These Are the Health Benefits of a Social Media Hiatus
To me, it seems like this modern period is
divided into two: before social media platforms and after their
appearance. It seems that if you're not there you don't really exist.
This may sound like a radical thing to say, but try conducting yourself
through life without a Facebook account. I've tried for a year, and I
faced obstacles daily. Some businesses don't even have a dedicated
website these days- only a Facebook page, which you can't interact with
if you don't have an account. Difficult, but not impossible!
But I would like to suggest something a
little less radical: taking a periodical hiatus from social media
platforms. And I mean all platforms because if you try deleting just
one, you'll find that you spend more time on others. While deleting your
apps may sound radical nonetheless, let me offer this perspective: why
try to set time boundaries and struggle with your willpower, instead of
just putting the apps away for a week? You'll only be deleting your app,
not the account itself. This will be restored once you re-install your
app. Instead of spending precious mental energy on resisting the urge,
practice the good old "out of sight, out of mind" mindset, and score
some much-needed mental and physical health benefits. Let's take a look
together.
Efficiency in Daily Tasks
First off, let's ask ourselves why we want
to quit social media. Each individual may have their own reasons. It may
be that social media is time-consuming, it is addictive, it portrays a
very narrow, one-sided picture of the world, it leads to stress and it
can cause other health issues related to spending prolonged periods on
your phone.
The first benefit you're likely to notice is how efficient you feel when
you don't juggle between your daily tasks and the short peaks into
social media. As said before by so many, social media is time-consuming
and the sound of notifications has even been linked to stress. Trying to
slip in a couple of minutes of scrolling through Facebook during your
daily tasks may feel like a light break, but the minutes add up. If
you're truly looking for a break, tear away from the screen for a few
minutes. The tomato-time Strict Workflow chrome extension will help with
that. It is a timer of intervals of 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes
for a break. When you're on your 25 minutes of work, access to certain
websites will be blocked.
Creativity
Remember that new hobby you picked up during quarantine? You'll be
surprised at how better you get when you have free time and a calm mind
to practice it now. Boredom does bring out creativity. Do you think we
would all be enjoying the genius of Leonardo da Vinci today if he had an
iPad to scroll through all day? He was fascinated with exploring the
world around him and within him. You may pick up an old hobby you
neglected long ago. You may find you enjoy painting without the stress
of having to present a beautiful Instagram-able result at the end. Who
knows? But how exciting would it be to find out, don't you think?
Anxiousness
We are not here to sugarcoat reality. At
first, you will feel detached and if you really were addicted you may
even feel anxious. This is a symptom of withdrawal and recovery from
FOMO-the fear of missing out. Trust us, you are not missing out on
anything. One of the reasons social media is so addictive is because it
artificially taps into the dopamine mechanisms in your brain. This is a
happy hormone our brain secretes to make us feel rewarded. When your
brain has higher dopamine levels than usual, a dopamine detox isn't easy
but any discomfort should resolve in about 3 days. This video will help
explain if you feel overwhelmed by this information:
Serenity
Another reason social media is so addictive is that it both stresses you
and calms your down interchangeably. When you're anxious to know what
going on, or you hear the sound of a notification, cortisol (the stress
hormone) levels in your blood rise a little. And then, you're instantly
relieved with new distractive content and perhaps some notifications,
that impact your dopamine levels.
High levels of cortisol in the blood over
long periods will affect your memory and increase your chances for
depression. When you're not available 24/7, and the news doesn't show up
on your phone uninvited, your levels of cortisol come down again. Take
control again and set your own boundaries for social app use and
notifications.
Newfound Energy
If scrolling through social media is what
lulls you into sleep, try this little experiment: avoid using your phone
during the hour before you go to bed and after you've woken up. This
will be hard, from my experience. Take any measure you need for this
experiment to go successfully for at least 4 days. You can even leave
your phone outside of your room or ask a partner to help you. After four
days time, do you feel like your mornings are better? much easier to
get out of bed? Do you sleep much better?
Usually, we don't even consciously make the decision to scroll until
falling asleep. We just check in quickly on the feed for our last dose
of dopamine for the day, and without even noticing it we're sucked down
the rabbit hole, falling asleep with our phone in our hand.
If you need help unwinding, try reading a book or listening to one, to
lull you into falling asleep. At first, this will be challenging and
your thoughts might run wild, but after a few times you try it you're
likely to find that you take much less time to fall asleep.
Social media eases a worried mind, we'll give you that. It does so by
distracting you. In fact, your stream of thoughts may even stop
completely when you're scrolling, helping your wary mind at the end of a
long day. But that also means you don't pay attention to your body and
posture. Before you know it you've been sitting uncomfortably for 40
minutes and now you're sore.
Confidence
By now you know very well that social media
users, including your closest family and yourself, usually only share
what's happy or appealing to the eye. This is what we mean when we say
that social media only portrays a one-sided image of life. Your brain
automatically compares yourself to the people in your surroundings in a
social ancestral mechanism. This is a phenomenon called upward social
comparison. You unconsciously make a social ranking to know where you
belong and act accordingly, with a tendency to rank ourselves lower than
we deserve.
Seeking to understand the social construct around you is good and
healthy, don't get us wrong. The problem starts when you spend too much
time on social media. Your brain doesn't differentiate between virtual
and real-life in that matter, and when everyone around you is that
successful, you obviously can't measure. This kills our confidence. In
daily life, we all are pretty equal, aren't we? Tapping back into
reality will restore your confidence.
Positivity
People not only share their photogenic life on social media. They also
love to rant and share their opinion. Imagine having to listen to random
people's opinions throughout the day on social and political matters.
If that happened face to face, that would be tedious and probably even
overwhelming, but the effect is much more subtle when it happens
virtually.
When you feel grumpy without knowing why, consider putting down the
phone for the day. You may say that you also follow the news on social
platforms. That's great. You can easily log on to the websites you like
through your internet browser. When you do it with intention, instead of
being bombarded with uncontrolled notifications, you'll also have
control over what and when you see it.
Better Relationships
When I go on my periodical social media
hiatus, nurturing my real-life relationships is my usual main reason.
Social media, ironically, tends to make us feel detached from our
friends, and not before long do we ask ourselves why didn't we get
invited to the get-together we see on our feed. Try using social media
to strengthen your long-distance relationship, and investing more of
your newfound energy in your close friendships. These are much
healthier, much more rewarding opportunities to get that dopamine your
brain needs so much.