Category: Mental Health
Social Media Cleanse Diary – Victory is sweet as 2-month mountain is scaled
64 days ago, I made the bold decision to purge myself of all social media and practice what I preach.
Way back when we were still blessed with the last of the summer sun, I found myself in an unhealthy relationship were by I would habitually scroll through various social streams and then develop unnatural feelings of envy at everyone’s picture perfect portrayals of life.
Eventually recognising that this was a problem I decided to do something about it and figured this challenge would help endorse the underlying message conveyed with my teen fiction novel The Invite.
From here I formulated a plan to ween my way off all social media streams and then omit these from my life until Halloween (aka the 1st anniversary of my debut book release).
I am truly thrilled to announce that I have reached the end of this experiment victorious!
There were quite a few occasions that offered the potential for me to slip-up, but I found the determination to maintain good mental health was enough to deter me from caving in during those moments of weakness.
Overall, I found the challenge surprisingly easy, not to come across as egotistical at all. For me it was in those rare moments of boredom or situations where our learned instinct to reach out to the phone for answers, that I came close to undoing my hard work. I’m not ashamed to admit that I did have a moment or 2 where I longed to post some content, purely in longing of attention/ approval from my peers. Thankfully this desire was short lived.
The social media platforms themselves did not make my task any easier in the end, as they resorted to sending me emails which included status updates from friends. This sneaky tactic did not sit right with me at all and just made me more determined to see things through to the conclusion.
As I now look to reflect on the impact this 2 month plus curb has had on me, the best way I can describe it, is a feeling of liberation.
When I cast my mind back to August, the thought I how I used to use social media now seems exhausting. My mind is no longer overwhelmed with constant information and a weight of expectation I felt is starting to dilute.
As I have mentioned in previous updates, this challenge has not been the miracle cure to feelings of depression at the complexity of life’s challenges. However, I would certainly conclude it has massively taken the edge off things.
In fact, I have found the cleanse so rewarding that I am yet to reactivate any of my social media accounts as yet. I don’t feel the need.
I would recommend a social media cleanse to anyone.
For those who are yet to read up about my recent challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510
Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
To mark the end of my challenge and the 1-year anniversary of The Invite I have some exciting news! All will be revealed in the next few weeks, so watch this space for updates …
Social Media Cleanse Diary – 2 Weeks to Go
Incredibly the end is almost in clear sight!
A whole 2 months of my life has been dedicated to the purging of social media and it is with sheer delight to announce that I remain on track to succeed in remaining t-total.
I’d love to predict that I’ll coast towards a triumphant victory in 2 weeks’ time and although everything has unfolded better than I could have envisaged so far, I dare not become complacent.
Once again, I am proud to declare that I am yet to succumb to social media since the 30 day mark; not even for one cheeky check on Facebook.
Although I have found this treacherous challenge easier and more rewarding than I had initially anticipated, I would be lying if I said there has not been instances where I’ve almost slipped up.
As per my previous observations, it is always in those moments of boredom where the urge to kill time kicks in that a strong and almost automatic impulse to check social media invades the thoughts.
Thankfully this hasn’t been too bad to overcome since I deleted all of the social media apps from my phone. This allowed time for rational thought to muscle in.
The other challenge I have found on occasions in previous weeks is a slight annoyance at being unable to utilise social media for some of the usages that are actually of benefit, such as finding out data to assist with my book promotion or to use the Marketplace function on Facebook to help me buy and sell during the process of our house move.
I guess it could be argued that I am now regarding social media for practicalities rather than simply to mindlessly kill time (in most cases). Perhaps this reflects a slight shift in my Psyche?
I guess the killer question at this stage is how do I feel?
Now I have given this thought a lot of consideration over recent days as I would love to say I feel great. Unfortunately, I can’t say this is the case. I think I am perhaps at an awkward stage in my life, a crossroads if you will. But what I can conclude is that I still feel better than I did before I started the challenge. And when I think about how I might have felt if I continued to bash social media during this phase in my life, I can only predict that I would have felt much worse.
I think to truly reap the rewards of not using social media is to give it up for good, or at least for a much longer period of time. And I can honestly say that I would be open to such an undertaking.
Anyway, as my world continues to remain hectic, I think this will be the last social media diary I log before I reach the end.
