Social Media Detox

By; Katelyn Canning

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August twenty-first of this past summer I was sitting in the house, bored out of my mind, when my mom texted me to ask if I wanted to pack up a lunch and head to the beach for the day. Obviously I said yes, so off to the beach we headed and what I imagined would turn out like any other ordinary beach trip ended up being a real eye opener for me that I have never forgotten. After finally getting settled in a quiet spot on the sand right in front of the water, I finally sat down and stopped to take a look around. I thought the scenery would be the first thing to catch my eye, but I was mistaken. When I looked to my left, there was a group of three young kids sitting under the umbrella watching what I believed to be youtube on their iPad. Both parents buried deep in their iPhones as well. When I looked to my right, I noticed that the majority of the families scattered down the beach also had their fingers glued to some piece of technology. I began questioning why all these people were sitting there on their smartphones when there was such a beautiful view right there in front of us. Why weren’t they out swimming? Why weren’t they building sandcastles? Why weren’t they bumping a volleyball back and forth? That’s when it really occurred to me just how consumed we all are by social media. Internet users across the globe spend an average of 144 minutes on social media every single day. We have become so addicted to the world of Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, and Facebook that we forget to live in the outside world.

While social media can be beneficial for things such as communicating with family and friends, expressing yourself, marketing, and providing both full-time and part-time jobs, it also has its downfalls. Just like sugary candy and chocolate bars, social media is only beneficial in moderation. When we spend too much time on social media, we can often begin having feelings of depression, anxiety, and isolation. If you divided the average 144 minutes that we spend on social media daily in half, we would have more time for things like exercising, spending quality time with friends and family, eating healthier meals, and studying. After my beach day, I decided I needed to detox from social media. Those two weeks that I spent breaking my addiction, I noticed that I began to live in the moment rather then being so concerned about checking Instagram or responding to Snapchats.

Ways You Can Begin Detoxing

Do Not Disturb

The easiest way to begin taking some time away from social media is turning on do not disturb so that you don’t feel inclined to pick up your phone every time you get a new notification. This shuts off all distractions so that you can do things like study, watch a movie, or hangout with a friend.

Deleting Apps

During my detox, I deleted the apps that I was spending too much time on so that I was forced to find other things to do. This takes a lot of self control because it only takes 5 seconds to re-download an app, but once you break the cycle you stop noticing that it’s missing. I felt a weight off my shoulders when I no longer wasted an hour mindlessly scrolling on TikTok or Instagram.

Prioritize Self-Care

Insider touches on the importance of prioritizing self care in their blog post about taking a break from social media. They recommend replacing social media time with healthy mood boosting activities. This may include going for a walk, hike, catching up with old friends, journalling, cooking a healthy meal, reading, or taking a relaxing bath. It’s important that we feel like our best self in the real world.

Logging Off

I find that staying logged off of my social media platforms during the day, and only allowing myself to log in for an hour after dinner helps me to manage my time better. I know that I have that designated time period to check in on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook later in the day, so I no longer find myself mindlessly scrolling for two hours or checking my phone every five minutes.

Do you think you could benefit from a social media detox? Try out some of the tips above and let me know what worked for you!

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How Toxic is #Fitspo?

By: Katelyn Canning

Have you ever fallen down the rabbit role of #fitspo pictures on instagram? This hashtag can lead you to millions, upon millions of fitness influencers who post daily content of their ‘healthy’ lifestyle. Whether it be videos or photos of their newest gym routine, their chiselled abs, or their gigantic salad, they seem to have it all figured out. Sometimes while mindlessly scrolling, we fail to remember that not everything we see online is realistic.

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I once read a quote that said “social media has made perfect look achievable, so now real has become undesirable”, and that really stuck with me. SO many fitness influencers are profiting money, likes and followers for posting ten minute videos titled “workout routine for Kylie Jenner bod” when in reality her curves and figure came from surgical procedures. When influencers make this ‘perfect’ body type look achievable in the gym, we start becoming insecure about our natural bodies. They create this perfect image online, but fail to show us that no matter how many hours you spend in the gym or how toned your abs are you probably still have a tummy roll when you sit down. While it’s good to have goals, #fitspo has caused us to lose sight of the fact that we should be exercising to feel good mentally, and not just to meet unrealistic body expectations.

