Social media detox - mental health feeling good!

[Maria53]

I work in marketing and I'm required to spend almost the whole day on social media. We also work with influencers and I just found the whole thing really vacuous and shallow. I think it also impacts on you being constantly bombarded with all these perfect lives which is mostly fake.

Anyway I caught up with people on Christmas day and have kept off Instagram, Facebook etc since then. I feel SO much better. Reading more, going to spend the weekend cooking & doing some artwork.

It has really made me realise how much I dislike working on it all day every day. Anyone done anything similar? Not sure how long I'll stick to it, we'll see.

The other issue is my employer still requires us to use our personal phones. This means that I get bombarded with ads related to my work out of hours - never happened before remote working.

I’ve cut my fb list and am following almost no one now!

Yes it is cutting my use and making me feel a bit better but it’s a hard addiction to crack!

I gave it up 3.5 years ago. I wasn't an influencer but had 20k+ instagram followers due to my business and so was on it a lot.

Now I have stepped away from it - I detest it and would never go back! The only reason people post is to get attention/dopamine hits from likes. Scrolling is just a time killer. Your real friends tell you their news. No one has more than 20 REAL friends anyway!

Whenever I am tempted to check it I just think about lying on my death bed... Would I rather be thinking about all the novels I have read and nice moments with my kiddos? Or all the instagram posts I have liked....

It is a hard habit to kick - for me it had to be all or nothing.

Mumsnet is turning into a similar vice eek!

@bytheby I take it you don't work with that same business anymore (if you arent spending the time on social anymore)?

Before this job I was a teacher and loved the human interaction all day long. Obviously this is quite a good job to have for stability at the moment but I am thinking I want to get away from a sedentary online job when it is safe and I can.

All the show off posts were getting to me as well. Oh, you've made your third artesan chocolate of the day? I don't care. Congrats for staying strong!

*hot chocolate....

Fb was never much of an issue for me because I'm only friends with people I know and like. But Instagram, Twitter and even mumsnet is different. I regularly take little breaks, it does help with my mood and productivity!

I deactivated Facebook and deleted my Instagram at the beginning of december but I was having a bit of a wobble with the fomo till boxing day when I got some sad news via phone call about a friends passing which made me realise I'm still very much available and can still get in touch for the important stuff. I'm looking forward to actually catching up with people instead of seeing flashes of the showy stuff.

I did a full month off Mumsnet and Facebook in July/August (couldn't go fully offline as I like strava and communicate a lot on WhatsApp) but just removing that genuinely lifted my mood and I felt less bored if that Makes sense.

I'm doing it again in Jan for the month, I'm having a full food, alcohol and social media detox starting 1st

@Maria53 I actually did continue the business for a while and had more success because I actually had time to focus.

It wasn't this business but I will give you an equivalent example... Let's say I was an artisan knitting jumpers. I found myself getting lots of attention on social media (a top moment was a post by vogue about me for example) and lots of invites to contribute to photo shoots etc. I was very caught up in being one of the next big names in my craft! But this wasn't resulting in many actual sales.

When I stopped using social media I focused more time on selling through fairs, websites. Working on the SEO of my own website etc. And sales increased.

With hindsight what I find repulsive now is the 'game' you had to play to be big on instagram. I am sure the tactics have changed now but when I was doing it I essentially had to be very 'active' for my posts to get to the top of feeds. I had to reply to comments, like other peoples' photos when I really didn't care about either... It was all just so fake. And took hours.

It just made me feel like my brain was dying.

I never used facebook for my business but when I saw what instagram was doing to me I just gave that up to. Logging on would make me feel anxious now!