The average South African spends 2h45 on social media a day, this according to the 2016 We Are Social report. That’s a big chunk of our day, but have you ever wondered what impact this has on our psyche? We take a look and ask, is social media making us depressed?
Why I deleted the Facebook app from my phone
I need to be on social media, and especially Facebook because of the work I do. I have the Pages app on my phone so that I can check any of the brand pages when I’m out and about. The regular Facebook app is just for me.
At first I would hardly ever check it, then it became more frequent. I wasn’t even going to profiles to see what so and so said, but rather to see what was in my newsfeed. And every time someone had an update, I’d get a feeling of inadequacy. Why?
Because Jane was overseas again, Lebo just got promoted, and so on. And even though I know that social media is usually a highlights reel, it seemed as though everyone had a lot more to highlight than I did.
While planning our annual December holiday, I remembered that last year I just left my phone off for a week and felt amazing. So I deleted the Facebook app right then and there.
There could be a link between social media and depression
A 2015 study, which you can read about here, found that:
There were significant and linear associations between social media usage and depression whether social media was measured based on total time spent or frequency of visits.
SEE ALSO: How many times do you check your phone a day? This app will tell you.
It’s been 6 days and I’m feeling better about things. The only drawback is that when I want to sign up for things that require Facebook logins, I have to manually add it in. But that’s okay ?
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Author’s Note: I am by no means demonising social media. There are many benefits of social media, it forms part of our daily lives and keeps us connected.
