‘TING’ The notification sound went off from my phone. Oh, it was a like from my friend to a picture I posted. Then, another notification went off. It was a comment from my friends telling me I look cute in the picture. I was aware. I am, addicted. Actually, we are all addicted to social media and that is the truth that we have to accept. I was anxious. Do I look good? Do I look okay? Was the picture good enough to gain that much likes from my followers? I hated it. I despise it. I loathe the feeling of being insecure with pretty people or probably the influencers on social media.

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Last semester break, was pretty tough for me. I found myself being in the dark most of the days. Even before my finals started, I was feeling suicidal. Am I depressed? Am I stressed out? At that point I was clueless, feeling hopeless at anything. I lost hope. I felt like I am a failure. It is the only problem that I do not really want to share or open up with anyone, even with my best friend.

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I started to put a gap between me and Instagram because, I found myself in a condition of jealousy. I was jealous. Jealous of others life. They looked so happy, so outgoing and pretty much looking like they have no problems at all. I know, I should not be feeling like that towards others but I just cannot help it. My mental health is not in a stable condition, so I decided not to open or scroll through Instagram anymore.

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I guess most of you do not recognize who they are, but they are the members of X1, a Korean boy group who just debuted 2 months ago. I do admit, I am pretty much involved in the fangirling life especially, BTS and X1. Their music makes me happy. How can I describe it? Some people need others companion to feel lightweight, but for me, BTS and X1 is all I need. I do find little joy in every little things, so I opened a stan account to support them. Well, I can say that most of my followers on twitter would retweet something bad about BTS, meanwhile X1? They were involved in a controversy that involved the police in South Korea. I was stressed out looking at all the gossips and rumors going around my favourite groups. It is not an obsession; it is just the same fangirling as the girl who yells Justin Bieber’s name at a concert.

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I stoped logging in into my stan account and stoped scrolling on my main twitter account. I stoped socializing. Then it came to me that I should just delete all the social media applications that I have in my phone. Detoxing myself from social media, and guess what? I failed in the first two weeks of detoxing myself. I still have the urgency to open my twitter from safari. I feel ashamed with myself as I found that when I open my phone, I will automatically go to my social media folder trying to look for something but it was not there anymore. Phew, thank God I deleted my social media apps. It was tough I tell ya. There is like this one addicting drug that they put on social media’s that make us want to go through it every single day.

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Research has shown that the average people that use social media are around 18 to 24 years old. In addition, research also shows that the average time we spend on social media is 2 hours per day. Yep. I am 21, I spent most of my time scrolling through my Twitter and most of my friends use social media. Huh, that explains why my brothers stop using their social media’s because, we all have our own chapters in life. That girl is probably already in her 10th chapter but I am still stuck at chapter 2? What a loser. No. You are not. Remember, baby steps are also steps. You are not a loser. That is what I have been telling myself.

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I am still in the challenge of detoxifying myself from social media because I just started it three weeks ago. I know, I find my own joy after quitting from it. I realized that I want to read more books, I talk more with my friends, and from what I meant talking is talking with each other face to face. The people we follow on social media are,people that we used to know. Probably your childhood friends or your cousin, but then, you are all in different kinds of groups now. You are not talking that much to each other and believe me, if you decided to quit social media, the world will never stop turning.Well, unless its time. Your abstinence on Instagram won’t make you left out with any updates at all. Do you know what you lost? Memes, gossips and just some updates of others daily life, but then, that is just it.

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The hard truth about social media’s are, it’s not the apps that are ruining you but, the people who are using it. We slowly believe that, sometimes we have to achieve a certain level at a certain age. Honestly? Do we ever realize that not once has anyone ever pushed that to our face? It is just us that feels like we have to be like that. In the end, it is just you that will help yourself. What I am trying to point out here, be happy. I found joy with small little things now. I love seeing my little sisters making jokes with each other and I laugh along. I love the smell of my mom’s cooking. I love being surrounded by the people I truly care. Now, my mission is to improve my mental health and just lay back. I have my own dreams and I do not want to lose myself in the process of achieving it. My story is not supposed to encourage you to quit social media completely, but I want you to not be engrossed too much with it. Stop, before it is too late. 

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