When I got corona a few months ago, I didn’t have much to do. The only thing I did, besides sleeping, was scroll on my phone through social media. I love social media, but I never had a screen time that high, I think it was almost 9 hours! The bad effects of social media caught up to me quick. I had only seen these annoyingly attractive people on my social media doing all these fun or productive things while I looked and felt horrible. So, what I did when I was starting to feel better, was unfollow a ton lot of people and put a timer on my social media apps for 2 hours a day. One of the better decisions I made. Now I only see people and content that inspire me and that I really like, and I have a lot of time to do other things. So, here are a few reasons why you should also put a timer on your social media:
You will have more time
Did you ever wonder how much time you spent on your phone? The average screen time worldwide is 6:55!!!! That’s one-third of a day, there’s so much else you can do with that time!! You can do a workout, try a new recipe, read a
book, go for a walk, get all your work done, clean your space, dance to your favorite songs, the possibilities are endless. You can do so many things that are way more productive and beneficial than scrolling brainlessly through your social media.
Your mental health will improve
I always thought that social media didn’t affect my mental health, but I was wrong. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I realized that social media makes me insecure and guilty for doing certain things or for not doing them. For example, I felt guilty if I didn’t do the workout I had planned to do, or I felt guilty for eating a bunch of “bad” food. Social media can make us feel all different types of ways: guilty, ugly, not good enough, jealous, alone, and the list goes on. A study of 2018 in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology proved that people who limited their social media time to 30 minutes a day felt a lot less depressed, lonely and overall, better in 3 weeks.
More deep connections
I remember reading something a few years back and it always stuck with me.
“People are not addicted to their phones; they are addicted to the interaction with other people”.
I think this is very true. We pick up our phones to see if we have a message from our friends, if our idol posted a new pic on Instagram or what’s new on TikTok. We are constantly interacting with other people. But even though social media is all about connecting, we kind of disconnect from one another. Because of social media people meet up less. Dr. Anastasiou, who did a research about the effects social media has on our mental and physical health, says we express our emotions more through emojis than through words, which is just sad if you ask me. A study actually proved that too much social media leads to disconnection and loneliness. So, let’s all put our phones away a little bit more and go see our friends, significant others, and families.
For this article, I even spent 24 hours without social media, and I felt so at peace. At first, I was kind of nervous and anxious for some reason, I think it was just FOMO. But I had such a chill day! I had all my work done, cleaned, read, and went to bed early. The next day I didn’t even notice that my 24 hours were already done. I realized it like 3 hours later. Instead of checking my phone every 10 minutes, I was productive and connected with people “the old fashion way”. So even if you don’t set a timer on your social media after reading this article, I HIGHLY encourage and DARE you to try a day without social media, I promise that you will feel so carefree!
