Growing Up Cleanse
Blog Entry - Growing Up Cleanse
I feel like I grew up on social media. Starting in even 4th grade when my friends and I would video chat on AIM. When I started 6th grade, everyone had Instagram, it was like a requirement if you wanted to have friends and chat outside of school. I remember the days of Vines, and creating them for likes. I remember begging my dad for a Twitter account at 13 because all the cool kids had one and if you did not have Twitter, you were laughed at. Before this challenge, I found myself scrolling on Instagram Reels looking at memes, mental health content creators, and spending most of my days on social media to a point where it started to impact my academics. Doing this detox, and NoSoNovember expected me to do the hardest thing I could think of - not go on social media for 30 days. Initially I laughed at the challenge thinking it would be easy. Many of my friends do not utilize Instagram, SnapChat, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, or any of the big social media platforms, so I thought to myself, "Why can't I?" I thought it would be helpful to detox for a month, given that my screen time was an average of 8 hours a day, and I spent so much time already on Instagram, mindlessly scrolling through reels, liking posts, commenting on friend's posts to show that I care. So, I started the challenge on November 1st. It was a bit funny to see how quickly I was proven wrong on it being easy and simple for me to just, not scroll.
For the first two weeks, I found myself opening my phone and automatically looking for Instagram, only to find it deleted from my phone. I would keep it open, shocked it wasn't on there, almost go to the app store, when I would realize "Oh wait! I'm detoxing!" The realizations that I was detoxing, hit me sometimes every 5 minutes of a day. The accumulation of these experiences, horrified me, as I began to realize how much of my day had been spent on social media, barely paying any attention to the content. I had learned about how social media works in both my Cognition course, and the impacts of it in my Infant Child and Adolescent Development course, however, the real-world experiences of mine, amplified the information to a new level. My therapist's concern quickly became understood to me for the first time. I was addicted to social media. However, it was not all pain through this detox.
There were some joys and exciting experiences that came as a result of my decreased screen time. For one, I was more mindful with friends and family during experiences. Rather than going on social media, I found myself really connecting with those around me. I found that my attention spans and memory increased a bit, and that helped me perform much better on an exam that I was really nervous about. I also found that with my screen time decreasing, my mental health improved significantly. The beginning of November is especially challenging for me due to a number of mental health stressors, and by not being on my phone or social media, the triggering days flew by as normal days without the usual nightmare-like experiences. As an autistic adult, overstimulation can negatively impact my own experiences as well as the experiences of others due to how I react in those situations.
Recently (and having been off social media for 20 days at that point), I had a family dinner which is easily one of the most overstimulating experiences I can think of. However, I was able to handle the dinner well and came out of it feeling better than I had in previous experiences. The main difference from that experience came from not being on social media. I did not realize how much I compared myself to others and how harmful social media became to my autistic needs. I'm not saying all of social media is bad or dangerous, as there are many supportive and helpful accounts on the platforms. I am more saying that the elimination of social media, my doom scrolling through horrific news postings, seeing my friends and family get together without me, and all of the loud postings, ended up being a great thing to step back from and learn to prioritize myself and my own well being. It is important to stay informed, and I did so through reading the news once a week with the important updates, or checking in with family and friends. Though, not seeing it in my face constantly, and feeling bad for my existence or enjoyment in life because of all the pain, ended up giving me the space to breathe.
My goal after this challenge is over, is to go two months of this detox. Until January 1st. I am starting to see so many benefits to not being on social media, that I want to see how long I can keep this up.
I really want to shout out Maddie and NoSo for introducing the idea to me back at the Active Minds Mental Health Conference in July of 2023, as I would not have had this incredible experience otherwise. I really appreciate that they do not send a spam of emails, and the emails that are sent are helpful.
