It’s Time to Get off Social Media.

It’s 2023. It’s time to make the transition and get off of social media.  

If you’re like me and were born as a digital native, that probably means that you’ve been on the internet long enough to hate it. It’s ironic because the generations above us seem to think that we’re all obsessed with social media. And while that may be true, I think the relationship is a little bit more complicated than that. 

There’s been a huge uptick in the idea of “social media detox” lately. A simple google search yields up to 129,000,000 hits in just 32 seconds(google). I don’t think there would be a mass exodus from social sites if everyone on them just loved being on it all the time.

With that being said, the word “detox” has some implications tied to it. The only times I ever hear that word being used is by people who are big into health and juicing, or people who have an addiction that they are trying to break. I think in the context of a social media detox, the latter definition makes a lot more sense. Oxford language defines a digital detox  as “a period of time during which a person refrains from using electronic devices such as smartphones or computers, regarded as an opportunity to reduce stress or focus on social interaction in the physical world.”

The key here is that this detox is done to reduce stress and focus on social interaction in the physical world. 

The fact that we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve become so asynchronous with our devices to the point that we would rather engage in a digital world than the real one honestly feels very dystopian. Not only that, but doing it in the way that we do literally isn’t good for us. This source that I found on google scholar says that their “present study showed that problematic social media use might impact negatively on mental health (including happiness and mental quality of life) and increase psychological distress (including anxiety and depression),”(Lin et al., 2020) and we all know that google scholar wouldn’t lie to us. This study that I found isn’t the only one that talks about all the negative correlations between excessive social media usage and mental health impacts. Even outside of the scholarly sources, all you need to do is just look around and talk to people. But of course you wouldn’t do that, you’re addicted to social media! And google scholar told me that “ more time on social media means a lack of face-to-face social interaction” (Meshi et al., 2021) sooooo…..

All jokes aside though, excessive social media usage does play a large role in the unraveling of the mind and in isolation from the physical world. I know this is true because it’s the reason why I’m trying to convince you to do the digital detox with me. 

I’m a gen z-er. I was born in 2002 and I had an iphone and an instagram account by the age of 10. I’ve been on almost every social media platform that you could think of since then. I was also on tumblr during the prime developmental years for adolescents, but let’s not discuss that. Throughout all those years of exploration and submersion into the digital world, the first time I ever took a break was after being hospitalized post-suicide attempt. 

Let me be clear, I’m not saying I tried to kill myself because I was addicted to social media. What I’m saying is, the amount of peace that I felt after just 2 weeks of not having any connection to digital platforms is crazy, considering the extreme amount of distress that I was in weeks prior. The reason I share that anecdote with you is to demonstrate how peaceful it can be to just be without me being constantly aware of what everyone else is doing. 

Not to mention how in BBC’s 2022 documentary, “The Instagram Effect”, Frances Haugen, a former facebook employee and whistleblower, says that Facebook’s internal research states that Instagram is about bodies and social comparison. (Jenkins, 2022). So from the top down, the intent for users to compare themselves to other users is already set. This would imply that even if your social media usage isn’t problematic, you’re still open to fall victim to the way that these (very effective algorithms are created). Remember, Zuckerberg only has the top tech bros working for him. Remember that.

If that doesn’t scare you away, I’ll make it more personal.

I currently am in the infant stage of my digital detox and the way that my mental state has done a complete 180 is worthy to be cited in this text. 

This is an image of a drawing that I did pre digital detox. 

Here’s a journal entry I wrote 8 days ago after deactivating everything and starting meditation.

‘Nuff said.