Break from your Screen

By Fifi Fraga

Social media is such a huge part of our lives, it’s almost instinctual how much we check it. I find myself checking Instagram every time I’m bored, and oftentimes the feed hasn’t even updated...so what was the point? Do I even really care if something new does pop up within five minutes? Not really. I feel like most can relate. Why do we do this? If Instagram is boring, we then go to Snapchat. We check some stories, see who has snapped us, and we check again. 

Even when watching TV, we are likely checking social media. Why? I don’t really know. But, I know that when I find myself doing this, I remind myself that nothing new is going to pop up. For me personally, the cycle can become mentally exhausting. I realize how addicted we are to social media even though we may not necessarily want to be. Sure, it can be both fun and informative to check social media or make your own post. But why do we feel the need to recheck our social media right after we just checked it? 

In finding myself asking these questions of “why,” I began to do things that could potentially break the habit. I first tried to see if moving my Instagram and Snapchat apps to the very last page of my iPhone screen would make a difference in keeping me from constantly clicking into them when I’m bored. Again, I tried this especially because I knew that I was not clicking in because I actually cared to see the latest post, but rather because I figured, “well I’m sitting on my couch bored, so what can I do?” 

Moving these apps to the last page did work for a while, but my brain eventually trained itself to slide straight to the last page of my iPhone screen. I recently started to log out of my accounts after using them, so when my I get bored and my brain instinctually wants to click on one of those apps, I have to take the extra step of logging back in. This has made a difference because when I see the login page, I often just minimize the screen because the content is not instantly available to me. 

So, if you ever find yourself mentally exhausted from social media because you find yourself checking it so often, try some of these things. When I feel like I haven’t checked in in a while, I will log in, check my feed (which at this point has a ton of new content and actually entertains me for a while), and then log back out. This way, I can actually enjoy what I’m watching on TV or enjoy hanging out with my friends. I do feel like most of our generation acknowledges this feeling of annoyance associated with social media at times. I don’t by any means want to delete my social media because it is a huge part of our lives today and does have many benefits. However, especially when it is so easily accessible to us on our devices, it is always nice to take breaks.