In today's episode I go over doing a social media fast and my experience with that. So 40 days before Easter I did a social media fast. First, I just want to talk about why did the fast. So before I did the fast I started a new Bible plan and it went over fasting, lent. Jesus' arrest, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and all of that. At the beginning of that Bible plan it was talking about fasting, praying to God, and asking him what he wanted us to fast for those 40 days. So after some prayer and reflection I decided to fast social media.
I know that I've talked about social media before and how it didn't affect me like it used to, but around that time I started noticing that it wasn't all social media but in specific YouTube was becoming very time consuming for me. There were certain YouTubers that I loved to watch and I was getting so caught up in seeing if they had new videos. Then I would see recommended videos from people that were similar to the people I watched and it was just kind of like a domino spiral effect where I could get stuck in YouTube for hours and hours just watching videos instead of doing what's most important. Spending time with Christ, spreading the gospel, and strengthening my relationship with Christ are the most important things in my life.
So at first I thought about just doing a fast on YouTube, but then I quickly realized that I should just do a fast on all of social media. Back a couple of years ago Facebook was the social media that I spent the most time on. It was the most time-consuming for me at the time and then once I started doing social media detoxes from Facebook I started realizing I was going more to Instagram and then to YouTube. That's usually how it happens where if you take away one thing but not the other things that are similar you're just going to resort to them. So ultimately I decided to do a fast for all of social media for 40 days and it was a challenge at first, but it became easier.
I wasn't even going to talk about this at all to anyone but now I realize that I would be doing a disservice if I didn't. I know that social media is a problem for a lot of people and a lot of people feel like they can't live without social media. So today I'm just going to talk about all of the things with me fasting social media for 40 days. I'm going to go over the pros, the cons, the withdrawal process, what I learned, and my exceptions.
But before we get into all of that I did want to say a quick prayer... Lord I pray that you lift up every single person reading this right now. Lord please open up our eyes to see the truth of your words. I pray that each person that reads this blog takes exactly what it is that you want them to get out of it, and they implement it in their daily life. I pray that we always lean on you and we seek to have as close of a relationship to you as possible. I love you with my whole heart. In Jesus' name, Amen.
So let's talk about my exceptions:
I have this podcast where I teach Bible studies, I spread the gospel, and I have a Facebook group for my Bible study with the study guides and all of that so there were certain things that I didn't want to completely stop doing. All of the things that I would make exceptions for is because my main reason for doing this social media fast was to get closer to Christ, to strengthen my relationship with him, and to spread the gospel. All of my podcast episodes are teaching others about Jesus Christ, doing the Bible studies, and faith-based things. So it was still important for me to do certain things to make sure that you guys were able to still learn from my Bible studies and get the faith-based tips.
1. I would post my episodes twice a week on my Facebook group
I would just go straight to Facebook from internet Explorer, sign in on Facebook, post about my episodes on my Facebook group, and that's it. I wouldn't allow myself to scroll on Facebook, look at my friend requests, my messages, or anything like that. I didn't want people to not be able to get the Bible studies, the study guides, and the faith based episodes if they were on my Facebook group. The Facebook group is my main way to have a community for you guys other than this podcast.
2. I would schedule my episodes on Tailwind
So I would just schedule my episodes on tailwind, but I wouldn't even go into Pinterest. I would just do it solely on tailwind and have those episodes scheduled on there so they could still post on Pinterest and people could still see my Bible studies and all of that.
3. I would upload my episodes twice a week on YouTube
So twice a week I would upload my episodes to YouTube. I would just go directly on Podbean (they have a URL link where you can upload to YouTube) and I would take that link, upload it to YouTube from internet Explorer, and that's it. I wouldn't look at anything on YouTube or anything like that. I would only spend that few minutes just to upload twice a week on YouTube.
4. I would watch sermons or listen to Christian music on YouTube if someone texted me the link
My brother would sometimes text me a link for sermons on YouTube. There are certain preachers that we watch on YouTube, so if he would send me sermons I would go directly to that link and watch the sermon. He would also send me Christian songs sometimes and I would click on the link to listen to those.
So those were my exceptions. If you decide to do a social media fast or detox, I would really consider to only make exceptions it if it's something Faith-based. If you have a podcast or something where you do Bible studies and you talk about God, you can make exceptions like I did. With that virus going on and all of that it's harder to go out and spread the gospel, so social media does make it easier to spread the gospel. But I wouldn't make exceptions just to be able grow your following, to connect with your friends, or to see what other people are doing. I was only making these exceptions because I wanted to make sure that you guys were still able to access these Bible studies and these episodes if you didn't just directly go to the podcast episodes on iTunes, Google play, or whatever the case may be. Some people do go through YouTube or my Facebook group to access my episodes so I wanted to make sure those were still accessible,
Here are some pros with the social media fast:
1. It freed up time
It freed up a lot of time for me to do Bible study, to pray, to focus on preparing content for you guys with the Bible studies and faith-based episodes, and to really just spend quality time with my family and with Christ. I didn't realize how much time I was actually spending on social media until I completely stopped spending time on it. It was just crazy the amount of time that I had free because I wasn't worried about who uploaded a video and then getting stuck in that vortex of watching 10 different videos when I just went on YouTube for one video.
2. I also felt more at peace
I was able to just kind of relax, focus on Christ, and have true inner peace from Jesus Christ. Now that didn't just happen right away. At first I did feel more on edge and I noticed myself trying to click on the place where Instagram was at and where YouTube was at. I'd say about a week I started feeling more at peace and it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders because I didn't have the pressure of just trying to keep up with everybody on social media.
