Inspired to give up social media after last night's crash? Here's what you need to know
The average Irish person checks their phone 58 times a day. Picture: iStock
You don’t need to talk to an expert to figure out that social media can have ill-effects on our health. Increased levels of anxiety, body-shaming, self-deprecation, sleep deprivation, the list goes on. And that’s without touching on the physical damage that staring at our screens is doing to our eyesight or posture.
The fact is, however, Silicon Valley is doing its job right, with over 420 million people suffering from internet addictions worldwide and a study by Chicago University finding that social media could possibly be more addictive than cigarettes.
"I would tend to use the word compulsion,” says psychotherapist and author Joanna Fortune. "Some behavioral patterns grow stronger over time and become a default behavior and a part of our daily life. I think a lot of that compulsion around social media is actually a habit that has formed and habits are powerful.
There are nearly 2m Instagram users in Ireland and as of last year, almost 70% of our population had a Facebook account. On average, social media users spend over two hours on their apps a day, and according to a study by Deloitte last year, the average smartphone user in Ireland checks their phone 58 times daily.
When it comes to teens, the stats are even more shocking. Nine out of ten of those between the ages of 16 and 24 in Ireland are on social media, with the average person in that age bracket checking their apps at least 60 times a day.
According to Pew Research Center, 97% of 13 to 17-year-olds use at least one of seven major social media platforms and spend an average of six hours and 40 minutes in front of a screen a day, according to Lifespan. Children between the ages of eight and 12 aren’t far behind, clocking up over four and a half hours of screen time a day.
When I discovered these stats at the edge of 25, my soul was delighted to discover it was still considered a teenager. My aching hand and sore neck, however, were less than thrilled.
The research confirmed what I, and Apple, already knew: I was spending way too much time on my iPhone. So, I decided to go on a very 21st century cleanse and take a break from social media, namely Instagram, the preferred platform for Irish women in their mid-twenties to thirties.
And so, as soon as the frying pan descended on Shrove Tuesday, I deleted my Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, and Twitter apps in the name of a good-old Lenten challenge. As the tiny squares on my screen quivered, I dreaded the idea of letting them go.
Yet, after about two days. I felt fine. It seemed odd that I wasn’t itching to check on what my favorite pretty people were doing. According to Joanna, while habits are easy to form, they are also possible to break.
"When I do talks I tend to ask how many people check their social media first thing in the morning. It's almost always everyone. We really have to take a step back and look at what importance we're placing on social media because we're driving that. With our constant engagement, our constant checking in, these apps know that they are feeding something in us so they keep feeding it to us. But we can stop doing it,” she says.
"It's about looking at our habit formation. We all learn through repetition. Look at something you started doing that was challenging at first, like running or yoga. With repeated effort, it's something that you can't imagine your day without. Try to really consciously structure the first and last 15 minutes of our day and make sure those windows are purely for you. Don't check your phone. If you start with 15 minutes, you'll find that maybe you want 20 minutes to read that extra chapter of your book and so on."
Joanna even took her own mini-detox last month, deleting two social media apps from her phone. Now, she manages to just check them weekly.
"I just could feel that it wasn't bringing joy to my life and it was a source of displeasure rather than pleasure,” she says. “It's very humbling to put a restriction time on your apps and notice how many times you just automatically click into them."
As the weeks went on, I wasn’t reaching for my phone any less. I still had a full-time job and was stuck in lockdown missing my friends and family. I found I was spending less time on it when I did pick it up, however, sending a quick text to my dad here or replying to a group chat there. My screen-time went down 57%.
Joanna confirms that the feat isn’t for the faint of heart. "It's not easy to break a habit. Starting to decrease your social media use takes a really conscious effort and plan. It's also about asking what function the app is serving in your life."
While it’s healthy to take a break from social media, because of the crazy times we’re living in Joanna doesn’t recommend it lightly, especially for those living alone. "Absolutely use your social media in a pro-social way but make sure you're auditing the accounts your following so that you're gathering the news that is going to best serve you."
Of course, there are many positives to social media. We can keep in touch with friends and family all over the world, tap into our creative sides, share ideas, and come together with like-minded people.
"It's really interesting to see how social media can be such a force of empowerment and also such a negative impacter and distractor," says Aimée-Louise Carton, co-founder of the mental-health platform KeepAppy.
She too stopped using social media for a few weeks this year and got back to old hobbies like painting and reading. "What we've really heard from our users is that the more they pay attention to what they're doing, the better understanding they have of how social media can benefit them or how the endless scroll might be giving them a headache. If you can click pause and reflect on how it makes you feel - that's really important."
Many worry about the effects of social media on younger generations and wonder if they stand any chance in the future of this blue-lit world. Aimée doesn't believe that's the case.
"The younger generation is the most socially active and impactful generation we've ever had. They do face a really unfair upbringing in the sense that they have to compare themselves against the photoshopped world, but they're doing amazing things by turning that on its head and rejecting it. They're taking the world by storm."
When the clock strikes on Easter, realistically, I know that I’ll re-sell my soul and download my apps again. But, maybe I’ll make like a good millennial - and hide them in a folder this time instead.
- This article was first published on April 6, 2021
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