I’m confident I will manage to stay of the social until then, but make no mistake I will be keeping my wits about me to ensure I remain on the path of riotousness.
Wish me luck and see you at the finish line.
For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510
Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 5
Looking back it this time last week…
I made it to the end of my first working week in surprisingly good shape.
I figured it would be most difficult to kick social media to the curb during working day as the impulse often becomes so strong at times of boredom whilst in the home office.
I must admit Friday could have been a potential banana skin as the workload started to die down throughout the day, thus introducing opportunities for boredom to take hold.
I’ll also admit I encountered some strong urges at various intervals, mainly as I craved to find sports updates in preparation for the weekend’s fixtures.
I ended up using social media just the once in the end, which I am chuffed about. I am however a bit bitter sweet about it too, as I felt it was a temptation that could have been prevented.
The indulgence consisted of a quick check on Instagram for updates on the climbing centre that I attend and had plans to visit at the weekend.
My friend had told me the centre was to be half closed due to a leaky roof and flooding and this threw our plans into disarray.
I tried to find out more on the situation through their website, to no avail. My friend advised updates were being provided on Instagram.
Great!
Due to this lack of consideration of those who do not use social media, I found myself too demanding of information to resist. Obviously, this meant I had a cheeky check on my Insta feed whilst I was at it.
As I say, very frustrating. But the good news is that this just ended up being a one off and I managed to steer clear of all platforms for the rest of the day, which was great.
Things since Friday have been crazy busy and so I haven’t had time to log how things have progressed in the week that followed. I plan to post a week long summary over the weekend so do keep your eyes peeled to find out how things have gone in week 2.
For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510
Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 4
I feel like the honeymoon period of my social media cleanse challenge is coming to an end today.
I don’t feel cocky in saying that I smashed it yesterday, but today has been a whole different ball game.
Looking at the logs, I have used social media 3 times altogether today which still isn’t bad considering there is no real urgency to go t-total as yet.
That being said there is no denying that it is worse than yesterday. Aside from the stats, it is more the urge to kill time on social media today that I found crippling. After the busy start to the week, I have had a day littered with periods of boredom and the weather has also taken a slump. I found that during these dull periods I craved some interaction and entertainment through actions such as sending Snapchats or scouring for news on Facebook.
I did allow myself to indulge somewhat, but I feel if I hadn’t enforced some serious restraint I might have been on and off the platforms like a yoyo all afternoon.
Maybe this is time where things do start to get taxing. It is a challenge after all.
The good thing this time is that I felt accomplished for showing some willpower. I have also been lucky in that my state of mind has remained pretty upbeat throughout the day. Hopefully this indicates that even though I did use social media a few times, I might have been hitting a healthy balance.
So even though it’s been tough, plenty of positives to take forward as we approach the latter half of my first week I would say.
For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510
Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 3
After yesterday’s myriad of mind games, I feel like today has been much more straight forward in terms of my emotional response to this social media cleanse.
The great news is that I have managed to build once again on yesterday’s success and in fact only used social media once all day!
In my wildest predictions I would not have expected myself to curb the habit to such an extent at this very early stage.
Oh I do hope the whole 2 months will continue in this vain.
The one time I did use social media, it was a quick 1 minute check on Facebook. I was immediately greeted once more with the social media post that has annoyed me all week and so I went straight to refresh the newsfeed wheel of fortune which decided I would like to read about a burned out car instead. How lovely.
It is worth mentioning at this stage that my partner is a bit sceptical about my methodology for this challenge.
She believes I should go cold turkey from the offset and she also doesn’t believe that I should keep Direct Message platforms such as WhatsApp available for usage.
She even believes that using my blog to post updates is in fact using social media and therefore contradicting what I am trying to achieve.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and my other half doesn’t hold back with her opinions I can tell you that much for sure.
Perhaps her observations are valid to some extent and maybe this is why I have found things rather easy so far. It is difficult to say.
In spite of this I will continue on with the same plan, but I am now contemplating whether to up the anti for the final few weeks of the challenge and simply ghost any and all online avenues until I reach the end.
Maybe I could go as far as chucking my phone out and communicating via barn owl. Who knows?
All I know is I’m feeling good at the moment and hopefully this will be a feeling that grows as the challenge goes on. Only time will tell.
