Advent 30 Day What's Up Challenge 26 - Avoid social media for 24 hours.

Why is this good for your emotional health and wellbeing?

Social media is good at connecting us with friends, but can be bad on our mental health when scrolling for hours.

Recent studies and a TV documentary series on channel 4 called ‘Swiped’ (a 21-day experiment to measure the impact of smart phones and social media on pupils behaviour), found viewing social media content on our smartphones can cause anxiety and depression, and stop us sleeping well.

Social media can cause us to feel lonely at Christmas as it makes us feel like everyone is having an amazing time more than you.

We can feel envious seeing people on social media have it all.

Social media makes it easy to compare yourself to others and this can leave us feeling low about ourselves.

How to complete this challenge?

Take a break from social media for 24 hours – you could make a plan to cut down your browsing and time spent on your smartphone over Christmas and see if you feel happier.

• Avoid FOMO by letting your friends know you are taking a break from social media over Christmas.
• You could try doing this challenge together with your friends.
• Log off social media for a while and make time to meet up with friends in person to chat and do a fun activity together away from screens.

Read YoungMinds – Tips for your first social media detox

See our advice on how to use social media and not let it lower your self-esteem