As a young person, I spend way too much time on social media.
*Pause for shock.*
However. Recently, I found something that took me off my phone for the longest time in a while.
News avoidance.
With the United States elections happening, I couldn’t avoid a constant feeling of dread.
I open Instagram, it’s people talking about the election; I open TikTok, it’s all about how likely it is for Harris to win.
Facebook? Screenshots of people arguing about what a tariff is and what Trump wants to do with them.
I got sick of it.
I started feeling really upset about the whole thing, and empathetic towards people in the US.
Then I got angry at the whole system.
Then I just got sad, apathetic and tired.
I had seen so much of the election that I became bored.
I couldn’t bring myself to care, I just felt hopeless, but everywhere I went there was talk of the great Trump v Harris showdown.
But there was one place I could avoid any updates, notifications, arguments and anger.
Video games.
I’m not even kidding. I turned to video games because it was the only mindless space that hadn’t been taken over by red and blue.
I don’t think that no-one should post about world events, but I just think that being online can mean being too up-to-date, too close to things that are thousands of miles away.
It can feel too much.
But there’s also this feeling of guilt that comes with not being up-to-date, or not caring enough, not posting or using your voice.
You end up feeling like a bad person for not voicing your opinion on topics on your private Instagram because that’s what’s expected.
People should be able to turn off. People shouldn’t feel guilty for not using social media exclusively for social justice.
I think every person felt the need for news avoidance during the COVID-19 pandemic, yearning for a place where we could pretend everything was normal.
A sort of self-defence delusion, just for an hour.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you feel overwhelmed by the outside world, it’s okay to turn off.
And if that means reading a book, going for a walk or playing video games, give yourself that space to feel okay for a few minutes.
You deserve it.
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