It took me quite a while to actually start writing a blog again since I said it three months ago. A lot of things have been going on in the past three months. I've got a job, I still missed the United States every once in a while, I adopted some cats from my neighborhood, my very best friend came back from Singapore after two years, etc. So yeah, I've been happy, sad, excited, stressed out, and many other feelings that I can't describe, yet, none of those things I posted on my Instagram because I've been doing this Instagram detox.

It was started three months ago when I committed to taking a break from my Instagram. I remember that time I didn't feel good about myself. I felt like spending too much time on social media, scrolling the Instagram that sometimes made me insecure and missed the US even more as I saw my friends' updates about their summer break. The worst part was that I could stay up all night doing nothing but checking my phone. I wasn't productive, I felt wasted and I didn't like that kind of feeling. Therefore, I decided to just log out of my Instagram and disconnected from my online friends. A few weeks later, I also stopped checking my Facebook. For those Indonesians who wonder why I was still using Facebook, I actually started using my Facebook again ever since I came to the US, as my scholarship program required us to use Facebook. Besides, my US friends, social host, and professor are also quite active using Facebook.

I never thought I would do this Instagram detox because I knew it would be hard for me as I was actually quite active using Instagram. Indeed, it wasn't easy for me in the beginning. There were times when I just wanted to open my Instagram and see how everybody's doing, see what's just happening, or just watch my favorite content creator on Instagram. Not only that, but there were also times when I wanted to post pictures of my cute journals, upload funny Youtube videos from Trevor Noah, or just share my random thoughts. Conversely, I managed to not checking my Instagram account for four freaking months, which is amazing for me.

At first, I thought this Instagram detox was just for a month, but it turned out to be more than that. In fact, my life is just so fine without social media, at least for now. I'm actually getting used to it and I feel so much happier living the present without any distraction. I'm just focused on my real life and real friends I have in my life. It is beyond nice actually because we got connected even better since we don't see each other's life in social media so we had a video/phone call every now and then just to know how each other's doing. I used to think that it would be impossible for me to stop using social media, but I did it. I even want to make this social media break longer to unspecified time that I haven't decided yet as I'm just comfortable living my life without sharing the things I've been doing to the world. Not using social media isn't such a big deal like I thought before, at least for me. Some people were wondering why I haven't been active on Instagram and been disappeared for quite a while, but I wasn't worried because I knew if my friends needed me they knew how to reach me other than through my Instagram, and they did.

I talked to some friends about this social media detox and most of them actually thought the same way about it. They also wanted to take a break from social media but they just couldn't because in some cases social media is actually needed, such as for work, entertainment, or just to be connected with other people. I'm not saying that social media is not good, or I don't like it and never want to use it ever again. I would probably come back to social media again and use it in my best possible way, but not anytime soon.