For the sake of my mental health, I'm quitting social media

Title says it all. I'm done with Facebook, Twitter and the like. In my opinion, there is nothing worthwhile occuring on such platforms, and they encourage comparison, narcissism, and shallow, phony connections that ultimately mean nothing. I'm hoping that "unplugging" helps recalibrate my nervous system and reduces stress. We'll see.

 

By design, social media platforms deliver us information that is similar to what we have been looking at before. For the TMS personality types, known for the obsessive tendencies, this poses even greater danger than for the rest of the population, as it reinforces our obsessions. Unplugging from the news for even short periods of time has been my only cure. Interesting enough, I had persistent weekly migraines in the past few months, something that I have not had in years. They miraculously stopped 3 weeks ago.

 

I'm glad your migraines stopped! We are all so overstimulated imo. Aside from the information overload, I feel like people have been extra divisive/hateful during this political season. I'm just over it. The next step will be quitting or greatly reducing online gaming, but I'm not quite there yet.

 

Finding it hard to stay unplugged. I keep craving it more until I get fed up with it, and the cycle starts over again. I'm an information addict.

 

Have you tried to find something else that is engaging and positive and helps you to stay away? Gardening, books, movies?

 

Lifting weights, Pilates, walking, learning to knit or paint or making soup, learning a foreign language and about the culture etc.

 

I feel you - it's addictive. It was designed deliberately to be so.

 

One thing that helped me was discontinuing my own status updates while continuing to like the statuses of my close friends and the businesses I wish to support during the pandemic, provided that the statuses are not of a certain nature. Think cute cat and homemade brunch photos. If I want news, I’ll check the sources I prefer directly.

I loved social media - I enjoy having my picture taken and going out (seriously, some of my friends and I hit 1,000+ photos back in the late 2000s and early 2010s... freaking college), and I'm a social person. But I started to feel like everyone knew everything I was doing, and it's been nice to be more private while not totally absent. If the content of a post stresses me out, I quickly identify this and scroll immediately. Since I don’t post, nobody expects much from me anymore, except for a few of my best friends who pressure me from time to time.

I completely deactivated all of my accounts earlier in college and it was indeed too much for me. What works for me may not be satisfying for someone else, especially the identify and scroll method.

 

I'm more introverted so I don't really post much anyways. Honestly if I'm not using it for study groups or clubs or something, it's usually more unhelpful than helpful.

 

I haven't logged into anything since I've posted this, so it's safe to say my accounts are gone. I don't regret it at all. I didn't mean to sound so judgemental in my first post -- sorry about that. It just wasn't good for *me*.

 

No worries, I don’t think anyone feels personally judged by your post - it seems like most of us have had our own experiences with social media as well. If this will help you relax and contribute to balance in your life, then go for it!