LIFE: What I learned from Social Media Detox

Trying something out of comfort zone is one of social campaign this year. I believe it is a year of revolution. It seems impossible for people who work utilizing social media every day, but actually it is pretty bearable. I did this in accordance of Passover and I pretty nailed it. The social media I’m signing out was Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I didn’t categorize chatting application like LINE and Whatsapp, as well as, YouTube as an addictive social media application. (Yeah, I’m a newbie YouTuber, but I don’t watch YouTube videos that much). So here it is, few lessons I got from social media detoxing.

I got a lot of time to spent

I have a habit of scrolling down my feeds till the end of it which, sometimes it took 3 hours to do it. Back in school days, I have a plenty time waiting for class and have wifi service that makes scrolling down the social media didn’t seem take a lot of time. But nowadays, I’m staying mostly at home and I need some shows to catch up. Got nothing to catch on, I got a lot of spare time. I can work on my blog, watching shows and dramas, and focus on every little thing I’ve never noticed before.

Less exposure to screen phone

Your smartphone screen can be intimidating sometimes. Your eyes could hurt, excessive touching means spreading germs all over the screen, and most of all less electromagnetic waves exposure. I tend to laying my phone somewhere else whenever I’m home.

Longer battery life

Yup, your social media feed took so much energy from your phone battery. If you see the battery usage percentage on your phone, the most application that took the most of your battery is social media applications. Not opening it, makes it live longer.

Less comparing yourself to others

I’ve mentioned it once on my reflection post about social media as a media to compare your life to others. Whether you are the one who envying others or the other way. It was like a black hole or a trap if you are not wise enough to use it. Since you don’t know what’s going on with other people life, you are able to focus on your life. You got no time to talk about other people lives or business. Whether you realize or not, others can be jealous of you too. So, taking some time off the social media means you reduce others to not comparing their lives to yours. And it is a pretty good start to restructuring your life.

Well, there is a downside from this detox program, which is you are late in retrieving information. In this fast phase era, information can be retrieved in the matter of seconds and all people around the world knows about it. Without social media, you might be slow about it and you might experience some disconnection with people around you. When you meet up with your friends or relatives or other people, you seem don’t know what’s going on and what are they talking about.

It doesn’t seem a hard challenge right? But it is more likely to help you in self-discipline. I didn’t delete the application; all I do is just logging it out. It was a very challenging thing, because you can always see the icon and tap on it, and you will fail the detox. But, this will train you into more discipline with the challenges you set. If you fail once, don’t give up! Keep continuing the detox to until the day you’ve set. 

I found some great inspiration on doing some social media detox. One of the highlight is "there's so much hatred" and I'm agree with it. One of the main reason I started to loose interest in opening social media is just because there is so much hatred. Well, we can't really control other people's thoughts or believes, but sometimes you feel annoyed when people you follow use some bad languages or complaining all the time. If you can't cope up with it, maybe you can try social media detoxing for a while. It will help you to meditate and clear up your mind from negativity. Just think it as an exercise for your mind, like Yoga. You can read a post from Tipsy Writer here. 

When the period of time I’ve set arrived, I end up not opening the applications until few days later. I thought I will be missing it so much, but actually it turns out I don’t. I hope you are inspired with this social media detox, because something too much is not really good. Not only too much food you consume can be a toxin, social media too. So, be wise to use social media, especially young generations. There are a lot of people who think knew to use social media, but actually they don’t. Let’s use social media to spread positiveness and create value for people who see it. I’m glad to share you my experience and will be happily to hear you experiences too!

DIY: Phone Case (2 Ways)

I’ve prepared this post since 4 years ago, but yet I haven’t got the chance to post it. I made this cases while I just got my new iPhone 6. But, this DIY tutorial is applicable to any phone out there. This DIY is easy to follow and able to give a little more color to your phone as well as more life to your old transparent case.

Things needed:

Transparent case (jelly/hard case doesn’t matter)

Cute papers/printable pattern you like

Spray paint

This tutorial is very simple and you can get creative as you like. I got few ideas from YouTube and Tumblr back then. You can see LaurDIY or Bethany Mota video tutorials for more ideas. The case I used is a jelly transparent case that I bought from a local online store.

CASE #ONE

This case is supposed to be use when your jelly transparent case is still clear and nice. Take out a cute paper, like a gift wrap paper or scrapbook paper or print a cute pattern you like. Make a cut-out of your phone with your case on top of the paper. Don’t forgot to draw the camera holes. Then cut it out including the camera hole. If it’s hard to cut the camera hole, use paper knives instead of scissors to cut it. Voila! You’re you get a new case to your plain transparent case.

CASE #TWO

I do some reviving project for my old jelly transparent case. The downside of jelly case is the color can change and it looks shabby. To give it another life, I spray paint the case. I use Krylon Glitter Paint in Pink to give the case the color. I made a little mistake while spraying the case, cause the sprayer was quite hard and when I pushed it, the paint just burst out randomly. I had like a bump of spray in few spots. It makes my case looks semi artsy yet uneven. Anyway, if it happens to you, quickly use a brush to sweep it evenly.

You can do some variations using the spray paint, you can make a gradation by applying it thin to thick or using a different color to create more color. Since I use a glittered one, I spray it all to my case.

Let it dry for few hours. If you think it’s drying already, put a protection over it. You may use a white glue mixed with a water or top-coat for your nails. I used white glue, but it doesn’t last pretty long. Maybe a top-coat might help to last longer.

That’s it! Easy right? Just be creative, because DIY is all about creativity. :D Have fun and let me know if you made your own DIY case. Thank you so much for joining me on this DIY Case ideas post. See you on the next post.