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The Ultimate Media Detox For Reducing Your Anxiety
We live in a world of information overload. It’s everywhere you look. Delivered to us through the continuous news cycle, social media networks, messages, emails, blogs, and the endless array of ominous notifications.
With the rise of smartphones, we’re continually connected — yet many of us feel more disconnected and disenchanted than ever.
Information consumption leads to anxiety
We might think that we’re doing the right thing by consuming information. The reality is: we’re making ourselves anxious and that anxiety isn’t helpful.
It’s no secret: consuming social media is also strongly associated with anxiety and depression. What’s lesser-known, is that media consumption generally can have similar effects.
Research during the COVID-19 pandemic found that information consumption was positively associated with increased anxiety and personal risk perception. This means that the more we consume, the more likely we think “that’s going to happen to me”, regardless of whether this idea has any basis in reality.
This irrational thinking can have negative consequences, not just on mental health, but on society as a whole. Those who consumed more pandemic information, for example, were more likely to panic buy and…
