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Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

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Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#161

Post by kmarc »

I ran into this with a person of romantic interest. Thankfully I never got addicted to social media; once I could see that a "break from social media" would be the only thing that could possibly help this person.

It never worked out between us, however I was exposed to rather relevant info on the topic.

For anyone looking for tips and tricks to cope: r/nosurf [1]. Lot of garbage there but I found it interesting to see how many people have problems with this and how they found their epiphanies around it

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#164

Post by elvis10ten »

corderop wrote: post #122
elvis10ten wrote: post #112

In topics like these on HN, people often compare social media (SM) with tobacco/drugs. I still disagree with this comparison. For one, social media is not inherently bad like smoking/some drugs. The only SM I use currently is Instagram. I spend 30 minutes or less per day and I’m usually happy at the end. In fact I would argue IG made me a better person — I got into fitness, helped me connect with a football club I no…

> Secondly, on the topic of social media making people feel insecure about something (like their bodies). Isn’t that everywhere? At the beach? In magazines? On TV? At parties? In school? The thought that I have overcome about this is that SM is different from the examples that you gave. In magazines or TV, you assume that is going to be filled with "non-real" people (esthetic surgeries...), but at the end of the day,…

That makes sense. Do you see the general public making a similar shift that most people on SM besides some of my friends are “not real” people?

I slightly disagree with the parties, school part. Most people with “great bodies” are most likely the ones with revealing clothes at these places. There are lots of “not real” people there (they are not at a celebrity level but they make sure they are visible). Maybe your experience differs?

> I like the "media" part though. I like to follow photographers, use to follow some type of hobby, but not to see people's life. > SM makes me feel that everybody except me has an ideal life and I know that's not true.

I’m split between both. I follow some people for the media part; And others for their wholesome content which usually includes part of their lives.

The sad part is that these wholesome people sometimes turn into “not real” people.

When I started a fitness account, I quickly realized the engagement from people were taking me into being a fake person. Thankfully, I closed that a while ago. But my takeaway from this experience, is that the problem is with people and not SM? (But what do I know :) )

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#165

Post by fastball »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #145

I fast from food for a month a year due to religious reasons (from dawn to dusk). During this time,I fast from social media (telegram, twitter mostly). After about a week, I feel anxious at a superficial level but it levels off and I feel much better about 2 weeks in. After the whole month, when I log into twitter again, I can really feel a mental shift. Almost like being dragged back into it. It's not pleasant. I'm…

Might be easier to just say you fast for Ramadan.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#166

Post by lexx »

impjohn wrote: post #141

I've been away from facebook and instagram for about 4 years. Never caught the tik-tok or snapchat train, so the only consumption i do is light reddit and hackernews. The weirdest thing for others is that I can sit indefinitely without having to look at my phone and actually get lost in thoughts or even get bored. The downside is that it can isolate you. Where I live, if you're not on instagram you don't exist. My gi…

I am in the exact same situation for the past 2 years. My mood is vastly improved. The social media isolation aspect is as important as the social media socialization aspect to me. Not important.

The people I want to talk to are on discord or signal, and we do actual activities together

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#167

Post by fastball »

lostcolony wrote: post #46
shoeshoeshoey wrote: post #13

At Facebook / Meta, employees often questioned Mark Zuckerberg whenever a study like this came out. Zuckerberg noted that the same held true for news media. Reporters do not like to mention this.

Sure. But in the same way that 24 hour news networks are an obvious detriment compared to brief half hour or hour long "evening news" programs, social media's patterns to keep you engaged are also a detriment compared with, say, a quick text to the people you care about checking in. There's a real positive buried in there, but the financial incentive to capture eyeballs turns it into a negative.

> obvious detriment compared to brief half hour or hour long "evening news"

This is not obvious to me personally. I don't think it matters how much you consume the news as much as it matters what the news is.

And the news these days is almost entirely negative, even in a half-hour-long evening news segment.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#168

Post by id »

charstacker wrote: post #149

Consider the following scenario: You're pleased and content one minute, thinking your life is going fine the next. You have a few minutes to kill, so you log onto Facebook and begin scrolling... First, you notice a friend's post stating that she has accepted her ideal job. Then you read a coworker's too political rant. You continue browsing and see a video of your neighbour enjoying a fantastic tropical vacation. And…

If other people find their ideal job, have a tropical vacation, etc. it makes me feel... good? Those are good things in general, although the tropical vacation might make me also feel concerned about the climate.

The problems I have with social media are that

- it steals a lot of time

- a lot of content gets me by evoking negative emotion

- it's taxing to get exposed to so many different ideas, clips, heated discussions, etc. Makes we wanna throw away my phone and live in the woods

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#169

Post by ricardobeat »

elvis10ten wrote: post #136
acatnamedjoe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sorts of responses always come up to these kinds of posts and, with respect, they always seem to come down to: "I don't have any issues with social media so I can't see why anyone else does" But imagine saying to an alcoholic: "I can have a few beers on a Friday night and then stop, and so can the majority of my friends, so I dont see what the problem is."

Again, I think this analogy doesn’t work. Firstly, alcohol is inherently bad for you. SM is not. SM to me is more malleable and we can choose to make it what we want. We could apply this to most things from video games to work.

Video games or work do not expose you to ads or recommendation systems, or feeds of your friends living a perfect life.

There are no parallels among these, I think you’re trying a bit too hard to go against the current. Its good for you that you have a healthy relationship with social media, but as evidenced by the study in this post and others it does have a negative impact that you can’t wish away.

Re: Taking a break from social media makes you happier and less anxious

#170

Post by Ekaros »

I can agree that social media makes things worse for me... Reading stupid arguments by malicious people just makes me angry... And the time wasted could probably be used on somewhat better things, like reading books, playing games, watching some movies or tv shows...
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