Day-to-day, everyone uses social media, from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep, but they aren’t realizing how it’s affecting them.
The daily average screen times for teens in the U.S. is four hours daily. For perspective, the average parent spends two hours daily, at max, cooking for their children. That means that teens are spending more time rotting on their phone than parents are feeding their family, one of the essential life tasks.
Social media is an addiction that slowly destroys many teens’ lives. Social media is proven to cause anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and low self-esteem.
Gabbi, a 16-year-old junior, says, “I think social media affects me poorly because, without even knowing, I compare.”
Social media is fake. The influencers on all platforms edit their faces, bodies, and even voice to make themselves more appealing to their audience, which causes teens to compare themselves to unrealistic standards of living.
This is why teens need a social media detox. Detoxes from social media are proven to improve the quality of life. Just detoxing from social media alone can drop anxiety levels by an average of 16%.
To begin a detox, it’s simple: just delete the apps. Maybe, start with the most demanding app. After a couple of weeks, delete another. Continue these steps until they’re all gone. You could even create a challenge between your friends to see who can keep all forms of social media deleted the longest.
“The only way to communicate is through Snapchat,” says Megan, a 15-year-old sophomore.
As she says, many teens feel like social media is mandatory. If you want to have any form of a social life, you have to have social media. Though this may feel true, it isn’t. Teens need to learn to connect with the real world.
During a social media detox, challenge yourself to experience the world outside of the internet. Make a bucket list of activities you can do without your phone, or plan a fun no-phones weekend with your friends.
Though social media seems like the center of your life right now, I promise it won’t always feel that way. So, delete the app. Start the detox. Consider this your challenge to experience a social media free world, even if it’s temporary. It’s time to prioritize your quality of life.
