being off of social media, I realized that there was 44 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:33,160 still something nagging at me. 45 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:34,880 The dead weight was still there. 46 00:02:34,880 --> 00:02:36,840 And so I started questioning again. 47 00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:43,080 I started asking myself, why do I even have this bridge accessible to cross back to my 48 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:44,080 old life? 49 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:47,600 Why do I even have the option to go back to my old life? 50 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:50,400 And I started asking myself these simple questions. 51 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:55,800 And then after a little bit of this, I realized that I was just holding on to my addiction. 52 00:02:55,800 --> 00:03:01,240 I was just holding on to that possible hope or chance that I might be able to go back to 53 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:03,120 that life and get addicted again. 54 00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:07,040 And then at that moment, I realized that is absolutely ridiculous. 55 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:11,880 And at that moment, I took out a piece of paper and started to write down every single 56 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:14,200 social media account that I had. 57 00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:19,400 And then I went through one by one and permanently deleted all of these accounts. 58 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:21,160 And it was not easy while I was doing it. 59 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,720 I got to admit, there was a lot of tension that arose in my thought process. 60 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:27,360 But I kept on questioning. 61 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:31,760 I was asking myself, well, am I worried that I'm not going to be able to talk to friends 62 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:32,760 or family? 63 00:03:32,760 --> 00:03:36,720 Or am I just worried about deleting social media because I'm addicted? 64 00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:38,600 And the answer was obvious. 65 00:03:38,600 --> 00:03:41,320 And so I decided to delete everything. 66 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:46,840 And after eight months of being off of social media, I realized just how bad that was for 67 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:47,840 me. 68 00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:48,920 It was destroying my life. 69 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:55,060 And I was so happy with this change that maybe five months ago, I told my friend to 70 00:03:55,060 --> 00:03:57,520 delete all of his accounts as well. 71 00:03:57,520 --> 00:03:58,640 And he did it. 72 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:03,560 And just the other day, he told me that that was one of the best pieces of advice I had 73 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,160 ever given him. 74 00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:08,480 But you already knew just how bad social media was for you. 75 00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:10,440 You already knew all this stuff that I told you. 76 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:15,600 Yeah, you're still using social media every single day, but not anymore because it's time 77 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:22,840 to change.