Juniors voluntarily give up social media in seeking to improve their mental health

While some teens do not have social media due to parental rules, other students made the choice to delete these apps themselves for the benefit of their mental health.

Many students do not experience negative effects when they first start using social media. For junior Reagan Roberts, it was initially a positive thing that helped her to fit in.

“My friends had social media and so I wanted to feel included,” Roberts said. “It was fun seeing everybody else’s photos and I just wanted to be a part of it.”

Crandall explains what happens psychologically that compels people to join social media.

“Social media offers us a taste of some of our most foundational human needs,” Crandall said. “This could include community and connection, identity validation, etc. These are innate human drives and things like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc give us the sense we are meeting those needs.”

Junior Olivia Peters downloaded TikTok in 2020 with similar goals in mind, but ended up deleting it about a year later. 

“During COVID, it was important to be able to connect [with people my age], but on the other hand, it became something that I would do in order to not do other things,” Peters said. “I would just be in my room for hours avoiding the world because I was bored. I could look at TikTok, but I wasn’t really doing anything either. I wasn’t going out and talking to people or doing anything.”

Roberts had a similar experience with Instagram. Using the app became draining for Roberts as she found herself obsessed with what perfection looks like. 

“When I had Instagram, my mental health was constantly decreasing because I was constantly comparing myself to all the other people I’ve seen,” Roberts said. “Instagram portrays the perfect life version or perfect lives of everybody and that became really toxic for me.”

Eventually Roberts decided scrolling through social media was not worth the price of her mental health.

“I just was tired of it,” Roberts said. “I was tired of constantly getting on Instagram and being like, ‘Oh, I wish I looked like them [or] I wish I had those things.’ [Eventually] I was just like, enough’s enough.”