Give up Social Media

Written by Lillian Martz, M.A. - University of Montana

For most of us, social media as we know it began in 2003 with the advent of MySpace. A hip site where you could rank your Top 8 friends, share music, and provide life updates. You had to login to a specific website on a computer! Along came the smartphone in the late 2000’s and it’s kind of crazy how quickly things have changed. It’s now nearly impossible to find anyone you know who doesn’t use some type of social media, from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, BeReal, even my 86-year-old grandmother uses Pinterest. (She’s actually quite hip, attending open mics and music festivals where my youngest cousin performs music that can kindly be described as “sounding like nothing you’ve ever heard before.”)

Some of you may be young enough that you’ve never known a time without feeling like others were watching your every move. When I was a kid, I did some embarrassing things, and I am so thankful that no one was filming and posting or streaming. I wrote and performed some truly awful poetry during this time and am grateful that “BardFest 2003” created and hosted in part by my high school passion (being editor of the Literary Art Magazine) was never broadcast to the world or posted on YouTube. The nice thing about the pre-social media days was that kids (and everyone else) only had to compare themselves to the other attendees of such a small production as Bardfest at my local high school. I didn’t write great poetry, but I didn’t have the Amanda Gorman’s from other states and nations to compare myself to. I could feel pretty good when I only had to compare myself socially to the 50-100 kids who showed up at those events. Today’s teens (and all of us) no longer have that luxury. Instead, we compare what we eat, what we wear, what we look like, events we attend, vacations we take or don’t take to the carefully curated image others across the world post every second of the day.

It's no wonder anxiety and depression have increased as we are forced to compare our REAL lives with the IMAGE of others lives (including celebrities) they post on the internet.

For this Active learning assignment, try to give up ALL social media for 2+ days. You can use your phone but be sure to either shut down or delete your apps, turn off notifications, and resist the almighty urge to open Facebook or Twitter first thing in the morning. Yes, you will lose your Snapchat Streak, but what will you gain instead? Notice how you feel about yourself, and your world. Check in with yourself about what you do instead of utilizing social media? Do you find yourself reading a book or talking to your neighbors and friends more? Notice too, what you miss about social media. It’s not all bad! For those of us with loved ones and friends spread all over the place, social media can be the point of contact that tethers us together.

Your other job is to share (possibly on social media) how it felt to give up social media. Post it anywhere you like. . . and consider linking it to us @MontanaHappiness or using a social media hashtag: #MHPHappinessChallenge

#MHPHappinessChallenge

#MontanaHappiness

https://www.youtube.com/@montanahappinessproject333

https://www.instagram.com/montanahappinessnow/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100073966896370

https://www.linkedin.com/company/97180580/admin/feed/posts/

https://johnsommersflanagan.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@montana.happiness