3. I did no comparing whatsoever
So whenever you get on Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, or whatever social media platforms you have, a lot of times we start comparing ourselves to others and we don't even notice it. We will see posts from other people that's like a highlight reel of their life or we'll see them doing very good and we'll start comparing ourselves to them even when we don't even notice that we're doing it. I didn't compare myself at all because I didn't have anyone to compare myself to. I wasn't on social media going through and looking at other people's stuff or watching other people's lifestyle videos and different things like that. I felt that weight off of me because I wasn't comparing myself at all to anyone.
4. It helped me to rely on God more
I didn't have any outside influences. I could just focus on my relationship with Christ and relying on him to help me with my decisions and just to guide me through everyday life without having to worry about what other people were doing or what other people wanted me to do. It made it a lot easier for me to just focus on my relationship with Christ and rely on God every step of the way through every aspect of my life.
5. My podcast downloads grew by 26%
That might not seem like a lot but I was spending a lot of time on my Instagram stories talking about my episodes and I thought that was a big reason why I was getting the amount of people doing the Bible studies and doing the faith based episodes that were, but it actually turned out that even without me doing those stories my podcast downloads grew by 26%. I think this was because I was able to focus on my relationship with Christ, letting him guide me, and being able to spend more time preparing content for you guys that would really help you guys to learn about Jesus Christ and to help you with your God led journey.
6. I was a lot more productive
I had a lot more free time, so I was able to get a lot more done and stay focused on that instead of focusing on what people were posting on social media.
I didn't have any cons
I was trying to think of some cons because I was going to make a list of pros and cons, but there was literally no cons at all. I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. The first few days of course you go through a withdrawal process, which I'm going to talk about that in just a second, but there was nothing I was missing out on. I felt more at peace, I was able to get closer to Christ, be more productive, and spend more quality time with family.
So now I'm going to through the withdrawal process:
So with the withdrawal process I would click on where the Instagram icon or the YouTube icon was and I would try to get on them. I had gotten to where Facebook wasn't an issue, so I didn't even try to get on that really at all, other than just the exceptions where I would post my episodes on my Facebook group. I would randomly think of things that I could be missing out on, especially with YouTube. I would randomly think about who uploaded a new video, but it definitely wasn't constant at all and it started disappearing the longer I did the social media detox.
So here are some things that I learned:
1. I can live without social media
It's been a month since I did my fast on social media and I catch myself on there way less than I was before my fast. I'm a lot more intentional with my time now and I spend a lot more time strengthening my relationship with Christ and being more productive. I'm just a lot more aware of where my time should go and I now know that social media is really not that important and it's not something that I can't live without. Those YouTube videos are still going to be there. I don't have to watch it the day someone uploads or even the week someone uploads. I was able to go on YouTube after my 40 days and there were still videos there that people were posting. Life goes on without us and I think sometimes we get so caught up in thinking the world is going crumble if we don't get on social media every day.
2. Jesus and my relationship with him are the most important things
I already knew this, but sometimes we can get so caught up in worldly things, the hustle and bustle of the world, and what other people are doing that we can lose sight of what's most important.
3. I don't need to constantly be on social media to spread the gospel and to make an impact on my podcast
I thought that doing these stories on Instagram really were affecting how many people were listening to my podcast. I realized that wasn't the case and I didn't have to spend a lot of time on social media. I really didn't need social media hardly at all except the few exceptions that I did do to be able to spread the gospel and to make an impact with my podcast episodes.
4. I was spending way too much valuable time on social media
So with doing my fast I realized all the valuable time I could have been spending on getting closer to Christ and praying more. You can never pray too much and you can never spend too much time with Christ. I also realized the valuable time I could of spent on providing more valuable content for you guys to be able to help you with your journey. Now I hardly ever even post on social media. I have the apps back on my phone, but I hardly ever click on them. I'm just a lot more intentional, I know what's important in my life now, and that's all because of doing this social media fast.
I was just going to keep this to myself but I knew it was something I needed to do for my relationship with Christ, getting closer to him, focusing on him, and relying on him through every aspect of my life. I know that someone needed to hear this today. Someone is really struggling with spending too much time on social media, with comparing themselves, with feeling this pressure of this digital world today, and they needed to hear that we can live without social media and everything's going to be okay.
If you have a podcast or something else other than the social media platforms, then you don't have to rely on social media to be able to spread the gospel or to be able to get the word out there on whatever it is that you're doing. Social media is not life or death like a lot of us may feel. I would be doing a disservice if I didn't tell you guys my experience with this so that you may do a social media fast and it may help you to reassess, reevaluate, to start spending more valuable time with your relationship with Christ, spending time with family, and just doing the things that are most important in your life instead of focusing on the worldly things.
So I hope this episode helped you guys to know that we can live without social media and the world's not going to end if we just unplug from social media for a few days (or 40 days like I did). I also hope this helped you guys to just see all of the pros with doing a social media fast, that there's really not any cons to it, and there's nothing to lose.
I love you guys so much.
Never forget to choose faith over fear.
-Lorena Camille (Faith Fuels My Fire)
p.s. If you'd rather listen to Faith-based, business, mindset, and mental health tips, then check out my podcast. There I will share my personal experiences, stories I've never told before, and bring you along with this hot mess life of mine. New episodes every week.
For weekly Bible Studies, tune in every week to my podcast. Every week I go over a new chapter/s of the Book of John.
You can also follow me on Instagram (_lorenacamille_) I'll be posting frequently and doing daily stories.
For past Bible Studies on the book of Jeremiah, join our Facebook Community
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Comments