For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510
Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
Social Media Cleanse Diary – Day 1
Let the fun and games begin I say. I have started the first day of my 2-month long challenge with surprising vigour.
This positive midframe and approach has already helped me reap rewards as I have in fact barely touched social media all day!
I have certainly surprised myself.
I must say however it does feel less of an accolade when you consider that I have been super busy with work all day, having just returned from a week-long break on the South Coast. This was further assisted by the fact we had a house valuation after work and lots of household chores to contend with thereafter.
I ended up utilising social media sites a total of 4 times throughout the day; twice I used Snapchat and twice Facebook. Total time spent was 10 minutes.
Not to blow my own trumpet or anything but I think this is quite impressive when you bear in mind that the time spent on Facebook was primarily to post about this challenge.
So far so good and my mental headspace is so far in check. I am under no illusion that these are very early days though and I know not every day will be cluttered with so many welcomed distractions.
Let us see what tomorrow brings.
For those who are yet to read up about my current challenge, get up to speed @ https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/16414670/posts/510
Don’t forget, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
See you later social media, time to practice what I preach!
Isn’t it ironic how I created a work of fiction that explores powerful themes on how social media has the potential to cause harm, but yet social media is my main outlet in which I use to promote it?
A bit controversial I know and maybe this makes me a hypocrite? On second thoughts don’t answer that!
In my defence I feel the world we currently live in left me with little choice in this matter if I was serious about reaching my intended target audience.
None of us can seem to live without our trusty platforms and so for months now I have bit the bullet and utilised them more than I should, in spite of my beliefs.
From the start of my self-publishing journey, I have pleaded with myself to approach the book promotion with a military mindset, go in, spread the word and leave. There would be no lingering to snoop on everyone’s latest Insta post or scroll mindlessly through Facebook.
And for a long time, I convinced myself that I was doing just that.
One day however it struck me that book sales had well and truly simmered down and I hadn’t posted any meaningful content of relevance in ages! In spite of this it occurred to me that I was still spending the same amount of time (longer even) on all the usual social media suspects. If I wasn’t promoting my book then what was I doing I hear you ask…?
In truth I’m not entirely sure. Looking back, I think the best way to summarise is, I would almost instinctively go on each platform and scroll mindlessly at content at random intervals throughout the day. At first, I think I assured myself I was doing it as a way in which to build my networks. Maybe at first, I was. But after a while it became clear that the network building had come to a complete halt.
So what is the big deal I hear you ask…?
I felt terrible is what. For months now I have been battling with depression and I’m all but certain social media has a lot to answer for in making me feel this way.
All things considered I figured it was time to set my own example. I have therefore come up with a challenge to cleanse my soul of social media and keep a daily diary of how I feel to record the experiment.
I figured it would be a cool idea to tie this is to the 1st Anniversary of my book The Invite on 31st October- aka Halloween.
The plan is to undertake a gradual withdrawal of my screen time over the coming months until I reach the stage where I am T-total. Research suggests that this is the best way to obtain a healthy benefit from the online break.
On September the 6th I will embark on my 2month-long quest which will include a phased approach to my ultimate goal of achieving online freedom. I have created a week-by-week plan, which (fingers crossed) will proceed as follows:
- First week – Figure out the problem and note down how many times I used a social media platform, detailing which one was used and when
- Week 2- Try and reduce overall useage by half
- Week 3 – Delete the platform I use least and try to reduce useage of the others by half again
- Week 4- Limited social checks to every other day
- Week 5- ‘Cold turkey’ This will be the time to delete all social media. I will only be keeping chat options such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
- Weeks 6-8- Remain social media sober
To monitor the impact of my challenge I plan to create a daily diary which will outline the specifics of how I am finding the experience and more importantly, how my mental well-being is being affected.
I will post my daily entry right here on the blog (which will hopefully be the most online interaction I have throughout the 2 months) but will refrain from engaging with any kind of responses my updates may summon.
It is going to be a fascinating and possibly excruciatingly difficult task, so do come back to check out my daily up and downs in just over a week’s time.
In the meantime, if social media addiction is something that interests you, why not check out my young adult novel The Invite and join troubled teen Lindsey Hookwink on her night of virtual horrors that well and truly expose her unhealthy smartphone habits.
