Benefits of Having a Social Media Break, Here's Some Things You Can Do While Logging Off

Social media can be a great place to make friends and interact with what your friends and family are up to. It also has its downfalls. It can be damaging to users mental health, especially in young people.

It turns from being a nice place where you can speak to your friends and interact with people, to an obsession where you can't live without scrolling through Instagram before getting out of bed in a morning.

Healthline found a 2021 pilot study of 68 university students found that most students reported a positive change in mood, reduced anxiety, and improved sleep during and immediately after a break from social media.

A York student, told YorNews:

"I had a break in lockdown as I found myself being on my phone for at least 10 hours a day, which is ridiculous, just scrolling through social media posts that I didn't really care about. I deleted Snapchat from my phone along with TikTok but kept Instagram as I felt I couldn't go complete 'cold turkey'. Looking back I feel like it may be time for another one, I really started to enjoy the things I did. I made more plans to see friends and spent more time doing things with my family, like going on runs with my brother and watched a new series with my dad."

A break isn't deleting all of your accounts to never return. It's a few days or weeks where you can log off and not have to worry about anything but yourself. Once the break is over you can make changes to your activity on social media.

This could include spending less time on your phone, unfollowing accounts that you know have a negative affect on you, only following the people you want to see, start to change the way you post (only post moments you really want to share with everyone, post 'messy' moments that bring you joy - a private spam Instagram can be good for this)

Healthline conducted a survey:

"we asked readers how they feel about social media. Of those we asked, 25 percent said they feel it has a negative effect on their mental well-being, and 53 percent said they feel that cutting down on usage could help."

However, some people can't get off social media completely and have to work with it. Things can still be done, such as reducing screen time instead of deleting apps.

York St John University student, Lucy Stephenson, told YorNews:

"When I thought of taking time off of social media I thought that it would clear my head and allow me some time to myself. However, I just felt more isolated and somehow more on edge that I was going to miss out on something."

To improve your mental health, or if you are just taking a small break away for you, there's other ways you can spend your time such as:

• Going for a walk

• Exercising

• Reading a book

• Watching a series

• Cooking a meal

• Listen to a podcast

• Spending time in person with friends and family

To keep doing things instead of spending hours checking endless notifications or scrolling through TikTok you can arrange activities to keep yourself busy and making new memories.