Sunday, Tom Holland, who plays Spiderman on the screen, announced his decision to withdraw from social networks, which he fears the deleterious effects on his mental health.
Hours spent frantically scrolling, self-staging, quest for “likes” and loss of self-esteem: social networks can indeed affect the mental health of many of their users.
So, like Tom Holland or even Selena Gomez before him, more and more young teenagers and adults are making the same decision for their own good.
Finished for him Instagram and Twitter.
This Sunday, actor Tom Holland announced on Instagram to his 67 million subscribers his decision to withdraw from social networks.
The goal: to preserve his mental health.
In the video, already viewed more than 22 million times, the interpreter of Spiderman explains “to find Instagram and Twitter overstimulating, overwhelming (…).
I spin when I read about myself online, says the 26-year-old actor.
So I decided to withdraw from social networks and delete these apps”.
Before him, Selena Gomez made the same decision in 2018. The star with 343 million Instagram subscribers gave up on social networks, believing that they had a deleterious effect on her mental health.
Like them, more and more young people are choosing to stay away.
Between the hours spent scrolling and the impression that others have a better life, many have decided to zap the networks of their existence, to find a well-being lost in front of their screen.
“It made me feel like I had a shitty life”
Mathilde*, 22, has been avoiding Instagram for a while: "This summer, I don't have a vacation, and I don't have a lot of money either, so I stopped going to Insta, because seeing friends' stories and influencers on vacation in great places and without budget limits, it made me feel like I had a shitty life, it made me sad.
I wondered why I was doing this to myself.
»
A feeling often experienced.
“Social networks are a concentrate of acute narcissism, and when you don't have anything to compete with, it's painful, analyzes Robert Zuili, clinical psychologist specializing in emotions and social interactions.
This confronts us with very dysfunctional emotions: either anger, because we find the situation unfair, or fear, because we wonder if we will despite everything succeed in being part of a group, in being loved.
And when we have the feeling of not succeeding, fear or anger turns into sadness, an emotion that refers to very strong and painful feelings like shame, guilt and self-worth.
This is where we enter a destructive vicious circle that will alter self-esteem.
And that's where Tom Holland's approach is smart,
If total disconnection can be life-saving, "at the very least, it is important to know how to discipline yourself, to watch things that we like, bring us something, not to watch the stories of strangers with whom we cannot identify because that they are inaccessible, have standards of living or notoriety which we are not able to access today, prescribes the psychologist.
This is the key”.
"My self-esteem suffered"
This is how Maxime *, left the networks six years ago now.
"I didn't find myself in this quest for the 'like', the 'have you seen me?'
and the staging of oneself for the click, says the 32-year-old man.
I got to a point where my self-esteem suffered, where I saturated networks.
When I cut, I first felt a void in my days, a kind of boredom, which quickly passed.
I never redid an account, even though the idea sometimes crossed my mind.
I really think that networks can be deleterious for fragile people.
»
“It's true, confirms Robert Zuili: social networks are confrontational, particularly for young people who are building their personality, and who are in search of an ideal self.
They have the feeling that the networks will allow them to give them a positive image, except that it is a difficult quest.
Especially since they will always have the impression that there is something better than them: others who, in their eyes, will present things in a different, more attractive way.
And if self-esteem is fragile, the quest for an ideal self through social networks becomes impossible, it pushes either to depreciate because you find yourself useless, or to enter an infernal spiral where you want always do better.
»
“I experienced a form of rejection of myself naturally, without filter”
Reasons that prompted Anna, 16, “to no longer look at and post photos with filters.
In the long run, I experienced a form of rejection of myself naturally, without filter: my skin wasn't clear enough, my nose wasn't fine enough, my body wasn't perfect enough.
And even though I know that other girls post retouched photos, I couldn't help but think that they were all prettier than me in the natural way, I felt ugly.
»
“Social media is an echo chamber for this potential vulnerability.
They confront us with a very strong augmented reality, which can replace our benchmarks from reality, deciphers Robert Zuili.
When we use filters to make ourselves beautiful, we are in a quest for perfection which is unfortunately endless.
This explains why many young people are going to plastic surgery earlier and earlier to look like these models of pseudo-perfection put forward on the networks.
“Comments are the most terrible thing”
Mélanie *, she no longer supported the gratuitous hatred spat out at length in comments under her Instagram posts, where she shared her cooking recipes.
“I deleted my account a month ago, when for seven years I had spent at least three hours a day there to view and create content.
On the networks, comments are the most terrible thing.
Everyone has their "opinion", as long as it is the most cynical, insulting and disrespectful.
Seeing my content parasitized by hateful comments, to hurt for free, took a toll on my sanity.
I started to want to dialogue, but the anonymous people who let go in the comments do not seek to discuss, deplores the 38-year-old woman.
We ponder, we wonder what we did wrong.
We question ourselves, we doubt its value.
We block,
“This is what is complex with social networks: there is no respite, we cannot unplug, hence a certain mental load, underlines the clinical psychologist.
It's like a permanent tension that makes you can't help but go back to see what happened, because you have the feeling of being connected to the world, of existing. .
This is the paradox of this connection that wears us out.
»
“I spent all my time there”
At 44, Vincent* “disconnected from Insta and Facebook on December 31.
I was wasting a lot of time on these apps: as soon as I took my mobile, I scrolled like a robot!
Ditto for 14-year-old Léa*, who was “addicted to Tik Tok.
I spent all my time there, I was always tired, I didn't talk to anyone and I was locked in my room.
I understood that it was bad for me, I am very happy to have stopped TikTok.
Now I only use Snapchat to communicate with friends.
“These apps can become addictive because they plunge users into an illusion of permanent pleasure.
A pleasure that can make you insatiable, warns Robert Zuili.
Some may manage to wean themselves.
If necessary, we must know how to ask for help, allow the other to give us the gift of taking care of us, of setting limits.
It is then up to us to invest in other centers of interest likely to make us happy.
There, returning to the networks will not be problematic.
»
*Name has been changed.
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