I knew I had a problem when I couldn’t walk down the hallway without reaching for my pocket to look down at my phone.

Did I have some pressing business to take care of? An important email to answer? No. I was just too anxious to walk down the hallway by myself.

Instead of facing my anxieties head-on, I hid behind a screen, waiting for the boys in the hallway to pass me by. God forbid I have some actual human interaction. I must hide behind my digital rectangle.

I proceeded on with this foolish routine, this unhealthy dependency on my phone. Until Lent came around.

Let me clarify, I do not consider myself an exceptional Catholic by any means, but I was growing tired. Tired of the fact that I could not sit quietly with my own thoughts without the need to pull out my iPhone.

Lent is all about making a sacrifice for 40 days, and again, while I’m no model example, I wanted to at least attempt to challenge myself. Nothing says challenge to a 17-year-old quite like renouncing social media, right?

I knew it was going to be difficult; not necessarily because I didn’t think I could do it, but because first I had to get over the fear of missing out. Every time I tried to log off Instagram or Snapchat, I immediately worried someone would need me and I wouldn’t be there to answer. On Feb. 29, however, I decided if someone needed to contact me, they would.

And I logged out for nearly a month.

Growing up with my dad, I always heard stories of his crazy youth. My dad was a teenager at a time when photography was valued, where cameras existed to capture one particular memory and one photo was enough to achieve just that. He grew up at a time when the light at concerts came from lighters, not from flashlights on teenagers’ smartphones.

I decided the only way I’d ever be able to tell life-defining, glory day stories of my own someday was to truly submerge myself in the life happening right before me. Spending hours and hours scrolling through various social media platforms was not my story; it was merely a waste of my time.

In a world of technological advancements, where conversation hardly exists, I chose to give it all up. Because in the grand scheme of things, what benefits does social media really bring into my life?

Social media is a wonderful thing on the surface, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to how we use these platforms. Too often, I’d go on my phone to find a culture of negativity, filled with indirects, rants about all sorts of inconveniences and so on. The pessimistic individuals who infiltrated my phone screen were all too afraid to engage in real conversation, too afraid to live a life that wasn’t online.

At that point, social media lost all its essence. It was no longer a place to be connected, but a tool that facilitated hate and divided people further.

And I refused to contribute to that.

I don’t consider myself significant for making this realization, I simply believe life goes far beyond looking pretty for an Instagram photo. The likes, the comments, the number of followers you have all mean nothing if you haven’t lived, if the people around you aren’t true. Experiences don’t come from having a million photos on your phone to commemorate one particular moment; they come from conversations, from being present and living in the now.

To the boys and girls who make posts about how much they hate their lives: don’t. To use social media as a coping method, as a means of self-care, is to seriously damage your mental health. I guarantee you making the post is not going to make you feel any better.

Life is happening right in front of our eyes. I know now the people who love me will call me, not text me. I know now life is full of stories waiting to be told and I am the storyteller. I know now a quiet moment spent by myself will teach me far more about life than any social media platform ever could. I know now conversation is the key to self-care.

If recent events have taught us anything, it’s that life is not a guarantee, but we are here right now. Put the phone down and live.