Too much social media use is often the cause of personal issues, like low self-esteem, insecurities, and self-image issues. Here are the social media detox benefits you may be missing out on!
If you are working on your self-esteem, I recommend that you do a social media detox even for a month, but much better if for a few months. Or forever.
Social media is helpful, especially for communicating with other people. But it has negative effects, especially if you use it a lot.
If you are thinking of taking a break from social media, here are the social media benefits I got when I did it:
- I stopped thinking too much of other people.
- My stress levels went down because I live a peaceful life.
- Zero likes and less than one thousand followers don’t mean I am worthless.
- I don’t spend just to impress people who don’t matter to me.
- My life looks better offline.
Let’s begin.
5 Social Media Detox Benefits to Mental Health and Well-Being
The reason why I want to talk about social media detox is that I want to bring to everyone’s attention that too much social media use is often the cause of personal issues, like low self-esteem, insecurities, and self-image issues.
I know that’s not news, so I was not expecting that you would be surprised.
Personally, the reason why I quit social media is that I didn’t feel good enough. I felt like I had to please other people, and that was suffocating.
It just doesn’t feel right when you can’t do anything because people will judge and make you feel bad about your decisions.
Without further ado, here is why you should do a social media detox. Social media detox has lots of benefits to mental health and well-being!
1. I stopped thinking too much of other people.
I was spending a lot of my time on social media back then, maybe more than ten hours, and it wasn’t healthy (obviously).
I felt like I had to know what was going on in other people’s lives, and it was because nothing much was happening in my life. My life was boring because I didn’t want to step out of my comfort zone.
According to Lifehack, leaving your comfort zone will expose you to failure. But if you learn from it instead of weep over it, you will become better and stronger and you may even inspire other people!
I always thought that other people were better than me, that they were doing better than me. I was insecure and jealous of them, and I hated myself as a result.
I knew that too much social media use was both the cause and the effect, so I knew that I needed to do something about it.
So I quit social media.
It wasn’t easy when I first did it many years ago because I was addicted to it, but things became better eventually.
I still feel insecure sometimes, but not so much. Thanks to social media detox.
2. My stress levels went down because I live a peaceful life.
I don’t feel like I have to know where this person went last month or who is being talked about right now, so I live in peace.
Honestly, I don’t care about the trends, the rising stars, the latest gadgets, and other similar things because I am more interested in making my life better.
We know all of our insecurities and nothing of others, so when we see that our social media friends are living their best lives, we assume that’s true. But according to Tiny Buddha, social media is a field where people like showcasing only the best parts of themselves.
I need to focus on myself to give myself the kind of life that will make me happy and content, especially years from now.
That’s not being self-centered, narcissistic, or conceited. That is self-respect, self-love, and self-care. That is thinking of my future, too.
I want to visit a lot of countries and places all over the world, achieve a lot of things as a content creator, and have a much easier life after 30.
I will not be able to do all of that if I spend more time being on the same page as the social media people I don’t even know in real life than taking the steps toward my goals.
3. Zero likes and less than one thousand followers don’t mean I am worthless.
I was obsessing over the numbers before. I wasn’t checking my followers and the number of likes religiously, but I admit that I cared. I didn’t want people to see that my posts only had a few likes.
I was ashamed.
You know, for sure, that the more likes and followers you have, the more you feel confident. Given your current number of followers, how confident are you?
Australian Christian College says that if you continue using social media even if it’s already negatively affecting you, you may start having suicidal thoughts and that’s not good! So take a break from time to time!
I don’t want to base my worth on those numbers and don’t want to get worried about superficial stuff anymore, so I quit social media.
It feels good if you don’t care about anything and anyone unimportant to you. Life doesn’t feel heavy if you are present and living your life according to your desires.
So, one of the social media detox benefits is that you will be more focused on improving the quality of your life and your circles.
4. I don’t spend just to impress people who don’t matter to me.
Not all of those who look wealthy online are wealthy. Some of them, in fact, are even borrowing money from other people just to be seen as one.
That’s not an assumption. I’ve read stories and news about that and even though I never borrowed money for that, I did spend money to impress.
I was insecure, and I had to spend money on things like clothes and trendy objects just to feel like I belonged.
In Goodbye, Things, Fumio Sasaki says that people acquire so many material possessions because they think that the more things they have, the more valuable they are.
I also felt the need to eat at restaurants and cafés so that I could update my social media profiles with food pictures, as well as visit certain places so there is a good background.
And I had an Instagram account that was for my books back then, and I had bought books I never read so that I could show that I was a book lover.
I loved books, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t like reading them. I have been an eBook reader ever since. I sold most of my books in 2016.
Looking back, I did a lot of things that were fake just for social media, and I think that was cringeworthy.
Now, I still go to restaurants and cafés and visit certain places, but I don’t take or post pictures because I would rather enjoy the moment than boost my ego.
But I film for Traveling in Disguise, but that’s it.
5. My life looks better offline.
It may seem like nothing is happening in my life, but there are a lot of things going on and I just don’t talk about them because I don’t have to.
People around me don’t even know that my passion projects exist. They only know that I work as a writer, so they may think that I have a boring life.
In an article published by Wanderlust, it says that it is better to keep your goals a secret, at least in the beginning, because there are people who will criticize them, and their criticism might demotivate you.
Before, I was a pretender. You wouldn’t think that I had issues because I concealed the uglies with my composure, my posture, and my resting bitch face.
I was already calm at the time, but some calms were mere facades.
My issues were connected to my personality, my family, my friends, and my love life. I have been talking about them on this blog, so you will know about those issues if you read my other blog posts.
But no one really knows who I am, not even the people I am with every day.
There is nothing wrong with putting a mask on, but one thing I have learned is that it is exhausting to always have to put your true self on the back burner just to feel understood and be accepted and heard by other people.
I am now at the point in my life where I just don’t care about anything other than my happiness, contentment, and comfort.
So long as I know who I am, what I do, and how I feel, that’s enough. I don’t have to post everything on social media.
Last Words
I am human, so I want to know what is going on with certain people in my life. But I got tired of stalking, That is another reason why I decided to quit social media.
It frustrated me. I felt like I had to “know” for no reason at all. It had to stop, and I am glad I stopped because I feel better now.
If the reason why you are on social media is that you are curious about other people’s lives, do a social media detox because that is unhealthy.
You are comparing yourself to them, do you? Until when will you do that?
Enjoyed reading the social media detox benefits?
If you enjoyed reading about the benefits of social media detox to one’s well-being, here is a video of me talking about my experience with social media detox:
