Social Media Bulimia

During this social media week I had some struggles and some easy going moments but over all my response to this was a reinforcement of what I currently do. The week started out as a binge, one of which I didn’t know how to handle. I became a thirteen year old girl texting and looking at twitter and watching YouTube wonders. I somewhat struggled because I do not have a twitter, tumbler, snap chat, or any other social media other than YouTube and Facebook. I basically overtook my entire life looking at images on the internet and finding ways to take up all my time and what I found was astonishing! I had done nothing. I found all these cool articles amongst the garbage posts

and had lots of new ideas of things I could build from sites such as Instructables but I had no physical thing to show. The first day went by and I physically and emotionally felt alright but by the third day I had a headache and had to wear my glasses instead of contacts and emotionally felt empty inside. I didn’t know what to do! Finally the fast came. I typically live a simple life with most of my time spent in contact with physical people or outside doing something. This was a time for me to be in my element. I immediately had something to show as I adjusted and set up all my guitars (this takes a while) and I felt great physically and emotionally. I found that I had more time to think on my ideas and could actually achieve what I thought. I also go a lot more work done in preparation of finals and my other workloads.  

What I got out of this experience was something I imagined I would get but with more meaning than I ever would have thought. I knew I was going to have a hard time with the first part of the week and a fairly easy second half. But I found that striking a balance is necessary because I use the internet to fuel my imagination for ideas and then act on them. I use the internet to find things that people have already done or learned about so my time will go faster and without the internet I would most definitely not be as crafty as I am. I always thought I could do without the internet but I found that in order to keep my mind fresh with ideas I need to have that fire fueled with a bombardment of ideas.

The title of this blog is because I found myself eating more because when I was binging on social media I was bored with my brain and needed something to do. I also started to look at my body and compare myself to others. I found this site (Social Media Hope for Pro-Recovery) that basically states that social media is good but can also be bad. By comparing ourselves to others found in media this can cause eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, or other disorders. Lastly, I learned that we need to look at social media differently. This media should not be comparative from fake looking people such as the Barbie figure but rather more real everyday people. Killing us softly is a documentary I watched during my fast for another class (Killing Us Softly) This documentary really made the point that people are seriously affected and exploited while on the face of social media. I took a stand to help in the awareness of the effects of social media and I also live my life with a lot less social online media than other people do. I am living proof that you do not need a smart phone but rather to have a phone and be smart about what you use it for.