Another toxic trait of the fitness community is the unrealistic food expectations. While we all feel good after eating a healthy meal, fitness influencers make us feel like we will gain ten pounds if we don’t eat a salad for all three meals. We only see short snippets of their day online, so who is to say they didn’t sneak in a quick snickers bar after lunch, or a cupcake after dinner. We try so hard to follow these strict diets that they post, and become riddled with guilt if we fall off the wagon or have a cheat day. You can eat things other than lettuce, broccoli, and carrots and still be healthy. I often find myself returning to the blog post on Taste of Home for realistic yet healthy meals.

#fitspo has created this concept that if you don’t spend two hours in the gym, and strictly diet to only fruits and vegetables then there’s no way you can be healthy. Whether you spent 30 minutes exercising or hours, you should still feel accomplished and proud of yourself no matter what. Even if you only have one healthy meal that day, you should still feel good and proud of yourself for your effort. At the end of the day, we could all use a reminder that we are only human, and that is perfectly okay.

what changes do you believe we could make to the fitness community online to help combat unrealistic expectations?

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Influencing; worth it or not?

By: Katelyn Canning

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Whether you refer to them as influencers or content creators, they have become the face of social media across the globe. I’m sure anyone with an instagram account is following at least ten influencers that align with their interests whether thats beauty, fashion, parenthood, cooking, lifestyle, gaming, etc. There is quite literally a niche for everything and everyone. While we consume so much of this content daily, I believe we can all agree that we have wondered what it would be like to be on the opposite side of the screen for a change. I mean really, who doesn’t want to work for themselves with endless business opportunities, have a chance to connect with people all over the world and, receive free products from their favourite brands? It all seems like a dream come true, so today I wanted to dive deeper into both the pros and cons to decide whether influencing is truly worth it or not.

The Positive Aspects

Brand deals, Sponsorships and Money

While influencers usually have multiple sources of income such as merchandise, affiliate marketing, and Google Adsense, I think it is safe to assume that brand deals and sponsorships is where they earn the most money. Although factors such as engagement rate and amount of followers can play a big role, Later Blog spoke to Instagram influencers, talent managers and social agencies to find out how influencer marketing costs are really calculated. This concluded that many brands use one cent per follower, or $100 per 10k followers as their starting point before other factors are considered. There is also room for negotiation since influencers and their management can set their own rates, which leads me to my next point…

No boss, No Problem

Another pro to becoming an influencer is that if you grow your platforms enough for it to become your full-time job, you are your own boss! This means complete freedom in a sense that you don’t have to worry about calling-in sick, or booking time off, or consulting your boss before you make a decision. While many influencers eventually hire a manager to help take some of the weight off and help negotiate with brands, no boss means that you set your own schedule. You decide how much or how little you want to work, what days you want to work, and how much you want to charge for your services. No more being limited to two weeks paid vacation from your 9-5 job, as every day is filled with endless opportunities.

Creating a Community

People normally follow the influencers that they do because they share similar interests, hobbies, and viewpoints. As an influencer, you are creating your own online community of like minded individuals who get to interact with everyday which I personally think sounds like a lot of fun! While friendships may not always be the same through a phone screen, you have the chance to learn, grow, educate and entertain each other within your niche.

Free products? Yes please!

Many micro-influencers on Instagram are “paid” for their services with free product from the brand they are collaborating with. This allows for both the influencer to try new products, and for the company to gain more sales from the free promotion. Influencers are also often gifted products from P.R packages and I don’t know about you but i’d love to receive products from my favourite brands!

The Cons

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Internet Trolls

When you put your entire life on a platform shared with people across the globe, it also allows for people to interact with you negatively. While it would be amazing to live in a world where everyone was kind and respectful, unfortunately there are influencers who deal with hate comments, stalkers and hackers online everyday. You definitely have to have thick skin if you are willing to put yourself out there because there will always be people who don’t have anything nice to say. If you are considered influencing, it is also important to make sure that your passwords are a little bit more complicated then your pets name and the year you were born to avoid people stealing your information.

