My Social Experiment

That like, that comment, what a rush! The endorphin pulses through me. 

But wait, why didn’t “Mary” or “Joe” like my pic. They must not like me, or worse my kids...yep that’s it they hate kids. 

As crazy as that last statement sounds it is not atypical of how many of us feel when we share an intimate moment of our life in a 1080px by 1080px square and not get the response we feel it warranted. 

2020 has brought, for many of us, the toughest year we have had to endure mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. Throw in a hypersensitive and over politicized environment and well that is a recipe for burnout, stress, and chaos within the inside of your mind. 

Seven weeks ago, I watched a documentary called ‘The Social Dilemma’ and boy did it scare me! This film shows the harm and impact of social networking, through the eyes of former tech executives. 

Many who know me well, know that I love social media and what it brings; sharing pictures of my family, an awesome new dish I created for dinner, or the way the sun sets on the lake near my house.

But is too much of a good thing bad or harmful? I couldn’t answer that question clearly, so I decided to conduct a social experiment on myself.

First, I needed to understand how much time I was spending on non-work related social platforms. I did that and did not like what I saw and frankly was a bit shocked! I then thought about how I would scroll and scroll during my workouts at the gym, on line at the supermarket, during commercials, and well the math added up. 

For the first week, I set a timer to remind me of when I had hit a threshold of app usage (30% less of what my average time in a day spent from the previous 3-weeks). Once my timer went off, I could not spend another minute on those platforms for the remainder of the day. I quickly learned when I would hit that threshold during the day and began to understand how to spread out my time accordingly. 

The next week, I pushed it further and took another 30% off my social media usage and it was much easier to do, because I had already trained my mind to adjust to an allocated time allowance. I also moved my most used social media apps into a folder on the last page of my home screen, this meant I’d have to swipe three times and click into a folder to access them. 

The following week I deactivated those apps. 

Subsequently over the next 5-weeks the following occurred:

• I became more focused on all levels; mentally, spiritually, and physically
• I started to chat more with my closest friends, via text and phone calls, without it be compounded through a picture or a post 
• I was spending more (meaningful) time with my family. I also implemented a no phone policy for me from 6:30-7:30
• I became much healthier and my workouts at the gym became even more impactful to a tune of 13 pounds lost thus far 
• My level of confidence rose dramatically 

These were just a few changes that occurred in the past 7-weeks. Is the moral of the story social media is bad? No, because I plan to reactivate those apps, at some point. The moral of the story is around taking care of yourself both mentally and physically.

At CultureIQ much of the work we do is centered around helping organizations understand which components of culture, given their unique profile, will be most important to them given the direction the business is moving and the environment they are in. Culture is much more to us than simply surveying your employees or assessing engagement it’s looking at metrics like employee burnout. 

So, this year I am most thankful for taking the proactive steps towards becoming the best version of me. 

Happy Thanksgiving and continue to stay safe!