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They left social media for good. Are they happier?
While experts try to understand social media’s mental health impact, some users are running their own experiments.
Apr 11, 2023, The Washington Post
By the time Jesse Waits noticed his relationship with social media had grown into something he didn’t like, he already had the vocabulary to say so.
His experience recovering from a marijuana addiction had taught him to take stock of his behaviors and get rid of ones that weren’t serving him, said the 39-year-old, who works at a tech repair counter in Cincinnati.
Waits has a house, friends and a partner. But his online connections are sparse after permanently logging off Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter last year during a digital detox. (He uses Instagram on his desktop to promote his side business, he said.) He says he feels happier and more present. But not everybody around him gets it. Some people rib him with a ‘Wow, good for you’ or emotion-dump about their own social media hang-ups.
“Addiction is the most interesting of diseases because it’s a disease that convinces you that you don’t have a disease, right?” he said.
Plenty of Americans claim social media is a scourge, but few cut the cord. Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults say social media has a mostly negative impact on life in this country, but 72 percent maintain at least one social media account, according to data from Pew Research Center. Headlines point at social apps to explain upward trends in anxiety, depression and loneliness among Americans, but people of all ages continue turning to social media to build communities. Amid our gripes and widespread distrust, social media serves as a new public square, where news develops, leaders debate and users form potentially lifesaving connections.
Some people find life on social media unworkable. In interviews, people who don’t use social media repeatedly said it made them feel anxious or alienated. A few talked about a lack of boundaries or overuse. As the line between “online” and “real life” thins, some people are logging off permanently because the downsides feel too profound: They struggle to control how much time they spent on the apps or feel burdened by the constant stream of images and information.
Sometimes they feel lonely, they say — but life can be lonely, and social media wasn’t helping.
