6 Things I’ve Learned From Using Less Social Media
Social media is an awesome place, but it can also be a huge drag on my mental health. As much as I love seeing what the people I know are up to and discovering different places on my social media feeds, there’s also the very dark side of things that come alongside it such as comparison, judgment, and overwhelm.
When I got into a Twitter argument on what became a popular Tweet a few months ago, I made a resolution to use social media less. I didn’t stop using it entirely, because I didn’t want to do that nor felt it would be realistic as someone who needs certain things on social media. But after that Twitter battle, I deleted my account. And about a month ago, I even started using Instagram, my most used app, less — I think I got it down to about 30 minutes a day at most, and I would go days without using it, too.
Nowadays, I only use Instagram here and there, and I don’t use any other social media apps right now. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
- Life outside social media exists — and it can be pretty great.
I think COVID has obviously made this a lot harder to remember, but social media isn’t where life begins or ends. I’ve usually had a better understanding of this than many people I know because I’ve hardly ever used apps like Facebook, TikTok, or Snapchat and have only primarily used Twitter and Instagram, but using less social media than I’m used to still forced me to go outside more and remember that the real world exists. Even if that was only to go out and grab a coffee or sit on my back porch for a few minutes instead of aimlessly scrolling in the craziness of Twitter or Instagram.
Also, when I took vacations or trips over the last year, it felt nice to not feel as if I needed to be attached to my phone. I would maybe post a quick story or two on Instagram, but I wouldn’t obsess over it. I felt friendlier and more open with the people I met. Overall, I think social media has replaced a lot of the desire to actually go outside into the real world with real people, and I was reminded of that a lot when I wasn’t on it as much.
2. I felt way better on days that I didn't use social media at all.
I just felt so much lighter and better in my mind. I know this sounds kind of vague, and it is, but it’s a hard feeling for me to describe. I think that not having the pressure of feeling like everyone else is cooler than me or doing better things with their day really helped me to just focus on myself and what I was doing, and in turn, it helped me to feel better about myself and my life.
Because I stopped comparing myself as much to people I haven’t seen in like, 5 years, it really helped my mindset. I can be awful about comparing myself to others and not having Instagram, in particular, to feed into that really made my mental health better. Bonus points for if I went outside that day. I’ve found that using social media, going outside, and exercising are key factors to how good or bad my mood might be in a day.
3. The world isn’t as scary as it’s made out to be.
The world is falling apart! Everyone is suffering! Crazy people are everywhere! When I’m on social media, especially after something awful happens, there are so many posts, statistics, and stories in my feed that it can make me feel reluctant to even open up my window shades in the morning. Of course, a lot of this stuff needs to have attention drawn to it in order to enact meaningful change. I love that social media has the power to do that. But no one needs to be filling their minds with this stuff 24/7, because you can get a pretty bleak outlook of the world when you do that.
Getting off social media allowed me to remember that many people genuinely are good and that the world still has a lot of good to it, too — even if that’s just through a nice conversation I have with my chiropractor or seeing people in the streets protesting for what they believe in. Again, the world has so much good to it. We just need to go out and see it.
4. Social media addiction — and withdrawal — is real.
I instantly regretted deleting my Twitter when I first did it. I was like, “oh my gosh, how could I have just done that?? I’ve been trying to build it up and I share a lot of stuff there, oh my gosh…” which is ridiculous because no app should have that much power over my mental well-being. And after a couple of weeks, I was fine. But I would still think about going back on it a lot. And when I stopped using Instagram as much, I would get anxious without it or use other apps on my phone as a crutch.
I’ve never even considered myself to be someone who uses social media that much, but there have been times where I open Instagram up on my phone not because I wanted to use it, but just out of the habit of opening it again and again. And then it takes me like 5 minutes of scrolling before I realize that I intended to do something totally different, like text someone back or look something up on Google. That’s messed up.
5. Social media can bring out both the best and worst of us.
That argument I mentioned that I had gotten into on Twitter? It was over whether coffee shops should be open really early in the morning. As a former barista, I thought the Tweeter was being kind of insensitive about it, but admittedly, I was also kind of a dick about it in my response. But I got a lot of pretty hateful messages and attacking comments from this, and believe me, I felt like shit. People swarmed this thing and feelings were definitely not taken into account. It got to the point where I actually had to turn off my notifications for a few days because these responses were really getting to me.
I’d like to remind you now that this was about whether coffee shops should be open early in the morning. It still hasn’t escaped my mind how quickly we all became assholes over something pretty damn simple.
On the other hand, though, social media can be an awesome place too. People get reunited with their loved ones. Some meet the loves of their lives. You can make new friends and raise money and become famous from a TikTok post. Social media has helped so many people, created careers, and revolutionized the world. That’s all pretty incredible. So it’s not all bad, but the line can get blurry.
6. You don’t have to quit social media entirely.
A lot of people seem to have an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to social media. I don’t necessarily agree with this because I think that you should do what makes you feel best. If that means using a lot of social media, go for it. If it means doing something more in the middle like me, that’s awesome. Or maybe you’ve just had it with photoshopped photos and pointless arguments and you want to drop social media altogether. Trust me, I get it, and that’s cool too.
Here’s my opinion: you do you. There’s no wrong answer to how much social media you should use as long as you’re doing what you want to do and you feel good in your choices.
At the end of the day, I do like social media and I continue to use it. But by using it less, I feel like a better human being, and I think we all could be better human beings from living a little more in the moment. So, if you take away just one thing from this post, I hope that you remember that social media isn’t everything. There is so much more this world has to offer, and so do you.
