Written by Nima Najariandariani , 2021 Cohort
It has been about a year that I have been feeling more aware of the social media effects on my mind and body. Since then I’m trying to educate myself in this area and find out more about the real effect of using social media excessively on our daily life. I have seen many new routines in my way of being that have been totally shaped by using social media. For instance, before I became aware of my bad habits, I used to check on my accounts exactly the same moment I woke up and right before I went to sleep. Then I noticed I’m starting some days in a low-key dejecting mood but I couldn’t find a rational reason for it. And this thing kept happening until I realized checking on your social media first thing in the morning is exactly like a Russian roulette gameplay to start your day. You may not know what content you are going to consume. It can be something to lighten up your mood for the rest of the day, or it can be something that triggers you and it may stay with you for a long time, something unnecessary to think about, when you are about to start your day. The onset of a day is especially important.
There has been an explosion of social media content during the past decade. Not only to start our days, but also how we use social media is having a huge impact on our sleep.
No matter our age, sex or location, it’s now the norm to sleep with a mobile phone in our bedroom. Scrolling social media platforms is now one of the most common pre-sleep activities, for most of us. Some people believe it feels relaxing to lie down in bed and check their favourite posts and gradually fall asleep, but research has shown this constant connectivity can have major negative effects on our sleep.
Mobile devices release blue light which can be good for making us productive during the daytime and help us keep focused. So they are naturally good for daytime phone usage. At night time, however, they are not ideal. Even if you reduce the brightness at night, still being exposed to light naturally tell us to be awake, so by looking at your phone’s screen your brain is telling your body it’s still time to be awake and not sleep time. When sunset happens and natural lights are dying down, your brain starts to produce a hormone called melatonin, which gradually prepares the body for rest and deep sleep. The turning point is that the blue light waves affect our melatonin levels more than any other wavelength. So it sends signals and sleep gets delayed.
In conclusion, social media can have its own useful points; it can bring friends and families together, people can know about each other’s conditions in a matter of seconds, it can be entertaining and fun. But sleeping and checking on social media are not a very good combination. We need to be more careful of how often and also what times of the day we check on our social media platforms. Social media usage in the early morning, as the first thing to do, and checking it in bed before going to sleep, as the last thing to do, can have major reflections on how good our mood is going to be and also it can have major repercussions for the quality of our sleep time. So maybe it’s time to rethink our priorities in our mornings and our nights!