What is the “SFS Challenge”, and Why Are So Many Minnesotans Doing it?
If you're on social media as much as I am, then maybe you've seen the letters "SFS" pop-up over and over again on your pages as well? I didn't really pay attention to it at first, but after attending a friends birthday party over the weekend SFS was brought up over drinks and I finally had to ask what the heck it meant.
Turns out SFS stands for "Scroll Free September" and it's one of the many new challenges that's been issued across the interwebs. Basically this one encourages participants to drop all social media like a bad habit, cold turkey style, until October 1.
What started across the pond, the challenge has spread like wildfire here in the states and it encourages you to log off of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat to allow it's participants more time to focus on the really important things in life like relationships and getting enough sleep at night.
I've gone "off the grid" on more than one occasion but I guess I've never done or even thought about doing it for more than a long weekend. With my line of work and all the blogs I write, I lean pretty heavily on social media to find and share stories with my listeners but it would certainly be interesting to see if I could ever do this for a whole month outside of my job.
I'm as guilty as the next person of being little anti-social when I'm home with my family or out with friends because I'm on my phone too much, but I'm certainly willing to give this challenge a try!
If you are too, then maybe we can ease into it by trying one of these "levels" of the challenge:
- Social Butterfly: Log off all social media while at social events. *This is were I need to get better. I'm already with my friends, why do I or should I care what everyone else is doing in that moment?
- Night Owl: Take a break from social media every evening after 6 p.m. *My wife and are pretty good about this while our daughter's still awake, but we can certainly improve and make our relationship stronger by putting our phones away once she goes to bed after 8:00.
- Busy Bee: Log out of your personal social media accounts while at work or school. *This is one that will be the most difficult for me!
- Sleeping Dog: Give up social media in the bedroom and improve your sleep. *Oh man, I can't tell you how many nights I use Facebook to help put me to sleep! Next thing I know it's an hour later and I'm still scrolling through my feed. Embarrassing...
Try any of these four and let me know how it goes... the best part is the month's a 1/3 over with so we can definitely do this! Hey, it's way safer than jumping out of a car and rapping...