Why I Recommend A Social Media Detox
By: Talia Walters ‘20
Two months into the new year, and it’s a good time to reflect on many of our New Year’s Resolutions to see how it’s all going. For me, I’ve given up on most of mine (which is true of almost every year – I’m not a fan of change), but one that I’m still going strong on is a social media detox that I chose to do pretty suddenly. It turns out when your resolutions are things you need to do for yourself, you’re more likely to stick to them – who would’ve thought! Anyways, here’s a review of my experience detoxing social media apps from my life and why I’d recommend doing it.
The Background
I don’t know if you all remember, but at the beginning of the year, President Trump bombed Iran and murdered Qassim Suleimani, causing the world to fall into a panic about World War III. Whether or not you agree politically and diplomatically with the choices made (and I myself have my own feelings on the whole thing), the global response was out of control. Between Tik Tok memes about getting drafted, Twitter posting updates every ten minutes on the possibility of total nuclear destruction, and Facebook wine moms ensuring everyone knows how they feel about the Middle East, it was total pandemonium on the internet.
And I don’t handle that well.
Living in LA, one of the largest cities in the US, and with my family in Dayton, Ohio, where one of the largest air force bases is located, I was having almost constant existential breakdowns about the possibility of the world exploding in the coming days and me being stuck in the cross hairs of the situation.
This whole thing plus the normal pressures of social media became too much for me to process all at the same time. So, finally, I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore, and I deleted many of my most used social media off of my phone. It was necessary to generally preserve my mental well-being.
The Rules
I’m sure this seems pretty rich considering the last post I made immediately before this was about which apps to download on your phone to make college easier. I hear the hypocritical bells ringing. However, I’m not talking about a phone detox; I mean a social media detox. There’s no way I’m decreasing my phone usage cold turkey!
The three main social media platforms I focus on are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Like I said, I can’t really go cold turkey, and these were the ones causing me the most stress, so I decided that it would be good to start there. I didn’t delete my profiles, since the current society we live in, it’s incredibly difficult to be entirely off social media and not be a hermit.
And I’m not trying to be a hermit.
I deleted the apps off of my phone and left it at that. I don’t like the idea of restricting time, and since I don’t visit most of the sites on my laptop or on the internet on my phone anyways, it didn’t feel like I needed to restrict time on them. I also told most people in my life because I wasn’t in the mood to lose friendships over not liking photos or posts in a timely manner.
So, since the beginning of January, I haven’t had Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter easily accessible on my phone.
The Benefits
I feel so much less stressed than before.
In all fairness to the experiment, I achieved my goal of feeling less stressed about the impending doom of the nation and the world by not being on social media as much. As it turns out, not taking in the information at all means you can’t panic about it. Also, the unexpected benefit is that I’m less stressed about school and getting work done because I’m not spending every waking moment on social media.
Everyone’s expectations of you immediately decrease.
Everyone always tells you that other people’s lives on social media aren’t real and are just idealized versions of themselves in order to convince everyone else that they live a cool life and to not fall for it when you see it. However, if you just remove yourself from the bubble of social media entirely, the feeling of having to do really cool things all the time to show off to other people is erased. And people can tell you real stories from their lives without you feeling like you already know it because you follow them on social media which makes hanging out with friends easier.
You feel more connected to people in real life.
My friendships used to be us just hanging out in Starbucks or in their living rooms respectively scrolling on our social media and not really talking to people. It’s easy to just waste time in the endless void of internet entertainment, so if you just force yourself to not do that by deleting your access to social media, you realize you stop wasting time. I’ve become more in the moment with my friends and family, and it’s been a really valuable benefit to deleting these apps.
It’s easy to discover things you didn’t know existed.
If I’m honest, I get a little bored more often now without social media than I used to because I don’t have constant stimulation anymore. So I have to find other things to fill my time, and that tends to manifest in it’s own ways. I think I get a lot more work done, and it’s helped me find other forms of entertaining and helpful media (like my last article about helpful apps). If I’m really feeling up for it, it means that I get to go out and do cool things in LA that I wouldn’t have done otherwise.
The Negatives
If you aren’t actively seeking it out, it’s easy to miss updates.
This goes for both world and actual news as well as news from your friends. I feel like I’ve missed a lot of life updates from my friends (like post-grad updates I’d like to keep up on), and that makes it weird when they’re suddenly doing something big and cool now, and you have to admit that you didn’t know they got an opportunity. Or with the coronavirus thing (similarly causing me existential dread), in order to keep up with it, I have to specifically google and find information on it instead of having people just feed me information without me having to work for it.
I feel a bit lonely now.
This is probably a sad statement and a symptom of a larger problem within myself, but I definitely feel lonelier without the constant companion of social media. I think it’s just a consequence of being so reliant on social media to keep up with people in my life, but I tend to feel a bit disconnected and alone. I personally don’t like feeling alone, so if that’s a problem for you too, I’d consider it before deleting things yourself.
It’s easy to bypass it all and just get back online anyways.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been on Facebook or Instagram at all since I deleted the apps on my phone. In particular, a lot of my conversations happen, surprisingly enough, on Facebook Messenger, and in class, I tend to end up scrolling through Facebook since I have the page open to keep in contact with friends (do as I say not as I do, kids). I also just like looking at Instagram, and sometimes my close friends will ask me to get on and like their photos, and then it’s easy to scroll there too. Just deleting the apps is not the most foolproof way to avoid social media platforms in their entirety.
You end up on other social media.
I’ve officially become one of those 22-year-olds that scroll on Tik Tok for hours until I realize it’s 4am and I have class in 5 hours. I haven’t made a video yet, but really, it’s only a matter of time. I also spend a lot of time on things like Tumblr now, and I never realized Pinterest was so interesting until I deleted my Facebook. Unfortunately, since I can’t go cold turkey, it feels like I just took my addiction and moved it somewhere else, but they’re things that take up less of my time, so it’s really a toss-up as to how much of a negative this is.
Conclusion
Ultimately, whether or not deleting the apps off your phone is good for you is up to the individual person. I think that I will keep the apps off of my phone as well as delete more in the future when I’m ready to because it’s been really helpful for me on many accounts. I’ve been able to better control the information I’m taking in as well as when I’m taking it in, which has been great for my stress levels and general mental well-being. On the other hand, I know I sound like a concerned mom talking about parental controls for myself, and if it just doesn’t sound like it’ll work for you, then maybe you should find your own way to detox. Either way, social media detoxing generally is something I would recommend everyone doing and trying to find a way to best do it for yourself. You might just realize how much social media is controlling your life!
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