Breaking up with Social Media for Improved Mental Health
Breaking up with Social Media for Improved Mental Health
Breaking up is hard to do, even with social media.
At the end of 2017, as many of us do, I reflected on the changes I wanted to make for the upcoming New Year. In December, coming into Christmas, I had decided I wanted to reduce my time on social media and so made the decision to opt out of logging into some of the platforms I was using most frequently. Why you ask? The bombardment of information was getting to me. I felt overwhelmed and tired by the constant stimulation and exposure of information and I recognized this was affecting me. This wasn’t the only action I took; I furthered my commitment to reducing social media by eliminating all notifications on my iPhone. What happened next shocked me…
I was happier, more calm, more mindful and present with everyone around me. I felt as if a mental weight had been lifted! I couldn’t believe the difference in how I felt after one day of making these changes in habits.
At the beginning of January 2018 however, I defaulted back to my old social media habits of constant checking. Why you ask? Curiosity about what I was missing. The truth? I wasn’t missing anything. I was fully aware and recognizing that I was wasting so much time and that I could accomplish far more when I wasn’t distracted by notifications and forever newsfeeds. So, I broke up officially with Facebook February 1st, 2018 by deleting my account. I reduced by Linked In and Twitter usage by 50% at the same time and I have never looked back. I’ve realized the present moment holds far more opportunity than I ever imagined.
