Author: JOSHUA R. SIMON

Delete App. That’s an easy enough button to press, right? After all, it’s the first option displayed in hard-to-ignore (angry) red letters.

Time and time again have I purged my phone of all things social media related, only for my fingers to inevitably crawl their way back across the app store — doused in shame — as they type out the words Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. 

When will I learn?

It’s a Trap!

Mastering the urge to reunite yourself with these apps is no easy feat. Companies have designed their platforms and intricately coded algorithms to keep you scrolling.

Which by itself, I’ll agree isn’t the worst crime against humanity — but it goes even further.

Having constant access to social media is damaging our mental health and worsening how we communicate with each other.

Seriously.

It doesn’t matter how well you’ve curated your content preferences. Within minutes of loading up Twitter, you’re assaulted by a storm of unwanted emotions.

For example.

At first you’ll have fun catching up on what your friends are posting, and then suddenly you stumble across a news article detailing a tragic story about police brutality. One peek into the comments below is enough to get your blood pressure sky-rocketing.

Alert and ready to attack — you add another comment to an already aggressive and extreme conversation taking place.

Ten minutes pass. 

Next up, you find a curious thread over a dad tweeting about his daughter. Apparently she was hungry, and wanted something to eat for lunch.

Deciding to teach the girl a lesson in survival, the dad chronicles her frustrated attempts to cook a meal without his help. It’s as unproductive as you might expect from a nine-year-old’s efforts.

Alright — so this guy probably won’t be nominated for any father-of-the-year awards. But why does not cooking your child a can of beans warrant controversy?

Oh.

Turns out he’s also made some rather… off-color comments.

You develop a slight headache after adding to that dogpile.

Twenty-five minutes pass.

The further down the timeline you scroll, the more reasons there are to be upset.

A man was filmed hitting a woman today, and in the comments below are people justifying his behavior. No words can express your disbelief, but plenty can express your fiery tempest.

Forty minutes pass.

Another school shooting. The details are unimportant. You’ve already plunged head-first into a nasty, and rather nonconstructive argument on gun control.

One hour has passed.

Your headache has developed into a full-blown migraine. People are terrible. Everything is terrible. You’re full of venom, and ready to strike.

Hey! A picture of your friend having a barbecue. Like.

And on, and on, and on it goes.

Discourse — if you can even call it that— surrounded in aggression and devoid of any flexibility. People are not commenting to understand, they’re arguing to win.

That’s engagement . That’s reason enough to keep people returning, and it’s exactly what companies like Twitter and Facebook rely on—a culture that seeks validation through having the final say and garnering thousands of retweets, shares, and likes.

It really is exhausting.

So… What now?

It would be foolish of me to suggest going cold turkey might fix the problem. Social media isn’t bad in moderation, it’s just that so many of us lack the discipline to enact moderation upon ourselves.

But it’s worth a try.

If you haven’t already—try going on a social media detox for a week. Ask yourself if you really need constant access to everything all of the time. Limit your usage to just your computer.

After a week or so away from the miserable stories often found on these sites, you might just discover a little more faith in humanity. By this point, you’re good to reinstall these apps to your phone but I recommend (and oh goodness, I can’t believe I’m saying this) setting yourself a screen time limit.

It’s not as lame as it sounds.

Doing this simple little trick has increased my productivity at work, keeps me from doomscrolling on twitter—seriously, my anxiety hasn’t been this low in years—and I’ve recently discovered a newfound sense of freedom when browsing my timeline. It’s as if I don’t have to reply to every argument anymore. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

There are better things to waste our energy on.

Perhaps bowling. Let’s go bowling together.