Thinking about quitting social media? A new study suggests there may be another option

So now that I think of it, I've never, have you ever heard anybody say social media is good for your mental health? Your promise, you said that's it. I just can't take this anymore.

You might want to get rid of your apps altogether, but a new study says there may be an alternative without logging off completely. Here, give us his take on this study. Carmi Levy, CTV's tech analyst. Morning, Carvey. Good morning, Andrew. Great to be here. Yeah, so what are we learning from this? I mean, probably on a weekly basis, I say, you know what? I got to get off this. I got to get off this thing.

Yeah, and I say the same thing. I think we all recognize by now the corrosive, toxic impact of social media that we feel we need to compare ourselves to others. We feel we're falling short. There's a ton of abuse on these platforms. And this research out of the University of British Columbia suggests that when we do that, when we get off of social media, we delete the app or we restrict the hours that we use on it.

It does have a certain impact. There is a benefit to it. It does sort of let us regain control of our mental health because it takes us away from those toxic triggers. But it's not a permanent solution. After a while, we start missing the people that we're connecting with on social media. There's that fear of missing out, that connectedness that social media gives us.

And the longer that we're away from it, this research suggests that those benefits of disconnecting kind of get reversed. And so what they're suggesting is, by all means, if getting off of social media helps you to sort of redeem some balance and control, then by all means do so because there are those temporary benefits of reduction in social comparison, better control over depression and anxiety and things like that.

We also need to be more mindful of how we use the technology. In other words, as we're using social media, pay attention to how we make connections with other people. Pay attention to the interpersonal relationships. Be very deliberate about how we connect to other people so that we get more out of the experience and we're less likely to be harmed by it. So there are kind of two ways of looking at it and just apparently unplugging it isn't as then

I think it is and this data confirms that. Okay, so what's the easiest way in your experience, easiest way to take a little break? How do you take a break from Facebook or Instagram or whatever Twitter or whatever you want? I set alarms during the day and I have deliberate times during the day when I simply don't use the apps anywhere. And so that I can focus on the things that I need to focus on. By day, most of what I do is I write.

And so while I'm writing, I can't constantly be flipping back and forth to social media apps. So I actually schedule time where this is my focus time and I'm not using the apps and I'm not checking email or I'm not checking anything notifications or, you know, not going to bother me. I've also gone through my notifications and I've significantly reduced them so that I don't get a ping every time somebody comments or reacts to something that I've posted.

And then, you know, also what I do is I will go through periods where if I don't need it for work, I remove the app completely from my phone.

I still have them on my computer. I still have them on my tablet. But the phone is the real key here because that's the device that you always have on you. And if you're constantly being keen from social media by this device that's in your pocket, it's very difficult to disconnect from it, very difficult to regain that sense of control over your mental health because you never really get a chance to do just that.

It is an addiction for some, though. I mean, it's something or a habit. It's certainly a habit. You wake up in the morning, first thing you do, you know, have your coffee and you spend an hour on Facebook. It is. And I sort of, I've tried to be more mindful of what that usage looks like. And so when I sort of feel that I'm doing scrolling or I'm just scrolling limitlessly or aimlessly without really getting anything done and without any sort of real end point

That's the moment where I say, OK, that's enough. Like, I'm going to get up and I'm going to do something else. I think we have to be, we used to use apps in a very specific way. We would open them up. We would get what we needed done. And then we would get out of the app. Whereas with social media, we can go to look something up. And then three hours later, we can wonder where all that time went. So I think we have to be a little bit stronger by catching ourselves when we start engaging in endless, non-value-added engagement with social media.

I think that's the killer. And that ultimately is what sort of drives a lot of these negative mental health impacts that we're seeing today. Thanks, Carmi. Appreciate it.