Battling Social Media Addiction
By: Brooke Moore
Tags: Addiction, Anxiety, Social Media, Depression, Mental Health

“Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame, darlin you give love a bad name”, wakes me from a deep sleep that I’m pretty sure I just fell into about an hour ago. (I’m 40, of course I love Bon Jovi!)

Rolling over, I tap my watch on the stand and spend a few seconds focusing in on the screen; 3:30am, again. Ugh! My body is screaming at me to hit snooze, but my brain quickly steps in, “not happening girl, that app you’re using has no snooze remember?”.

Why do I torture myself like this? No sane person in this world gets up at 3:30 in the morning to workout before having to be at work before 6:30am, right?

I drag myself out of the bed, place my feet on the cold floor, and grab my phone from the flat wireless charger it stays on beside me all night. I hit the button on the app that gives me about 45 seconds to get to the kitchen and take a picture of my cabinet before it starts going off again and rush to the kitchen.

Although I didn’t accomplish much in 2019, I am thankful that I at least beat the obsessive snooze epidemic by finding that app. As soon as I have the all clear from my alarm, it starts.

I can feel the heat in my body start to rise into my throat. My fingers start to twitch just a little. The overwhelming urge to check every social media newsfeed that I follow is taking control of my body.

I resist long enough to make it to the restroom and as soon as I sit down, it’s on. Telling myself I am only going to check notifications, I grab my phone and log into Facebook. Just as I start to check into Twitter to see what’s going on, my toes start tingling. I just barely notice it, but don’t give it much thought. Next, I’m checking my Medium stats, then Instagram, LinkedIn, and on to my emails.

By now, my feet are completely asleep and I finally realize that I’m still sitting on the toilet and it’s already 4:00am. Chastising myself, I put my phone down, wash my hands and swear to myself I am just going to throw on my workout clothes and get busy.

Another 30 minutes passes by as I put one sock on, check my phone, another sock, check my phone, my pants, read an article on Medium, then my shirt, post on Facebook; another morning, another hour completely wasted. Now, I am going to end up being late getting the kids to school, AGAIN and probably late for work too!

This is my morning. EVERY morning.

For the rest of the day, as I am sitting or standing at my desk at work, it’s basically the same thing. It’s even worse if I am having to deal with a difficult task that day or a stressful situation. I must check my phone before I get started and then every time I feel just an ounce of stress or anxiety, I grab it again.

My evenings are pretty much the same. If I had a dime for every time my husband has asked me to put the phone down, I would be one seriously rich woman by now.

It has taken me a very long time to be able to admit that I have a serious problem. It’s embarrassing, quite frankly, and it means I have to acknowledge that my husband was right every time he said something to me about it, which is not something I am very proficient at doing (haha).

I’ve done my homework. I’ve researched social media addiction, tried every recommendation on the World Wide Web of knowledge and opinion, and have even talked to my therapist about it multiple times.

I have checked Facebook 10 times just while writing this article.

Apparently, it is estimated that 5 to 10% of all Americans suffer from this same problem. If the time you are spending on social media is impacting other areas in your life such as work or time with family, I would highly recommend that you consider the possibility that you are suffering from social media addiction as well.

I have withdrawal symptoms if I can not access my social media for any length of time. I get pretty defensive if anyone tries to tell me to put it down. Every time I logon, I feel a brief sense of happiness and stress relief. For me, it’s often a coping mechanism; an escape from life and what I may be dealing with at that moment.

In the past, I would get the same sensation every time I would take a drag off of a cigarette, back when I used to smoke.

Social media addiction produces the same neurological results as gambling, alcohol, and even drug use such as cocaine because it affects the same part of the brain due to a high increase in dopamine.

I do not have any answers on how to best address this issue as I am still battling it every day. I have found that deliberately spending time writing and exercising does tend to pull me away from social media more than anything else. I have also found that turning off the notifications from my social media accounts helps just a little, but a little is better than nothing.

Since becoming addicted to social media, I have developed/been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. From all I have read on this topic and my discussions with my therapist, it is believed that excessive social media use does increase the risk of developing both of these issues, so it’s very likely that my addiction has caused this.

Hopefully, sometime later in 2020, you’ll see an article from me on how I beat social media addiction. If this is something you suffer from, or have suffered from in the past, I would LOVE to hear from you! Let me know what you tried and what has helped. I am all ears!