Nowadays, detoxing social media is necessary to get rid of it and improve our mental health.
Everything has been left behind, from offering prayers to morning walks, from wishing elders to giving respect, and the whole focus is just on social media. Social media is in the limelight, leaving all the other things behind. Every time you wake up or go off to sleep, your eyes are just on your phone, checking notifications, Instagram, Facebook, and the list goes on and on.
We have almost stopped enjoying our lives, trying to impress others, and are trapped in a virtual world.
You have no idea how much energy you waste using social media; the mental stress and distractions it causes are far more than expected. Earlier, social media was just a mode of entertainment and fun, but now, it greatly influences one’s social life.
Nowadays, people who want to take the benefits of avoiding social media have started cutting off or reducing the use of social media to derive some positive energy from the real world. It is better to detox social media to come out from stress, depression, or anxiety issues and opt for something innovative and productive that can relieve your mental pressure. For example, spending time with your family and loved ones who thirst for love and happiness.
What is A Social Media Detox?
A social media detox is cutting off or isolating ourselves from social media and setting a specific time to use it. Social media detox varies accordingly. Many people do it for 30 days or 7 days, but some do it for the weekend. So, it depends on person to person.
The basic idea behind social media detox is to stop using social media entirely for a particular set time, i.e., delete all the apps and your account temporarily until then.
It is a social media break, and you are taking a break from social media to improve your physical and mental health.
Why is Social Media Detox Necessary?
Suppose you are constantly using your phone, checking messages or notifications every time, and scrolling Facebook and Instagram every two minutes. In that case, you should probably go on a social media detox.
Taking a break from social media is very necessary in cases where it:
- becomes a hindrance to your work and your personal life,
- causes mental stress and harms your relationships,
- keeps you busy the whole day, checking others’ profiles and updates.
Then, it is the time when you have to think of social media detox or social media break.
Revive Your Mental Energy and Be Productive
If you have thought of clearing your mind, the best idea is social media detox. We are so busy in this virtual world that we forget everything and everyone else in our lives.
Instagram updates, profiles, likes, dislikes, reviews, captions, taglines, posts, and much more have clogged our brains, and we forget the real world and the real us. Can you believe how much of our productive time we waste on it?
Suppose this small amount of energy we put into something else that is beneficial to us will make us far better citizens. For instance, prioritize the important things in your life first. Go to gyms and do yoga, which will improve your inner health and bring positivity by clearing all that junk caused by social media. It will help you become productive in your personal and professional life.
Keep Your Interests Secret on Social Media
Social media detox gives you back control of your digital habits. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and all other social media apps, likes, and comments all have caused addiction and distract you from the real world.
From posting something new to updating your status and uploading pictures every time you go out, scrolling up and down the screen to see how many likes and comments you got leads to temporary happiness and satisfaction, but can you imagine how it can affect your mind if some or the other day you didn’t receive any likes or comments?
They collect data about user behaviors, interests, likes, dislikes, etc., to serve personalized ads and content of your choice and make money.
These social media and apps are designed to gain promotion and incentives by maximizing the number of users. What are you getting from them? It is just their way of making money. You are wasting your time and affecting your health by making them earn.
We conclude that social media hinders personal space and the quality of time spent with loved ones. Therefore, taking a social media break and opting for a social media detox is necessary.
Track your screen time, spend time with real people, and do your business to make money. Don’t work for free on these social media; start a blog and earn money from Google and affiliate marketing.
The Benefits of A Social Media Detox
There are innumerable benefits of social media detox. These are as follows:
Give Time to Yourself
Yes, I agree that social media detox is not as easy as it is to hear, especially for the ones who are more addicted to it. Initially, it might lead to boredom, but you must find ways to deal with it. You must find something productive that gives you happiness and doesn’t affect your mental health.
There are many ways you can opt for in your free time when you are on social media detox:
- Nature lovers can go for a walk to feel the beauty of nature.
- Photographers can also opt for eco-walks, where they can capture the world’s beauty.
- All foodies can try out new recipes in their free time and might become food bloggers one day. You never know.
- Fitness lovers can go to the gym, do yoga, do aerobics, do Zumba, and much more, which will improve their inner strength and mental peace.
- You can also do paintings in your free time, and you might become a versatile painter one day.
- Spend quality time with family and loved ones.
There’s a lot more to do. You can explore it by yourself.
Calm Your Anxiety
Social media detox will eliminate all the junk from your mind, leading to the inner positivity and happiness you need. You can spend good times with your friends by emailing, sending letters, or having face-to-face conversations.
On seeing another person’s accomplishments through social media, you will not feel low or jealous by detox. All your stress and mental issues will lessen subsequently.
Positive and spiritual discussions can help you to be a better person.
Positive Morning Routines
With the help of social media detox now, your mornings will be far better than expected. Instead of checking the phone and notifications as soon as you wake up now, it is the time when you sit in the garden area with a cup of tea or coffee and chill and relax there.
Give yourself time to sit peacefully, meditating in the morning’s greenery and soothing breeze, offering prayers to God, and loving your family. Read newspapers and some books to get information about the outside world; the latter improves your vocabulary and reading skills. Stay calm and stress-free, and yes, BE POSITIVE.
Explore Your Passion
Earlier, I was just busy with social media apps, and whenever I woke up, the first thing where my eyes went off was my phone to check the notifications and messages.
Social media detox became an eye-opener for me. I became more mindful during this period and started exploring myself by finding the real me. It was when I started focussing on my areas of interest.
