I DID SOCIAL MEDIA DETOX TO HEAL MY MENTAL HEALTH

by Esya Bachri

"Hai,Jika kamu merasa lelah akan kehidupanmu dan kecanduan dengan sosial media yang kamu miliki, maka tulisan ini sangat cocok untuk kamu"

Nowadays, we have to admit that social media is undoubtedly addictive. As milenials generation, living a life without doing social media seems meaningless, no existence's of ourselves  in the digital world, or out of date and I don't wanna be a conservative person. Frankly, social media is a crucial part in life and powerful tools to share my writings, my ideas, my feeling at that time and my works or even to earn money by selling the products on its apps. Especially Facebook, it has been my life since 2007 (when I enrolled the university life as a student). By utilizing the social media, we will able to get in touch with our relatives in work, colleagues, family, and also with the people we loved.

 

Social media can be a good thing, of course, and I’m not saying we need to abandon social media for the good, but too much of a good thing can absolutely be harmful. In this case, my addictive with social media became worse when I spent my entire life scrolling down the apps on the phone just want to see what's happening with the world and what's  people's posted on their account. I  starting create the perfection of my life everyday on my feeds. Really, I can not handle my self  surfing the internet all the time and it does happened almost every single minutes during my activities on the daily basis. Social media is a massive time killer and also succeed me gaining many followers and friends from others countries and I make a friend with "virtual friend" or "the people I've never meet into personally in a real life". Furthermore, I felt like I was living through a screen, exposing every great moment of myself to an endless stream of selfies, pet pictures, outfits-of-the-day, celebrity gossip, my community, my organisation, political chaos, advertising and another fake things I've built to attract audience by beautifying my feeds. I totally exhausted, trying to diminish my darkest side on social media, back to my real life which I miss so much and asked my self to purrify my intention, "what I really want to be in the social media?"

"For the past view months, I just realised that I always compared my self to others people's achievement or successful even though I knew it was worth for them.,,"

Firstly,  it is essential to know what is social media detox. Social media detox is a short break from all activities on social media and diverts itself with other activities. Not only the body that needs detox from food, it turns out our souls also need to do social media detox for mental health. Because besides having a positive impact above, social media also has a negative effect if used excessively. So, are you ready for a social media detox? Social media user figures continuously grow. As a matter of fact, Researchers reveals about  the average individual spends at least two hours per day browsing their favorite social media apps and sites. It’s an astounding quantity of time which could be spent in additional ways, yet it also is indicative of the present business and social culture.

 

My thought was, this is the best time for me to call my self out and aware with my addiction to social media. After took into account, asking does the social media involve my self to commit positive things, then my conclusion is social media has brought me to negative effects  and it seems to only boiled me down wasting my time through distraction on browsing almost all the time. Two months ago, I decided "QUIT" from my social media and trying this approach to treat my self better for spiritual reason, mainly to fix my mental health from anxiety,  depression, social comparison cycle and fearless. So I deleted several apps from my phone such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and all kind of those thing that leads me to be addict with. I created mini-challenges for my self like seeing how long I could go without posting any photos, pict, and news, I even deactivated my profiles.

Trust me, at the first attempt, I was really scared of quitting social media. I thought I would miss out a massive number of important things if I'm quitingt from social media. But it actually turned out to be the best choices I've ever made and I really encourage you to do the same thing. Althought, the biggest discovery I made was myself, the person who had been behind the screen all along. The platform was never the problem and the problem was me ― the  one who never leaving a day without using Instagram or logging into Facebook. The phone I owned  always in my hold tight and we never be separated by the time or by the occasion I have at the moment. This is how my addiction need to be fixed.

After taking social media detox for several months, it has completely changed my life through some relazations and several activities such as:

• Reconnected with my real world ( I can act normaly )
• I'm avoid my stress and anxiety by doing my hobbies in reality
• Purifying my intentions to achieve my goals
• I broke the cycle of social comparison
• Improve my mood to read more books (also increased my knowledge)
• I am able to conquer my self on utilizing social media by managing time
• My productivity increased massively
• I can be a good listener for my best friends
• I gained focus and concentration on my duty and study
• Live in the present not past
• I broke my bad habbits like drinking more coffee while I surfing the internet
• I feel refreshing to start my day
• Last but not least, I stop complaining about my messy life :)

"Taking a break from social media frees up time and mental space you didn't know you'd lost. Doing a social media detox puts you back in control of how you use these platforms. I won’t be completely quitting social media and I’m not suggesting anyone do that. But I do hope if you’re reading this you’ll think about taking a break from social media to see how you feel. I hope this post beneficial for you :)"