Are social media detoxes really good for you? Here’s what the research says

Globally, working-age people with internet access now spend more than two and a half hours per day on social media platforms. Photo / 123rf

Whether you’re an influencer, an occasional poster or just a lurker, you likely spend more time than you’d like on social media. Globally, working-age people with internet access now spend more than two and a half hours per day on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter).

Social media use can become excessive and problematic when it interferes with school or work, causes conflict in your relationships or harms your mental health. While not formally recognised as a mental health disorder, some scientists even argue that problematic social media use is an “addiction”.

When you find yourself checking and scrolling your accounts excessively, you may decide it’s time to go on a digital “diet” or “detox” – cutting your use dramatically or even avoiding social media completely for a few days. But, as our new research shows, this approach can reduce the positive effects of social media just as much as the negative ones. And in fact, we were surprised at how few participants in our study missed social media when we asked them to cut back.

In a recent study, we asked participants to do just that. As 51 people tried to abstain from social media for one week, we tracked their behaviour and experiences through surveys sent to their phones throughout the day, and computer tasks in a controlled environment.

When you find yourself checking and scrolling your accounts excessively, you may decide it’s time to go on a digital "detox”. Photo / 123rf

We found that only a minority of participants abstained completely. However, most were able to curb their use substantially, from three to four hours a day on average before the study to just half an hour. Even after the abstinence period, participants’ daily social media use stayed well below the level seen before the study.

Impact of curbing social media use

However, in contrast to some previous digital detox studies, we did not observe an improvement in our participants’ wellbeing. On the contrary, they reported a reduction in positive emotions over the course of the abstinence period.

Social media provides powerful and quantifiable social rewards through likes, shares and gaining followers. While it also offers quick bouts of entertainment and fun, research shows it is often these social rewards that drive compulsive checking of social media.

Humans are social animals – feeling part of a group, being accepted and receiving praise are universal needs. Social media is a convenient and accessible tool to satisfy these needs anytime and anywhere we want, and provides connections that may be lacking in a world of remote working.

Social media is a convenient and accessible tool that provides connections lacking in a world of remote working. Photo / 123rf

But these social rewards can quickly turn into unpleasant experiences. Receiving likes can turn into chasing likes, and a feeling of disappointment if your post performs more poorly than you expected. Seeing others’ lives can lead to Fomo (fear of missing out) or envy, and in the worst cases, users may be victims of unpleasant or hateful comments.

To that end, we also observed a reduction in negative emotions when participants cut down on social media use. They felt slightly less miserable, sad and mad during the study.

On the whole, abstaining from social media seems to remove both positive and negative emotions – for some people, the net effect on their wellbeing may be zero.

Can you be addicted to social media?

Perhaps the most enlightening finding was how little our participants missed social media. They did not report increased desires, urges or cravings to check their accounts during the study period, despite dramatically reducing their screen time.

It seems that curbing social media use does not elicit “withdrawal” symptoms such as those sometimes seen when stopping drug use. With that in mind, we urge you to be cautious in using terms like “addiction” to talk about social media use.

Framing social media use in addiction terms risks demonising technology. Photo / 123rf

Framing social media use in addiction terms risks demonising technology and pathologising normal behaviour. Labelling users as “addicted” can lead to stigma and ignoring other psychological problems that may underlie excessive use behaviours. In our view, the term “addiction” should be reserved to describe a disease, which involves lasting changes in the brain’s reward system.

Ultimately, social media has both positive and negative aspects, and it may just be the negative parts that people feel they need to detox from.

Perhaps a better way to think about improving your relationship with social media would be to imagine it as being similar to how you think about improving your diet. Both food and social media satisfy natural desires – energy for the former and social contact for the latter.

In both cases, you need to know your limits and prioritise healthy rewards. This may mean changing your view of how connected or liked you really need to be, and unfollowing accounts or deleting apps that make you feel bad.