It's been over a week now since I deleted social media, and guess what? I don't miss it.

I genuinely thought that not having Facebook would drive me crazy, but the absolute honest truth of the matter is that I don't really feel anything at all. It's made me realise that social media is just...well...there! I just don't have any real emotion for or against social media, which shows that it's our own fault we get so distracted by it each day.

I don't feel as though deleting social media has made me any more productive though, unfortunately. I've gone from scrolling Facebook and Instagram every 10 minutes, to switching from Messenger to WhatsApp every 10 minutes instead, to see if anyone new has messaged me - the answer is more often than not, no! Even without Facebook, I'm distracted by the fear of missing out, the fear that nobody likes me enough to message, and the fear that I've removed myself from every day life. This is a fear that has happened because of social media, but, has been created by our own choice. 

I'd go as far as to say that in this day and age, social media has become a real addiction for some people. 

We get gratification from our notifications and the number of messages we receive, so when we hardly have any communication with anybody we start to feel bad about ourselves. I'm a big believer that social media is what has caused some of my mental health issues - constantly needing validation in the form of a ringtone, a like or a comment. I know it's not fully to blame though, there is always an element of choice in everything that we do, as hard as it is. 

Facebook is built to be addictive, it's built to make you come back, it knows exactly what it's doing, and it does it well. Credit to the creators, really.

I've begun limiting the amount of time that I'm on my phone now as well, I'm starting to leave my phone in another room when there's something that I need to be doing. It's sad, but I sometimes I feel like I've lost a limb when I don't have my phone on me, but I know deep down that I work so much better when I don't have that little contraption of distraction on me.

I keep saying that social media and being on your phone is a choice, and it is, but after so many years of being so reliant on it, it's not easy to just put down. It's a deeply ingrained habit in so many of us, and I, for one, want to get out of the habit and into my life.