OPINION: Why you need to detox from social media

Mayar Alkhatieb

Social media, is something most people in today’s age are active on. It’ll be hard to find someone, especially people who are in their 20s or younger, who isn’t using at least one social media platform.


When it comes to joining social media platforms, there are plenty of choices to pick from, such as Facebook, or the recently launched Instagram app “Threads,” Twitter and TikTok.

It’s very rare now to find a person who is only using one social media platform, most people usually create one account on each social media platform, and sometimes each person would create multiple accounts on different platforms.

While the purpose of social media varies from one platform to another, the one common goal all share is the desire to let people communicate with one another from all around the world, and while that purpose itself isn’t bad, getting addicted to social media is a real thing that can happen, and sometimes someone doesn’t realize how much they need a break from it.


How social media can negatively affect you

Social media can affect you in ways you might not be aware of, here are some negative things you should keep in mind:

1- It can make you compare yourself to others all the time.

2- Social media can cause unhealthy sleep seclusion.

3- Depression and anxiety, especially if it’s the kind of social media which shows you sad events that are happening around the world.

4- Addiction to social media itself.
Taking a break from social media

Social Media

Shutterstock

It is important to take a break from using social media every now and then, even if you were someone who wasn’t being negatively affected by it in some way. You might not know just how badly you need a detox from social media until you get one,then, you might not know how much your brain might need the break to relax from world news or what is happening around you.

It doesn’t have to be a long break, but even a 3-day break can be good to spend on thinking about yourself and the others around can make you a happier person.
Ways to take a break from social media

Taking a break


While wanting to take a break from social media is great, taking the first step can be hard. But here are some steps that could help you take the vacation off social media that you deserve:

1- Temporarily delete your social media accounts or deactivate them. It’s a scary step, but it’s good so you won’t be tempted to open them every time you turn your phone on.

2- Plan activities. Now that you are taking a break from social media and possibly have more free time for yourself, it’s important to find ways to use that free time. These “activities” can be anything like visiting family and friends, taking a walk in nature, going shopping, or just using the free time to relax somewhere on your own if that’s what you prefer.

3- See if a family member or a friend is willing to take a break from social media with you to encourage you to take the step. It would be even better if this someone is a person who you spend a lot of time with usually, as it would mean you both will have more free time for each other.

4- Finish left-over work. With more free time on your hands, this could be the perfect chance to go back and finish what you haven’t finished, and this could be a game, a book, a TV show, a movie, or anything really.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us? Is taking a break from social media easy? No, and it might be even impossible to truly be able to take a full break from it if you were a student or if your field of work had something to do with social media.

With that said, no matter how hard it is, if you believe social media is affecting you badly, it is important to try your best to see what you can do to spend less time on it because your mental health matter and you shouldn’t ignore it.

Credit: Albawaba.Com