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“When you do something shameful for pleasure the pleasure passes quickly but the shame endures”

-Musonius Rufus

The first step is not to panic and not to feel like you’re the only one going through this because I assure you, you are not. I love the internet I remember Jenna Marbles curing any and all of my woes as a teenager (miss you, Jenna). The internet has outstanding perks and has opened up a world of opportunity and free flowing information for billions of people.

On the other hand, it has basically become what our life revolves around and that has the potential to be incredibly dangerous. While it’s great to have this mini computer at the ready all the time for any questions that may come up, for directions, or the countless other reasons you need your phone handy it can also be detrimental to our mental wellbeing and our ability to be in the present moment.

I’ve found myself numerous times filling any silence, feelings of discomfort or really any negative emotions with the endless entertainment and distraction that is social media. There have been hundreds, if not, thousands of studies on how bad social media and devices as a whole are for our wellbeing. Not only are we constantly staring at blue light which is damaging to our retinal cells and could cause vision problems, we’re also not actually living and fully experiencing our own lives.

There are so many back and forths that can be had about social media and I’m not writing this to have a back and forth, I’m writing this to state my experience and my opinions, if yours differ, you are absolutely entitled to that. The generation currently that uses social media the most is Gen Z. Gen Z has some of the highest rates of depression and anxiety ever. Granted, they lived through the pandemic and they are the generation that is getting f***ed by the current state of the government, the economy, etc., and their eyes are wide open to it (via social media) but they feel helpless.

So what to do if social media is ruining your mental health?

Don’t be afraid to admit it

We are constantly filled with shame and guilt and embarrassment about any and everything, the last thing we want to do is admit that something so seemingly trivial as social media is having a devastating effect on our mental health and how we are living our lives. Social media was literally created to be addicting, the people who created it understood fully the ramifications it would have. There’s science behind the dopamine hits you get when you get likes or comments on something you posted. There’s science behind the dopamine hits you get when you see something funny or relatable. There’s science behind the ups and downs, getting that satisfaction of being happy and laughing and then the next moment seeing something that either makes you feel bad about yourself or the world, it is an addicting cycle that is so so easy to get trapped in. There’s an excellent book called The Chaos Machine that explains a lot of social medias’ faults.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of people struggling with a social media addiction who are too scared or embarrassed to admit it because it sounds silly. It is absolutely a real thing, you search for hits of dopamine on social media just like you would if you were addicted to drugs. A true friend would not make fun of you or tell you that sounds ridiculous, a true friend will listen to what you have to say and if you’d like them to, maybe they can help you come up with a solution. If you tell someone and they immediately laugh at you, they’re either deflecting and they have the same issue, or they’re too far gone to even see that social media addiction is a real thing. Either way, goodbye to that friend, at least in this situation.

Take a break

Contrary to popular belief, you won’t miss out on life if you’re not on social media, quite the opposite actually. You will most likely find that you are more present for your life, you will notice more things around you and start recognizing the good in your life instead of wishing you had what someone else has. Social media is literally a life and time sucker, if you go into your screen time and look at what the highest numbers are, I guarantee they are social media (mine is TikTok, not proud to admit, but will admit it anyways).

While you can limit your time on the apps, you will still be using the apps and I highly encourage you to take a full break, delete the apps entirely for at least a week or two. During this break journal, a lot. Really utilize this extra time that you have to try to take an inventory, even do it daily, to see how you feel, if you notice any differences, what’s going through your head, are you feeling lighter, happier, less stressed, whatever comes up, write it down. It’s easy in the moment to recognize a difference, it’s harder when you go back to your routine to remember if there was really a difference at all, so document everything.

Set boundaries

If or when you do decide to go back to social media set strict boundaries with yourself. It’s one thing to follow people for fitness motivation but, if every time a post from them comes up on your feed you feel like crap about yourself, maybe that’s someone you should unfollow. Force it into your head that social media is curated and make sure you fully grasp and understand that as a fact. Everything you see on social media is a highlight reel of people’s lives, they go through struggles as well they just don’t show you. Half (probably more) of the photos you see on the internet are edited or that person has gotten work done, no shame, I also have work done but I am transparent about it.

If you notice yourself gravitating to social media when you’re bored make it a habit to literally say “no” to yourself and go do something that will actually make you feel good. It’s so easy to use social media as a crutch, as a way to not feel, as a way to get back at someone who wronged us but ultimately that’s all a temporary feeling of satisfaction and happiness. The real happiness comes from doing things that will actually be fulfilling such as practicing self care, self love, taking yourself out to dinner, going to a yoga class, going on a walk. You will not find your healing and your happiness on social media.

Conclusion

Ultimately, you can do whatever you’d like to do, it’s your life. I encourage everyone to at least be self aware enough to be able to see how much time they spend on social media and take just one day fully off. See if it makes any difference whatsoever and be totally honest about it and open to it. I think social media was intended to be a place for people to connect and have access to the world, I just think it got off the rails and we’re responsible to take our power back from it in our own lives.