For over the past 15 years, social media has become a ubiquitous part of our life, embedding itself into just about everything we do. However, for many, social media has become a time sink leading to lost meaningful time spent doing other things and causing negative impacts on mental wellness including leading to increased anxiety, depression, narcissism, and inadequacy. So what happens when you log off this time-sucking road to nowhere?
Researchers from University of Bath in the UK conducted a case-control study on the mental health changes when people take a break from social media of 154 individuals between the age of 18 to 72 years old for one week.
At the participants at the start of the study reported an average social media use of 8 hours per week. They were divided into two groups: one where they were told to stop using social media for one week, the other group were to continue to use social media as usual.
At the end of the study, the no-social media group reported using social media 21 minutes for the week on average, and the control social media as usual group used social media for 7 hours on average and baseline well-being, anxiety, and depression scores were assessed.
Post-study surveyed show that the group did not use social media had a significant improvement in well-being, depression, and anxiety compared to the social media group.
“Many of our participants reported positive effects from being off social media with improved mood and less anxiety overall. This suggests that even just a small break can have an impact,” said Jeff Lambert, one of the study’s authors.
While social media has become an integral part of our life, keep it out of your private life and don’t take stock in any real value of it. Overall, it’s better to just not use it at all. You won’t be missing out on much in that toxic quagmire of sewage anyways and will have more time to actually go out and do stuff. As a matter of fact, on average, those who did not use social media freed themselves up an additional 9 hours per week.
J Lambert et al. Taking a one-week break from social media improves well-being, depression, and anxiety: a randomized controlled trial. DOI:10.1089/cyber.2021.0324