Listening to music, travel, improve my vocabulary, work on myself, and reduce stress levels by cooking innovative recipes, including desserts, painting, drawing, and much more is what I started doing. It made me more resourceful and creative by transforming all the junk from my mind to all those creative ideas and thinking.
You can’t even imagine how relaxed my mind was during this period, and the positivity I attained was remarkable. Finding your inner potential during this period is the best idea you can have.
How to Detox from Social Media?
Anything new you plan or do takes time and requires patience. Social media detox involves a series of steps. The process may take time, but success paves a long way in which you must wait patiently. As everyone knows, good things take time.
Inform Your Social Circle
The first step towards a social media detox is to tell people who are attached to you or your close ones.
First, before going on a break, it is best to inform your best friends with whom you are in touch. Not all your friends are your friends; some might not even care whether you are offline or on a social media break, so tell only those who care for you. This is helpful because they will keep you updated through other means or face-to-face conversations, and they will know that you will be back soon.
Secondly, you will continue detoxing without interruptions, as they would already know. It will also remove their worries for you if they care.
Delete or Disable Social Media Apps
This step is the most essential part of this process. You must delete social media apps and block websites on your phone.
I would personally say that deleting is only the best option to detoxify. If you think that without deleting, it will work, then the answer is a big NO because it would crave you towards your phone and will hamper the process of social media detox. So, you will have to delete it completely.
If you still can’t do it, the best idea is not to use your smartphone until that period, give it to someone trustworthy, and then take it back after the process.
Deleting the apps will help you focus on other things you want to do or achieve. It will also help you to find the Real You and will help in curing your mental health issues like stress, depression, anxiety, etc.
Block Social Media Websites on the Computer
You use a laptop or personal computer. You may block social media websites through free apps like Cold Turkey or Freedom. Such apps will help you control your social media browsing habits.
You can use your family member’s help to put a password on these apps and get access after completing your social media detox. It is the best way for social media addicts.
Plan Activities for Social Media Detox
This is the most interesting and the last step to planning what you want to or are willing to do during your social media detox so that you do not feel bored, and it reduces your monotony.
I suggest preparing a timetable for yourself and allocating proper time to each task, which will help you better. Replacing social media with something innovative, productive, and creative is the need of the hour.
There are many valuable ways that I personally, from my experience, can suggest to you which would be of great help to you:
- Join personal grooming classes.
- Learn a new language.
- Work on reading skills and vocabulary through reading various books and articles.
- Sharpen your skills.
- Join hobby classes.
- Become a freelancer or take on small projects.
- Try innovative cooking recipes and non-fire cooking.
- Do hands-on activities like origami, paper folding crafts, handprint painting, and using lentils to create colorful flowers.
- Go for nature work.
- Play indoor and outdoor games like role plays, badminton, ludo, etc.
- Travel with friends or family.
- I exercise, do yoga, do aerobics, do Zumba, etc.
- Meditate in the garden area with fresh air, greenery, and peace.
- Celebrate Earth Day, World Environment Day, and Mother’s Day by making greeting cards or doing something innovative with your children.
- Learn by doing with your children. For instance, you can do role-plays on the coronavirus pandemic to help them understand the precautions and safety measures to take during this pandemic.
- Role-plays can be done to make children learn about different topics, which would make their learning more accessible.
So, you can plan these ways during social media detox, which will keep you engrossed and make you do something productive and creative for yourself and your children.
There are ways also to replace social media screen time with GST (Good Screen Time) through virtual learning:
- Write articles, poems, quotes, and essays.
- Various online courses you can opt for.
- Create and upload on YouTube channels of your interest and much more.
- Attend webinars, which will enhance your knowledge and scale up your skills.
- Amazon Kindle offers many free ebooks, and you can read them to enjoy the time.
- Don’t like to read ebooks, no worries. You can listen to podcasts and audiobooks.
How to Deal with FOMO?
What is FOMO?
Most people try to escape social media detox for the only reason of FOMO, i.e., fear of missing out. They have the mindset that they will never know what is happening in their social circle or outside world.
Many people fear how they will learn about the world’s happenings, while others fear staying connected with long-distance friends.
The fear of how to know about the world is not the point to worry about because there are many means and ways to get the information.
For instance, they could get information from the news, newspapers, family, colleagues, etc. So, there is nothing to worry about.
How to Get Rid of FOMO?
Today, the big question is, “How to get over FOMO?”.
The fear of staying connected can be removed by real-time face-to-face conversations with their friends or by meeting them personally. Planning a trip with them can make the connections worth more than social media.
These were the ways that I opted for during my social media detox. I used to call them at my place or chit-chat with them over the phone for 10-15 minutes. These steps created inner peace, and I got more relaxation time.
Books are our best friends. If you miss inspirational social media buddies, you can read them, watch documentaries, or listen to podcasts to learn something new.
Social media detox is a kind of relaxation phase you go through.
Social Media Detox Challenge
Try it. I can bet you that when you enter the phase of social media detox, you would never like to come back or leave in between.
Such an immense peace and satisfaction it gives, you can’t even imagine that. Firstly, try it for 2-3 days, and based on that experience, you can slowly extend it from 7 days to even a month. It will calm you, relax you, and make you feel refreshed.
From my own experience, I suggest you try it once. I hope everyone likes to feel stress-free and calm. Give some time to yourself. Find your potential and capabilities and become a better citizen instead of a social media addict.
Be positive, be the real you, and find inner peace. Sit and relax. What do you think? Are you ready for social media detox?
Co-author: Ms. Manpreet Kaur, B.Ed
Very well written.
Great explaining about social media detox. It’s helpful for people looking to get out of social media.