Social Media is literally a game changer isn’t it? I know there are probably people here that don’t actually know what life without social media is, but for the older ones like me who do, isn’t it crazy to think that once upon a time we used to just call our friends on a landline, plan a meeting spot, hang out for a bit and no one would know what we were up to unless they saw us. Selfie’s weren’t a thing. We had single use cameras to take (sometimes terrible) photo’s of events and places we’d been to that just went in little photos albums. Strangers never got to see them. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to say bring back the days of no internet connection – that’s just silly. The internet and social media has a lot of pro’s. We make a lot of internet friends, we get to keep up to date with everything that is going on with our friends, family, favourite celebrities, secret crushes. Hey – I wouldn’t be writing this blog and having you reading it right now if it wasn’t for the power of social media. It is literally a life changing tool.

But for me…

Social media had a bit of a negative affect. For quite some time, you see, here’s some background on this anonymous woman writing you this blog. You’ll probably find this out about me more over time, but I have some very severe self esteem issues. Some of this is because of conditions I’ve mentioned in my last two posts, but a lot of it is down to how I grew up. I was always the ugly duckling. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying ‘I’m the most minging person ever’ and fishing for compliments, I’m not ugly. But I’m not exactly what people consider beautiful or hot either, I’m kind of… average. But, growing up I always seemed to somehow be the Duff (if you do not know what a Duff is, you need to watch the film ‘the Duff’). I have a beautiful hot sister who always got all the attention. My female friends are all stunning, I’m always the girl that you’d see in clubs and pubs and parties standing awkwardly in a corner while her friends were having men swoon over them. Or men would be talking to me to get to my friends. Eventually I just accepted how it is, and became Okay with it.

I thought that the internet and social media would be a good escape place from all that, but I was wrong. My mental health became very deeply affected by social media. I wanted attention that I wasn’t getting, and I found myself spending all my time comparing myself to everyone else. I posted selfies not because I loved how I looked, but because I would think I look good here, I want to know if other people think I look good too. It was like an anxious reassurance technique. I wanted to be liked. But I found that I wanted to be liked by the wrong people. I’d develop crushes and ideas on people on social media that I barely knew, just because we matched once on Tinder or I met them through mutual friends at a pub and thought they were good looking. I wanted them to be the ones who would like my photos or give me attention. But they barely knew I existed. I found Instagram a bit poisonous for a while because instead of just scrolling through and liking different posts from friends, I was going on the newsfeed and witnessing how everyone I knew was liking all these other beautiful girls, or how my friends who were naturally pretty – but just so happened to add an amazing filter to their photo would get about 20 likes in 30 minutes, I was lucky if I got 10 in a day, and then it started to slowly hit me. This was not what social media was supposed to be about. I genuinely don’t think the guys behind Instagram and Facebook thought to themselves ‘do you know what would be cool? if we can make people feel really unstable and compete with eachother over who has the best fake life! May the best one win!’ but sadly, this happens a lot. I know that I’m not the only one who has had this sort of feeling occur over time. It doesn’t help that there’s this whole ‘filter’ thing, now each to their own but, I completely disagree with the filters. It’s just made people, in my opinion, more insecure about how they look. Do you know how many times I’m out with friends now and we go to post photos and one goes ‘oh I don’t like my skin in that, can you add this filter?’ and suddenly we’re all posting things online, pretending to be people we are not. It was when this started happening far too often that I decided that I needed to take a step back and start to have some strict breaks from Facebook and Instagram. The first time I had a clean break, was back in September when I did scroll-free September. It was one of the most therapeutic things I have ever done. Since doing this, I learnt that my life actually goes quite well without these app’s buzzing at me all day.

The breaks and what they’ve taught me

Obviously, due to my new blog (which I’ve finally got round to doing – only taking me years) I still use things like twitter regularly to connect with bloggers and make people aware of my new posts. But I have started some new ‘breaks’ from social media. Every so often, I will delete my Facebook and Instagram app’s from my phone and not re-download them for a week to two or three weeks. Depending on how I’m feeling at the time. Also, regardless of whether I am active on those sites or not – I now charge my phone at night downstairs far away from where I’m sleeping. By distancing myself from social media apps and night time phone usage, I’ve learnt a lot of things about me as a person. It may come across that ignorance is bliss so of course, I’m not feeling down about things if I can’t see them, this is completely true. And there is the odd occasion where I use the apps again and feel down again very quickly. But I have learnt to shut them off as soon as they start to make me feel anything negative.

I read a book recently by Matt Haig called ‘Notes on a Nervous Planet’ and if you have not read that book, I strongly recommend you do because it has some really good points about social media and what it can do to your mental health. It is his book that also suggests things like charging your phone in a separate room to where you sleep and also, as hard as it may be sometimes, do not have arguments with strangers on the internet. Also – turn off your notifications so you are in control of when you use apps.

Also, my CBT therapist I had in 2018 recommended this below pictured book by Melanie Fennell to me, which I’ve just decided to start reading through properly to try and help myself going forward:

I’ve learnt how to control my emotions now when I use social media. I now make a point of not having notifications, so I use my app’s as and when I see fit. I’m not being controlled by some other notifications in a desperation to be noticed or popular. I don’t look at the newsfeed page on Instagram that shows me who likes what, I check my own notifications, I see what new posts are up for those I follow, I don’t even check who views my stories anymore if I post any. I don’t allow those little things to get to me anymore. Also, most importantly, I block anyone that makes me feel remotely uncomfortable about myself (and just so you know, we all have the right to delete or block anyone who makes us feel bad about ourselves, don’t ever be sorry for shutting out the poison), I do social media in my own time. Also, blogging has become a blessing in disguise, because I now spend so much time on my blog twitter page checking out other people’s blogs, subscribing and coming up with new posts for my own that once that’s out the way and I take time to read a good book or watch a film, chill out, I don’t have the time to scroll through the other app’s and see what people are doing or who’s chasing who, or whether my pictures are liked.

There is also these few vital things before I finish this post (I could waffle forever but I’ll save that for another time ;)..) that I have learnt that I think is a good way for me to close for any of you out there who have ever felt like I have when it comes to social media and popularity on social media.

You have to love yourself first and foremost, once you start learning to do that, other things will fall into place.

“Comparison is the thief of joy” this is one of my favourite quotes, and it is so true. The more we compare ourselves to everyone else, the more unhappy we become.

Never feel like you have to post something just to impress someone else, or because everyone else is doing it.

The people who care about you, will respect you anyway. STOP CARING WHAT STRANGERS THINK. (that was more a reminder to myself than anyone else).

We’re all beautiful in our own ways, no matter what our backgrounds are or who we are, social media is a great platform for us to use so long as we use it cautiously and wisely. Don’t let it ever put you in a position where you feel like you or your life aren’t good enough.

“Just because you don’t look like somebody who you think is attractive, doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive. Flowers are pretty but so are Christmas lights and they look nothing alike”.