Stop What You’re Doing and Try a Social Media Cleanse
It was December of my first year at Middlebury College, and panic and anxiety shot through my body. I was in the midst of preparing for my first collection of final exams, and the sheer quantity of knowledge I needed to stuff in my brain felt unnecessary and cruel. After a long day in the library, I had just slipped into bed, enjoying a well-deserved respite.
Before setting my alarm clock and shutting off my desk lamp, I unlocked my iPhone to conduct my nightly social media sweep. I started on Instagram, then transitioned over to Facebook, and concluded my exploration on Twitter (no, I don’t have a TikTok). Despite the differences between these platforms, I noticed a trend: all my friends were either on the beach, out at parties, or snuggling with their Netflix and chill partners. Me? I was alone in my bed, exhausted and defeated.
Social media is a blessing and a curse to the 3.5 billion people who use it. Even though it encourages socialization and strengthens ties between friends, it is also a platform primed for exaggeration and deceit. The common social media user wants to portray the best version of themselves, creating the false reality that everyone is happy and enjoying life. As I shivered under my covers and dreaded the upcoming week, the artificial utopia I observed through my screen made me feel like an outlier. I questioned why I even used these damn apps.
On my way home from the library the following evening, I told my friend about the jealousy I felt when browsing social media. He suggested a social media cleanse, which he conducted every few weeks to escape the outside world. At first I was hesitant, but soon agreed once he told me it only had to last two days. As we trekked back to our dorm, I turned off the notifications for every social media app I used and placed them into a folder marked “DO NOT OPEN.”
As a person who spends roughly one and a half to two hours daily on social media, this cleanse marked a huge leap out of my comfort zone. I know the duration isn’t impressive — make fun of me if you will. But two days disconnected from the outside world is something!
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The benefits of my cleanse quickly became transparent. The first morning, instead of spending the initial 20 minutes of my day on social media as I normally did, I reinvested this time into conversation with my roommate and cleaning my side of the room. Between study breaks later that day, I walked laps around the library and caught up with friends rather than sending snapchats. Before bed, I read a book and talked with my parents on the phone instead of mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed. All the grey space of my day that was previously littered with endless browsing was replaced by healthy and productive alternatives, and I felt the difference.
Next, I found that I fell asleep much quicker when refraining from using my phone before bed. My discovery was not unique. According to Doctor Walia of the Cleveland Clinic, “Checking your phone stimulates the brain so we are more active and awake. Even just a quick check can engage your brain and prolong sleep.” Keep in mind that most checks are not “quick,” and often extend to over 30 minutes. One study found that participants who used an e-book before bed took roughly ten minutes longer to fall asleep than those who read a traditional print book.
Abstaining from social media usage also helped me feel less anxious and jealous; since I didn’t waste my time viewing photos of everyone living their “best lives,” I felt less fear of missing out (“FOMO’’) and jealousy. It’s not that I didn’t care about their experiences, but during a rough patch of constant studying and dread, staying clear of social media helped me curb the negative emotions that these apps delivered. “When you’re linked up to this huge network through this one device, [you can] feel that where you are isn’t where it’s at,” said Andrew Lepp, a professor studying social media at Kent State University, in an interview with Self magazine.
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The global average for social media usage per day increased to over two hours and 20 minutes in 2018, 45 minutes longer than the 2012 average. As social media continues to grow in popularity, its negative effects fester. Moreover, companies are constantly releasing new apps, accompanied by intelligent marketing campaigns that snatch bundles of blindly obedient addicts.
Studies show that the more platforms we use, the higher levels of anxiety we are likely to feel. This is just one consequence of social media. Since these apps aren’t going to suddenly dissipate, the responsibility falls on the users to take a step back every once in a while and evaluate their relationship with these platforms.
Social media has its benefits, no doubt. But it can also be a haunting, destructive, and dangerous world of fake news, artificial happiness, and hurtful banter. Taking occasional cleanses helps me focus inwards and feel happy even in the most stressful of times, and I’m confident these benefits will strike anyone else who decides to take a break.
Even though the break only lasted two days, I felt so invigorated by the cleanse that I vowed to take another shot at it in the future.
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A day after I began the cleanse, a classmate approached me in the library. He informed me that he recently uploaded a picture to Snapchat regarding a funny encounter he witnessed and hoped I would comment on it. Understandably, I failed to do so since I never saw the post. I told him about my cleanse on social media, to which he responded with a weird glare. “So I guess you’ll never hear my story,” he remarked.
“I have some free time,” I replied. “Tell me about it now.”