Patience

It would be incredible if we could all go to bed and wake up with a million followers the next morning, but unfortunately that’s not how it works. Growth is always super rewarding in the end, but it requires a lot of patience to jump ship and make it your full-time job. You have to have the self discipline and motivation in order to put in the effort to encourage growth. This may look like being consistent online to grow your following, and reaching out to brands to get your name out there. If you want to become an influencer, then you better start now because it can be a long journey!

In the end, regardless if you do it full-time or part-time I think that influencing can be super rewarding if it is something that interests you. The possibilities online today are endless, and you can do whatever you set your mind to! I’d love to hear in the comments down below if you think Influencing might be the career path for you!

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Does Social Media Create Unrealistic Expectations?

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When I think back to my what my Instagram feed looked like around 2013, I can vividly remember the poor quality mirror selfies, and the over filtered photos shared from the Retrica app. It all seemed so innocent at the time because no one that I knew was worried about blurring out their blemishes or slimming down their waist. The most photoshopping that I saw was the dog filter from Snapchat. As time went on celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian began growing their following, and I watched this slowly begin to change. With the help of FaceTune, a four dollar photoshopping app available in the Apple store, ordinary people such you and I were now able to smooth, reshape and patch images of ourselves. All it took was five minutes to achieve photos with skin as flawless as Beyonce’s and a stomach as flat as a Victoria Secret angel. This was only the beginning of unrealistic expectations that we all felt forced to meet because of the beauty standards portrayed on social media.

The Damage

Instagram has become a platform where millions of people across the globe are able to share selective photos that they believe portrays the most attractive version of themselves. This creates a false reality that things such as acne and tummy rolls don’t exist in the real world. Macquarie University preformed a study where 267 women aged 18-25 completed an online questionnaire where they responded to questions regarding topics such as body image, instagram usage and ‘fitspiration’ photos. The data collected concluded results that showed increased time spent on instagram was directly related to greater self-objectification. The impacts of scrolling through too many retouched and photoshopped images online is having a negative impact on women’s appearance related concerns and beliefs.

After reading this study, I took it upon myself to collect some data of my own. I complied a list of questions in a google forms format and shared the link across my social media platforms. I asked the respondents to provide their gender, whether or not they compare themselves to friends, family, celebrities and influencers, and what unrealistic expectations they have seen online.

drumroll please……

The results concluded that majority of females rarely compare themselves to friends and family, but compared themselves to influencers and celebrities quite often. It also concluded that 78% of the respondents have been influenced by social media to fixate on their weight and/or appearance. The most common unrealistic expectation the respondents have seen online regarded body weight, appearance and skin complexions.

How Can We Minimize The Damage?

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In order to avoid fixating on things such as appearance, body weight and self-worth it is important that we expand the content that we are seeing on social media. While it can be nice to follow influencers and celebrities, sometimes we are consuming too much negativity through their overwhelming lifestyle and over edited photos. It is critical that we ensure a healthy balance of both photos that include people, and photos that do not. When you see photos of people you most likely fixate on their features that you are envious of. When you see photos of things such as landscapes, animals, and food you tend to appreciate the raw beauty of the photo more.

Another helpful tip that I personally use in order to help minimize the consequences of social media is being very selective about the accounts that I follow. I like to mentally ask myself a serious of questions when I discover a new account. Some of those questions include;

• Is this individual promoting unrealistic expectations and/or beauty standards?
• Will I fixate on their images when I see them in my feed?
• What can I benefit from their content?
• Is their account in alignment with who I am as an individual?
• Do they have at least 3 raw, authentic photos on their page

In conclusion, the most obvious tip I can provide you with to help minimize the negative effects of social media is don’t be afraid to put down your phone! I feel as if in today’s generation, many of us forget that there is an entire world outside of social media. When you catch yourself mindlessly scrolling, maybe you can put down your phone and pick up a book, or go for a walk, or go for coffee with a friend. Even if we are only consuming raw, authentic content it is still important that we have some time away from a screen. Comment below if there is any additional tips that you guys use to help minimize the damage, I’d love to hear them!

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Sources

Administration. (2021, June 8). Impact of Instagram use in young women. Macquarie University. Retrieved September 26, 2021, from https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/healthy-people/centres/centre-for-emotional-health-ceh/publications/impact-of-instagram-use-in-young-women.