All that is left to say is, wish me luck!
What social media doesn’t show
I’ve been feeling a bit down in the dumps just recently. I mean who hasn’t?
We are all still feeling the shock waves of the COVID crisis and I’m sure we will do for years to come. Naturally this might be what is causing my mood management trouble.
After all we have lost out on so much fun and a very real question mark remains over how life will be post June.
In an effort to combat my bouts of depression I took some time to really consider what might be the root cause of my suffering.
Although there was no immediate light bulb moment, in the few days that followed I couldn’t help but notice my mood seemed to take a nose dive after each and every session on a social media platform.
Although I have a lot going for myself right now, I happen to be at that awkward stage in life, where everything is in question. As a 31-year-old engaged (but not yet married man) with no children of my own, it is clear that I am becoming more of a minority as increasing numbers of people my age have now crossed that bridge. In my rational and not usually envious mind I am able to make peace with this fact and focus on what is happening in my own life rather than compare with others.
That is however until I take one innocent scroll through social media and for some reason my head becomes awash with feelings of pressure, envy and to be brutally honest, anger. Every single post I set eyes on has pictures of people parading their new born babies or bragging about how amazing married life is; and for some reason this triggers me.
The bombardment of content is so overwhelming it often results in me now throwing my phone aside. I can’t imagine the soul sucking tech giants anticipated that happening when they chose to cast their bait at me.
The problem I have though, is that I always end up coming back. This is unfortunately an outcome I’m sure that big tech giants evidently do bank on time after time.
Since recognising this effect social media has on me, I have had several conversations with people close to me, during which an unsettling conclusion was reached.
People only post stuff on social media that they want people to see! Furthermore, social media platforms only show you stuff that they want you to see. When you consider that we all have this tendency to fabricate how we really feel and paint a picture-perfect vision of how we think our lives should be, is it any wonder we fight to exceed expectations all the time? If we maximise this perfect vision by let us say 500 Facebook friends and imagine that there is an algorithm somewhere spoon feeding you this stuff for a reaction, is it any wonder that it is driving me (and all of us perhaps) to despair?
Think about it this way, how many posts do you see from people announcing the death of a family member, a failed IVF attempt or details of a violent relationship? Ok perhaps there are a brave handful of individuals who might do us. Perhaps that adds a fraction of perspective. It is sad to think in reality though, people who post about the bad stuff are often ridiculed as attention seekers, even if people do not openly admit it to their faces.
Think also about all those people who are unlucky in love, have crippling health or mental health problems or might not even be able to afford the luxury of social media due to extreme poverty?
Just because it appears as though everyone online is living the life of riley; it is quite simply NOT TRUE.
Let us not forget either that people rarely post pictures in the middle of the night when their teething baby quite simply will not stop crying or when a couple’s happy marriage is tainted by one or both having been unfaithful.
I know this also sounds rather sinister of me. And I Just to clarify I am not one of these sick individuals who gets a thrill off the misfortune of others; far from it. The issue I have is more due to the fact there is little to no platform in which to relate and empathise with others on social media. This for me is a critical factor in helping to maintain our well-being.
Before I get berated by all the families I’m friends with online too, I also want to make clear that I have nothing against you and your children. I’m sure you all have wonderful families and that is great.
I think this crisis has come about partly by accident and partly by the sheer greed of the tech companies.
I don’t think any of us really think before we post a nice-looking picture. Maybe some of us do so out of vanity, but that is a separate issue in itself. It is hard for us to grasp the concept that our little mark on the world can actually have a negative impact on someone else. It is a deep thought to consider when you are in the moment.
I think the biggest issue of all in regards to the potential for harm from social media is that most of us simply do not realise that it is these very platforms that are causing us harm.
Therefore if this blog helps just one person to give a thought to how social media might be affecting their mental health (and that of others in fact) that for me is a start.
As many of you may know, my feelings towards smartphones and social media addiction are well documented in my debut novel The Invite, aimed at young adults everywhere. If you found my insights above of interest and you haven’t read my book already, you can grab your copy now @ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invite-C-P-Riches-ebook/dp/B08MCDYPPL
I think at some point, big tech firms need to take some accountability, but in the meantime we are on our own, swimming in unchartered waters. Let us all help each other, rather than letting some of us sink.
C.P Riches 