Sat With Ree: Why Social Media Detox Is Necessary

Social media could either be your stress reliever or the major source of your stress. What do you do when you feel like you're being overwhelmed with what you see on your newsfeed? How do you deal when your social media suddenly become toxic?

In this time of digital age, people tend to depend highly on social media.  Especially in this time of pandemic, most of us get news from social media. In one way or another, social media helped us to stay sane despite everything that's been going around the world. When you're bored, you go and browse your social media. When you want to find about someone's whatabouts, you simply go to their profile on social media. When you want to know someone's birthday, you check their social media. With only few taps here and there, you already found out a lot about someone. 

It's not new to us how social media is remarkably affecting the life of most people. Not a day go by without us checking our social media. It already became an essential part of our normal daily routine. Others feel like their day isn't complete without visiting their feed. Nowadays, even newborn babies have already their own social media account. As if they know how to create a unique password. They don't even know how to hold a feeding bottle. 😏

We can all agree that we don't always like everything that we see from our social media. Not everything deserves our "like" or "heart" react. Other posts deserve "angry" react. But of course, sometimes it's better not to react at all. It's better to ignore someone's post and simply continue scrolling down. We don't always get to choose what we see while we are browsing. Everything that we're going to see will always come as a surprise to us. Only our thumbs do the scrolling, but once we come across something that greatly affect us it feels like it impact our whole being. 

Personally, I experienced the negative effect of social media. It became a habit of mine to check my social media to divert my attention to other things, but I always ended up feeling disappointed and frustrated. Until such time when I realized that I was not liking the effect of social media especially with my mental health. It was after I graduated from college, everytime I open my social media I saw posts of my friends getting hired. While I sat in one corner, pitying myself cause I was again rejected for the nth time from a job interview. It felt like I was being left-out by my batchmates and even those who were younger than me. They already landed a job, but why was I always got rejected. I felt like I was an absolute failure that time. It was so easy to compare myself to others just by scrolling down and navigating through my feed. 

I decided to take a brief hiatus from all of my social media accounts. I didn't open them for more than a week. It felt so freeing not seeing someone's where and whatabouts. Somehow I was able to focus with myself and other things that could alleviate my frustrations. I found other things to do to distract myself from overthinking. I found something more meaningful to do. I began reading books which I found boring before. I also started watching movies and TV series. 

It wasn't easy to simply put aside my social media. It already became a huge part of my every day life. The first few days I felt so tempted to tap the social media icons I was accustomed to visit everyday. It would really need a strong self-control to do that. It's probably because I realized how it was highly affecting me—negatively—that's why I was able to control myself. It occurred to me that instead of being my stress reliever, using social media became my number one stressor. That's why I decided to have a social media detox. It definitely helped me a lot. It helped me to bring back my sanity. After I got back to it, I unfollowed few people, too. I unfollowed those who I couldn't help myself from comparing. I couldn't  blame them for what I felt, though. I had no control over what they were posting. After all, social media is for everyone's freedom of expression.

I know that it's not only I who experienced the same thing. There are people out there who are also in dire need of a social media detox. Sad truth is that they are in denial of the fact. They got so used to the presence of social media that they have no idea how to live without it. They revolve their life around it. Flash news: Social media is not life. It's nothing but a small portion of our every day life. Life can be found outside the screen of your gadget. 

Once you see that the use of social media is already becoming unhealthy, perhaps it's time to give yourself a break from using it. Take all the time you need. Find something that could make you forget to use your phone. You probably have an old hobby that you weren't able to do for quite a while. You should start doing it while you're on a social media detox. You could also start doing the things that you've been meaning to do since forever. You can start painting, drawing, baking, cooking, traveling, writing, planting, or whatever you think it is that could float your boat. You could also try reconnecting with your loved ones in person, not only through chat or video calls. These are only among many other things that you could do while having hiatus from your social media. 

Sometimes we need to draw our attention away from our gadgets. Although they bring us closer to the people who are miles away from us, sometimes they also separate us from the people who are only within our reach. Sometimes what we think would help us to keep afloat, become something that drown us. 

Every once in a while, we need to stop using social media. It will help us see life from a different perspective. It will give us a clearer view of what we want to do with our life. A kind of view that is not influenced by other people.  

au revoir.😊