By Gavin Fish
Staff Writer
At the beginning of the summer, I was in the worst mental space I had been in years. I didn’t necessarily know what to do with myself and I found myself falling deeper and deeper into self-pity. However, I found the problem to be my phone. 58% of American adults have stated that they feel social media use affects their mental health. Despite not being an adult, I found these effects taking me by storm. So on June 9th, I silenced my phone to every single person and app except for my parents, partner and three friends of mine. I found myself feeling more creative and happy with the art which I had always wanted to create. Over just the summer alone, I wrote 27 songs, composed 4, started writing a screenplay and a book, and ended up writing over 60 poems. My creativity wasn’t the only thing that got a boost, either. I found myself in greater care by myself and loved ones alike after opening up more and exploring life more and all that life offers aside from social media. I have always loved technology and its uses and advancements, and this is not at all a statement on how social media and technology are bad. If anything, they are incredibly adaptable and needed pieces of modern life. However, their harm is unavoidable. Out of the top ten social media websites, nine of them are considered harmful to one’s mental health, the only outlier being YouTube which doesn’t integrate user sociability.
While many treat others with kindness in person, the anonymity of social media is dangerous. I will say that everyone should use it as it is part of our modern daily life now. I have found that time without it feels much better than time with it. I found my time with family and friends to be better, and my spirituality arose in a way I didn’t think it would. I even got into knitting–laugh as much as you want, but I own a handmade quilt now and you don’t!
My time without social media is first-hand proof of the benefits of social media breaks and bettering mental health.
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