Social media has become a staple part of modern society and people’s daily routines. Rather than coming home from work or school and spending time with family or friends, people instinctively lay on the couch and begin scrolling; watching videos without even processing what they’re about. Recently digital detoxing has become popular online, trending as a temporary challenge. However, stepping away from social media shouldn’t be treated as something trendy. Digital detoxing is a necessary habit because of the serious effects social media has on attention spans, mental health and productivity.
Constantly being on social media has drastic impacts on people’s attention spans. According to the American Psychological Association, people can’t remember the last time they spent a day without any distractions. This issue is amplified by the short-form videos found on social media apps, specifically designed to capture attention within the first few seconds, training the brain to expect constant stimulation. These content strategies have created shorter attention spans in this generation, training viewers’ brains to lose focus and interest while interacting with other people if they don’t hook them in within the first couple of seconds. Digital detoxing helps counteract this damage by giving the brain a chance to reset. By intentionally reducing screen time, people can slowly rebuild their ability to concentrate and rebuild longer attention spans.
Alongside social media impacting attention spans, it also has many negative impacts on body image. Social media creates an environment of constant comparison and a culture based on judgement among people. As social media users scroll through filtered photos and carefully edited content, they begin to question their own appearance, achievements and social lives. This has drastic impacts on mental health and body image. Over time these comparisons can lead to unhealthy habits and negative relationships with exercise, food and self-confidence issues. Taking breaks from social media reduces exposure to these unrealistic standards.
Prolonged online usage also impacts your education process by killing creativity and decreasing productivity. Science Direct elaborates that excessive exposure to online content has negative impacts on originality, motivation, creativity and thinking. The relationship between social media, productivity and creativity shows how the generation’s education is slowly deteriorating and getting harmed by unexpected daily habits. By digital detoxing, people are encouraged to replace scrolling with more productive tasks like homework or even reading, writing, exercising and being outdoors.
People may argue that social media is essential to stay connected with other people, work, school and oftentimes politics. However, this isn’t the case because digital detoxing doesn’t mean fully cutting social media and online platforms out of your life. Taking occasional breaks from social media allows you to stay connected whether it is fully cutting social media out for a couple days or setting boundaries on the time that you spend online. Just simply reducing the time online will still allow you to receive the benefits of digital detoxing without cutting out connection and communication with other people.
As social media’s influence on modern society continues to spread, users must reexamine the time and boundaries they have in place on their social media usage in order to better their lifestyles and receive the benefits from digital detoxing. Digital detoxing and occasionally stepping back from social media is essential rather than a passing trend.
