By: Erin Rogers Edited By: Megan Montgomery

Social Media Cleanse Series

Have you ever looked up from your phone and realized that everyone around you is on their device?

Maybe you were at a restaurant, sitting in the airport, at the doctor’s office in the waiting room or even in your own living room surrounded by friends.

Social media and mobile devices have changed the way our society functions and the way we interact with one another. Social media and technology are ever-evolving, and therefore researchers are continuously trying to understand how these changes affect us and our relationships with others.

Researchers Loyd Pettegrew from the University of South Florida, and Carolyn Day from the Savannah College of Art and Design studied technology reliance among college students. Pettegrew and Day conducted a survey consisting of 31 open-ended questions and concluded that it is clear that there are drastic changes occurring in regard to interpersonal communication and technology reliance, especially in young adults. I have noticed that my interpersonal relationships in college have been both positively and negatively affected by my reliance on my phone and the study reported the same.

The communication researchers found that more than two in three students admitted that their best friends would say they have some level of addiction to their mobile device. They also discovered that more than three in four communication students believe that mobile devices have greatly (50%) or moderately (29%) altered the way they conduct interpersonal communication with friends. Students reported several suggestions for ways mobile devices both help and interfere with these close relationships.

The researchers reported that one in four students believe keeping in touch and having immediate feedback helps them develop close relationships, and 17 percent like the ease and speed of mobile devices. Additionally, more than one in ten students felt that no face-to-face talk promoted greater personal comfort, honesty, and less awkwardness when using technology to share their more personal side. On the other hand, nearly 1 in 5 believed that the more one relies on computer-mediated communication, the less they rely on face-to-face communication. Fourteen percent understand that it is a distraction from in-person interaction, 7 percent recognize it is easy to misinterpret, and 6 percent say there is no visual cue assistance and there is little privacy being connected 24/7.

To test the study’s research finding personally, I decided to participate in a three-day digital cleanse. For three days I allowed myself to make phone calls and check emails when necessary, but I did not text or use any form of social media.

I found that I agree with the second group of students mentioned. Without my phone, I found myself engaging in more face-to-face interactions than I typically do. I think this is because often, my phone is simply a distraction. When that distraction was taken away, I had more opportunities to engage with those around me. However, this was not my biggest finding from the cleanse.

I expected not checking social media to be hard because I thought I would be curious about what I was missing, but I didn’t find this to be the case at all. I didn’t wonder what people were posting or feel like I was missing anything but instead found that checking my social media was quite literally just a habit. Without even thinking or realizing it was happening, my thumb would move to the side of my phone screen where I keep the Instagram app and lower onto the screen to tap and open it. On the first day of the cleanse, it happened several times and as the app would open, I would quickly realize what was happening and exit out. On days two and three, if I would subconsciously move to open the app, I was able to stop myself before actually doing so. This was a realization I was not expecting. I found that a lot of the time, I am not actually curious to see what people post, it is just so ingrained in my mind that I open the Instagram app when I am not preoccupied with something else.

Also, on the first day, I was watching a show on my laptop and a commercial came on. Without even thinking I reached for my phone and opened Instagram. The second commercial break came and yet again, I automatically reached for my phone. I laughed out loud the third time as I realized just how innate it was. There was no thought process. A commercial came on and my arm automatically reached for the phone, completely habitually. On the third night, I sat down to watch TV with my dad and did not even think to check my phone. I simply sat and watched the commercials. A little while later he asked how my cleanse was going, and I realized I didn’t even have my phone with me. I was shocked by the fact that in only three days my habits were already changing.

I personally am not addicted to what is on my social media or the emotional response I get from my feeds. Although I am aware that this is a part of the addiction, I find that I am on my phone and social media frequently because of the habit it has become. I do it subconsciously without even thinking through the actions I am taking. I get on my phone and onto Instagram more times a day than I would have ever guessed, simply because I was unaware of how often I actually do it.

In the second semester of my freshman year, a little short of a year ago, I ran into a friend on campus. As our conversation began, I said, “how did your test go that you mentioned last week? I haven’t seen you!” She replied, “I saw you the other day but you didn’t see me. The test, eh not as great as I had hoped but not too bad! It kind of matched the mood of my week,” she giggled. As I walked back to my dorm after our conversation, I realized that I hadn’t seen her the few days before because I was walking across campus with my head down to my phone. My friend had had a rough week and a quick hello from a friend could have made her day just a little bit better. But instead, I had ignored the world and walked across campus in my little phone bubble unaware of what or who was around me. Since then I have tried to make sure that when I am walking across campus, I am not be staring at my phone, but instead taking everything in. In the beginning, I was shocked at how many more people I saw and said hello to.

The cleanse was similar to the story above from my freshman year in that I truly was unaware of the effect my phone has on a day-to-day basis. I don’t want to miss the little moments of life. And after the cleanse, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am allowing my phone to steal those moments from me but I don’t have to.

The study concluded that we can no longer solely rely on face-to-face interactions because social media, the internet, and mobile devices play too big of a role in our society. And, I agree. But I think it is important to find a balance, because our generation is experiencing an addiction that no generation has ever experienced before. When we minimize the amount of time we spend distracted by our devices, we have the opportunity to be more present and experience more of life’s little moments.