I Had a Setback in My Social Media Detox...and Should Have Known Better!

I started my second week off of the Meta platforms on Sunday and felt hardly any longing to be back on them. I found myself reading The New York Times multiple times a day….and felt just as bad as I had on social media!

Reading The New York Times is not new to me– I’ve been a digital subscriber and daily reader for years.  I believe it’s essential to stay educated on the world's happenings. Since I don’t like sitting and watching TV, getting informed on current events from news programs in the evening won’t work for me. Thus, I read The New York Times.  

Reading the paper has always been a pleasure, but this past week brought extraordinary stress! Of course, the headlines and stories are very stressful. Yet, to my surprise, I kept returning to them repeatedly throughout the day whenever I got a break. 

I realized I had replaced one bad habit of doom-scrolling social media with another bad habit of doom-scrolling the news!

Knowing that people tend to do this, I should have been better prepared! How many people do you know who quit drinking to then eat more sweets, replacing one sugar source with another?  Or quitting smoking to turn to vaping?  Like goes to like.  I’ve been consuming stressful digital media. I should have anticipated finding another source of stressful digital media. 

Moreover, I felt even worse this week than I did on social media. Feelings of genuine fear and anxiety coursing through me met with an extraordinary surge of compassion for so many communities impacted by the world’s events (and, of course, those in our backyards).

I wanted to understand this, so I did a little digging and found an article on MedicalDaily.com that cites:

This stress reaction, as Sonia Lupien, director of the Centre for Studies on Human Stress in Montreal, found, is more prominent in women who read bad news than in men who read the same headlines. And women who read bad news can recall details easier than women who read neutral news. Lupien and her team speculated this gender difference has to do with a woman's instinct to protect her children, as well as their tendency to be more empathetic.

Bingo. My heightened sensitivity to protecting and advocating for women, children, and family systems has been on high all week.

What do I do with this?  

1) I have located a couple of YouTube channels with informative and uplifting content.  If I have the habit of consuming information on a screen, I will do the work to replace what the content is.  I will still read The New York Times, but I will keep it as a practice with my second cup of coffee (the first cup accompanies my morning meditation!). After that, I will stick with a YouTube video where I learn something valuable. 

2) I will prioritize and be strategic about where I invest my energy. I cannot save women, children, or families, but I can find community gatherings and work to invest my heart (and finances, when applicable).

My journey continues. I will reveal my shortcomings and discoveries along the way.  I hope this helps you find your journey to optimal health in 2025.

You can read the full article cited from MedicalDaily.com here.