Social media - delete?

[HearMe]

I deleted Instagram a long time ago because I noticed it was impacting my mental health. I recently created another Instagram profile and the same thing happened so I deleted it again.
my friends comment that I am always off and on social media and I can see how that might be unusual to them. I can’t describe to them how it affects me because they don’t understand.
I battle with the way that social media and news apps make me feel, anxious, scared, inadequate. but I can’t stop looking !
I want to delete it all and live a life without it all but when I do I feel so disconnected and fear I’ll miss out and lose friends. I then return to social media and it’s a cycle of this over many years now.
Does anyone else have these problems with social media?
what should I do to get over this behaviour

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi HearMe,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for joining us. I hear you 🙂

While I haven't gone off and on again, I did decide to delete my FB account for my own mental health and that was both very rewarding and very hard to do. Like you, I felt disconnected, and my FB friends didn't really understand how it could take such a toll on my mental health, but at the same time it felt like the payoff of not having social media was better than having one.

I did lose friends (which was exactly what I was afraid of), but I figured out that they weren't great friends if they were only willing to connect with me on FB. A lot of connecting with people felt a little superficial, because seeing someones post isn't the same as them sharing things with you because they wanted to tell you.

I also recently reopened an IG account, but I use it just to follow now and only one friend knows that I'm on it.

So this is my little ramble, and this works for me.

Is there a way that you can be on social media and have it not sacrifice your mental health -like putting up boundaries or unfollowing/following? Or maybe only connecting with a couple of people?

It's a hard decision to make (let alone make more than once!) but you're not alone in battling with it and having social media take it's toll on your mental health.

Hope this helps,

rt

[MissBenthos]

Hi HearMe,

I recall a time back in high school when a group of friends were chatting about something, when I asked questions to join the conversation the response I got was "don't worry about it, you never check your online feed". Wow! I couldn't believe that I could be un-included simply because I missed the post they were discussing.

I still to this day don't check the public feeds is because they bring up negative emotions. My biggest dislike is the curation of a perfect life on display, a facade, most don't show off the downsides to life and if they do they are ridiculed for being dramatic. I find it exhausting to be involved in the surface-level nonsense of it all, it offers so little meaning to me. Sure, my friend looks great in that picture but the curation of a perfect photo is not what makes me feel connected to that friend, and why do I feel the strange pressure of an obligation to make a comment confirming that they look great as some type of "proof" that we're friends? Not to mention that it's a reminder of how crappy I look today.

My solution has been to use the private messaging parts of social media. Either chatting with a single person or using a group chat feature. That way I'm connecting directly with the people I want to contact vs sending out a generic message to a big audience. I'm not saying that you have to do the same, it's just a different way of staying involved.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi MissBenthos,

This is a great idea! I'm really glad you found a technique that works for you.

It actually reminded me that there are extensions you can use (at least on Google Chrome), that work with FB to 'hide your feed'. The one I used was called 'News Feed Eradicator' except there's so many out there. It's a super quick and easy way to make it completely blank.

I tried it and got way too much FOMO but it was really effective in being way more intentional about what I wanted to look at and why I clicked on the app/went to the website in the first place.

rt