“When it comes to social media, there are just times I turn off the world, you know. There are just some times you have to give yourself space to be quiet, which means you’ve got to set those phones down.”
Michelle Obama
Stopping The Hashtag Train
So I’m gonna start off by saying this isn’t going to be some preachy bullshit of how I achieved zen and you should copy me yadda yadda yadda. There’s enough of that shit out there as it is.
My Twitter account got reported a bunch during the last General Election in the UK (people randomly reporting me) because my lofty lefty views were upsetting some folk and at time of writing I’ve not been able to get my account back. The weird thing though is that I’m glad I can’t use it at the moment.
I was definitely addicted (or whatever way you want to put it) to checking my social media to the point where it was definitely affecting my mental health, and if you’ve been here before you know it’s not that great to begin with.
I can still check my feed, check out the trending stuff and other basic things. But I can’t like, favourite or comment on anything. And by God was the difference almost immediate. The election was stressful enough and being able to sit back from it and not get directly involved, at least online anyway, was a blessing in disguise.
Since not being as involved on Social Media I have noticed a definite drop in my stress levels and I’ve even been able to play video games again, which as silly as that may sound has been great to be able to do again.
After a couple of days I removed Twitter from my launch screen bookmarks. I would always load the same 3 pages when I booted up the internet; email, YouTube and Twitter.
Again, as silly as this all may sound, it’s been great to just enjoy the internet again. I’ve been catching up on YouTube videos, talking more with online friends and, like I’ve already said, enjoying some goddamn video games. I haven’t been able to sit down and enjoy playing a game in a long time (since my birthday last October pretty much) and it’s been great to get back into the hobby that I love.
Social Media addiction is a term that gets thrown around and laughed at a lot but I can attest to it being very real and quite detrimental to your mental well being. I don’t know when I’ll properly reactivate my Twitter but until then I’m going to sit back, relax and play some games! Kakarot comes out this week!
I hope this didn’t come across as to preachy so all I’ll say is thanks for reading and I’ll see you all next time. Until then, remember to take care of yourselves. Peace!
LeighPouse
Bonus Video
I am going to play the hell out of this. They even got the original narrator back for the trailer!
Any Thoughts?