I have a love/hate relationship with Friday afternoons. I love the feeling of the whole weekend before me and the weight of my teaching job rolling off my shoulders for a bit. I hate that I’m so exhausted, all I feel like doing is scrolling through Facebook or watching YouTube videos.
Turning to social media when bored or tired is such an easy trap to fall into. I have heard people say scrolling “helps them relax.” Everyone is free to use their spare time as they choose, but I do wonder if it is even possible to truly relax while scrolling through social media. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding about what relaxation means. Mindlessness does not equal relaxation. Entertainment does not equal relaxation.
To relax means to rest, to become less tense or anxious. Another definition of relaxing is being less active, but calmer and happier. While scrolling may be less active, I don’t think it is truly more calming. Perhaps if you have been dealing with a lot of stress at work, scrolling through Facebook or Instagram (or whatever) might seem like a good way to relieve tension because it takes your mind off the situation; however, social media notoriously causes anxiety, not relieves it!
Daniel T. Willingham says that the most dangerous aspect of smart phones is that they have retrained our brains that we never have to be bored. We can always access something to keep us busy and entertained. When we never have down time and never have the mental space to problem solve or process, we aren’t giving our brain what it needs to function at its best. True rest, release of tension, and calmness comes from stillness not only physically, but mentally. Just because you are physically still and checking your phone on your lunch break doesn’t mean you are resting or relaxing. I don’t have a smart phone for this reason. Though I have a few social media accounts, I know it is healthy to keep them limited to when I am at home on my PC, not any time of the day, wherever I am.
If you really want to relax, I would invite you to consider turning off your phone (or at least disconnecting from the internet). I’m not saying it’s easy. A few Saturdays ago when I was going to be home all day, I unplugged my modem. I didn’t plug it back in until 5 pm on Saturday. It is actually a little embarrassing how hard it was for me, but I was worn out and I needed to mentally rest, not just physically rest.
It ending up being a good day! I got a ton of stuff from my “to do” list taken care, including things I’d been putting off for a while. I also had the mental energy and the mental space to be creative. I made progress on a story, started a new crochet project, and planned out how I was going to finish quilting a restored vintage blanket. I really rested and slowed down from it all. The following weekend, I got to go on a beautiful, long hike. This weekend…we’ll see, but it started well this afternoon.
Just a few more Fridays before summer break and a deep rest!
Welcome To The Carriage House 