Taking a Step Back
Over the course of the past few months with the rise of COVID, a reliance on technology has become even more noticeable for everyone, including me. While some daily occurrences require technology, like attending classes or doing homework, there are also plenty of other times where something I do is not necessary for me to do while using technology but I still do anyway. Scrolling endlessly on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are some of my personal habits on technology that I am not required to do daily. I’ll find myself pulled down the rabbit hole of social media daily, sometimes even while I’m supposed to be paying attention to class. It is one of my bad habits to scroll through social media instead of doing the tasks I am supposed to be doing like finishing my homework that has a close due date.
Throughout the day, there will be plenty of times where I’ll get the itch to check my phone for anything I missed on social media, worrying that I missed something happening whether that be a like on my recent post or just a notification that a friend posted something too. I have definitely get anxious sometimes over social media as I worry that maybe I’m saying too much, or maybe I’m saying too little. Then I also get stressed because I know I’m focusing too much on what is happening on social media than going through my classwork and making sure I understand what is going on in all my classes. Checking news anymore, no matter where the news comes from, has also become rather stressful because most of the big headlines have been rather negative recently and it adds more stress to my plate to know the world is not doing the best either right now. I still impulsively check the news constantly throughout the day though, trying to at least be aware of the big headlines happening so I know what to prepare myself for. The constant spiral of feeling the need to check social media and news is a problem I know I need to fix as well, I just have not managed to break it yet.
However, I do have plans on attempting to break my downward spiral in the future. Allotting specific times of my day to check things like the news would allow me time to deal with any negative news I see as well as educating myself on the topic so I still know what is happening. Setting time limits on my social media apps would also be very helpful as it would be a reminder to myself to not let myself fall down the rabbit hole of endlessly scrolling and losing myself to the design of the app. By limiting my time on social media, it will both help my mental health improve as I won’t stress as much about what I am doing on the app and it will also help me to focus more on what I need to, especially school right now.
By taking a digital detox and generally trying to reduce my time spent using technology that is not necessary for my daily activities, I hope it will improve my mental health the longer I am able to teach myself that I should not be as reliant on things like social media. I just need to set up habits that allow me to do that and stick with it so I don’t fall back on old habits of stressing over social media too much again.
