As Thanos himself once said, "The hardest choices require the strongest will." It certainly took a strong will to make the hard choice and put down social media for a day and a half in the time leading up to my viewing of Avengers: Endgame. Yes, my addiction to Instagram is strong (as evidenced by my Media Day in the Life), but my will to not have the movie that serves as the culmination of my childhood ruined is stronger. So on Thursday, April 25, 2019, at 6:01 pm, I took the ultimate plunge and logged out of Instagram. In the next 27 hours and 17 minutes, I saw a truly great movie and got to experience the rare feeling of being removed from my social media.
The first few hours of being cut off from the world (as it seemed to me) were weird. It felt strange to suddenly not be connected to hundreds of people and to not be able to check the news because there might be an article that doesn't understand what subtleties are (like come on Apple News; showing a thumbnail with a certain character's tombstone is a little obvious). There were several times where I found myself clicking on the Instagram app out of habit and was forced to quickly close it out before it could fully load. As the day continued, I kept having to weigh the dangers of spoilers to keep myself from jumping back into the social media world. It's definitely tough because you get this feeling that you are missing out or even worse that you are needed. In the end, I managed to persevere through and keep from going on social media and it was worth it to avoid having Endgame spoiled for me.
So, why was it so hard for me to go about this giving up of social media? Why did it need a billion dollar movie that took a dozen years to get to for me to even consider stepping away from Instagram for even a day? I think it comes down to the addictive nature of having something that gives you the feelings of nurturing and affiliation. Social media gives you the feeling of nurturing because you are constantly building up your page. When you add followers, posts, and stories, you feel like you are constructing something greater than when you started. On top of that, often social media is the way friends can contact you to ask for help or to learn what the homework is for classes (this happened with a friend from my Spanish classes during my hiatus) and you feel needed and responsible for being there to help. Furthermore, social media gives the feeling of affiliation because it is often the first source of news, jokes, and interactions outside of school. Nobody wants to come to school the next day and hear, "Hey bro did you see _____?" This need for affiliation and being in the loop is what drives us back to social media and what made my break so hard. I managed to do it though, and ultimately it wasn't the worst experience to be removed from the virtual world. I might even try it again in the future, but then again I might not have another Avengers movie for a while to use as an excuse. Oh well... In the words of Nathaniel Branden, "The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is acceptance." Time will only tell what step I'm at.
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