1. A person's mental health is likely to improve if they reduce their social media usage.
2. A person's mental health is likely to improve if they and all/most of their friends reduce their social media usage.
Intuitively, I can see why the first one might be false, even if the second one turns out to be true. So much of modern social life is deeply involved with social media, including a lot of the conversation at IRL social events. Unilaterally cutting yourself off from all that doesn't seem like an obvious boon to mental health.
This was my exact experience of the problem. I cut back dramatically on device usage and news, to the point where I suddenly felt very disoriented and disconnected socially. It was a big improvement in many ways, but that was a real problem and I'm still adjusting to find the right level.
I did Facebook Fridays for a while (before gradually losing interest in Facebook).
It was a helpful structure for me: as much Facebook as I wanted on Friday, none the rest of the week. (I use the Messenger app for FB messages so didn't put any limits there. There's even a separate Messenger website!)
I'd end up naturally spending only 20 minutes or so on Fridays; enough to check notifications and realize nothing really interesting or important was actually on there.
I found Facebook Fridays to be more sustainable than going totally cold turkey. Now I just go on Facebook every once in a while if I have a specific purpose.
Hmm, maybe I need to try Twitter Tuesdays or HN Thursdays...
1. A person's mental health is likely to improve if they reduce their social media usage.
2. A person's mental health is likely to improve if they and all/most of their friends reduce their social media usage.
Intuitively, I can see why the first one might be false, even if the second one turns out to be true. So much of modern social life is deeply involved with social media, including a lot of the conversation at IRL social events. Unilaterally cutting yourself off from all that doesn't seem like an obvious boon to mental health.