I started my social media experience back in middle school (2008-2009) on MySpace, spending my free time checking on friends, doing bulletin board surveys, and learning to code in HTML to customize my page. After MySpace, I moved to Facebook in high school (2009-2013), I got sucked in more to what people thought of me, what I was being tagged in, liking pages, getting likes on my photos... I was sick of it, so I deactivated my profile when I graduated. I joined Instagram in the summer of 2013. At first, it was similar to Snapchat and Facebook; I used it to communicate with friends and see what they were up to. Then I started following cool travel pages, celebrities, movements, news sites... and I find myself with a feed of pretty pictures from people I don’t even know. I realize I now have this unproductive habit of mindlessly scrolling through these pretty pictures, which is something I never used to do. I’ve thought about deleting my Instagram, but I instead want to re-evaluate my use of it. I’ve turned off all notifications and I’ve begun a huge unfollowing spree for those accounts of people and groups I don’t know. I find it useless to be spending time staring at photos of beautiful places when I could instead be earning money to get myself there. I find it useless to be staring at beautiful women who I know are fake or portraying themselves in the best light they can find, looking at myself as inferior when I know the great shape I am in. Come to find out (big surprise), likes or comments on a photo do not affect my real life, and spending time focusing on them is a waste. I’ve put my phone in grayscale mode so that it’s not as pretty to look at, and I’m finding that I get sucked into those scrolling traps less. If I were to identify a specific problem, it’s the culture of influencers we’ve built and given our attention to. Travel influencers, fitness influencers, food influencers... pages to follow, scroll through, and mindlessly get lost in while letting all of our other responsibilities fall to the side. We find ourselves without enough time in the day, but never complain about the loads of meaningless funny videos we spend an hour watching and sharing (taking other people’s time from them). I want to unfollow all influencers. I only want to see my friends and people I know on my timeline, and then I want to make the conscious decision to check on them when I want to — NOT get trapped into scrolling through all of them. I would rather participate in a social media service without “Pages to Follow” like Facebook and without Influencers like Instagram. Mindless phone scrolling is the dumbest pastime that does absolutely nothing besides make us yearn for things we aren’t or don’t have. When I’m with my significant other, I don’t feel the need to touch my phone ALL day. It just proves it’s a habit based in boredom that breeds lower productivity. I hate it. I feel much better and more in control with my phone in grayscale mode and by following less accounts I don’t know. I have implemented time restraints of 30 minutes per day for my Instagram. I am inclined to reduce that to 15 minutes. I want to use the platforms to connect with my friends and that’s all. Share photos with my friends, not care about likes, and that’s ALL. All I want is an environment that facilitates that.

Both Facebook and Reddit were the worst. Facebook was an endless scrolling distraction, removing me from myself, making me watch more and more far right content, and distracting me from my friends, family and work. I despised it, and decided that I should try to live without it - but I still had Reddit. Reddit was okay? Surely? It was a way to get the newest information about the world? So was Youtube? They were just videos. How wrong I was. Firstly; Reddit became a balm for my social anxieties, and paradoxically, also a stimulant of them. There you can frolic and get drunk on the syrup of humour, new information and the illusion of debate and community. Meanwhile you get slowly sucked in, spending more and more time on it. I began to be aware that I was believing things that...didn't exist. Or they did exist, it just felt more and more like a cult, a group of anger and not support. I found that strain of outrage and anger in all my communities - I tried to take a break, but would be dragged willingly to gorge on the dopamine rush, the faerie food of reddit. Youtube is the same; I began to watch more right things - "the intellectual dark web" slowly stepping onto more and more anger and outrage and "common sense." I tried just "unliking" all the video I saw. That did not work. Then I began using blocking apps to stop recommendations, and only show subscriptions, and limit my time on Youtube. Facebook, Youtube and Reddit all led to a warped image of who I was, of what I was worth. Youtube and reddit fed into each other and led to an echo chamber, which led to a depression. After that I tried everything to stop myself being on any social media - I feel a lot happier.

Social media has always been in my life from snapping people to just posting funny pictures on Instagram. I don’t think I remember a time in my teen life that I haven’t had a phone with social media on it. As I get older I realize that there are way better things in life than just obsessing over it. As I look back in life I can see how many fun things I missed out on because of social media and trying to post all the fun things I didn’t instead of just living in the moment. After I thought of this I started to back away from social media and just live my life and I feel free. I don’t have to worry about other people’s validation in my life and I can just be who I want to be and live my life the way I want to live my life.

Earlier this year when the Social Dilemma came out, I - just like everyone else - flocked over to Netflix to watch it. I'd heard about it from school and after watching it I felt INSPIRED. This motivation to break away from technology coursed through me. I took all the measures: detoxed my phone, even deleted apps, limited phone use. I joined seminars and tried to become a part of this amazing community, this movement. Obviously, this doesn't sound like your normal "technology ruined me" story, but just wait.......So everything was going well, I was reaching my goal of having a good relationship with technology. And then it all stopped. There was no more adrenaline, and slowly those apps I had deleted reappeared on my phone. Not only did I go back to my former self, but I also got worse. WAY WORSE. I got addicted. The worst part is that I knew what I was doing was wrong, I knew the dangers of the endless scroll, but I still got sucked in. It caused me to push aside my studies, my education, my GOALS. I know what it's like to be a caged bird because I was social media held me captive. These small apps on my phone made me fall into depression, and I felt the only way to not feel sad was to use those very apps. If you've never experienced addiction, a small warning, it sucks. I mean that literally: it sucks you in and prevents you from being happy, reaching your dreams, or living life. You must be wondering how I'm so self-aware of all this now. Well bad things to end, and by the extreme measures of my parents, I lost my phone. Which was the root of all my issues. When my phone went I needed to accept that it was over, and that's when I saw the damage I had caused in my own life. I had nothing else to do so I fixed it. I'm still fixing it. It's not easy, I'll say that, but I've truly experienced life after coming out from this dark place. You don't realize how beautiful the world is if you stare at your phone all day. I realized how much I hadn't noticed about the people around me and myself. Now a little advice for everyone who's suffering as well. Sure the phone gives you happiness but you can use it whenever you want. Even if it's for an hour, go outside and breathe the fresh air. Go for a walk or play with your dog. I promise you will feel happier and lighter. We aren't here for long - life is short - so don't waste it on a device that will outlive you.

I got addicted to youtube when I was in high school because I had no friends and got bullied from time to time, at the time I didn't realize it was to cope, but I did know I was lonely and had no friends. Because YouTubers have such a personal relationship with their audience, you feel very close to them and their content, not realizing they aren't telling you everything about their life. I was a fan of Shane Dawson, and he is the poster child for this. He was manipulating his audience and using the algorithm to his advantage during his career. I remember feeling close to him and him always thanking his audience and hyping them up, which made me feel very seen, even though I wasn't. A few years after I got sucked into online activism/SJW corners of the internet on Facebook and Instagram and for a long time I believed I wasn't being biased/subjective when I very clearly was, and I started to have pretty dark thoughts and opinions. Again I felt connected to people, more disconnected from the outside world and this time it got much worse. I also had resentment towards everyone around me, thought they weren't who they said they were. I shut everyone out because I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was "cutting off problematic friends and family" when I was nitpicking about the things they did that were problematic (aka maybe watching a certain tv show with an actor that had done or said something questionable). I thought I wasn't addicted. I rationalized it in all the possible ways. Later when I did realize I was addicted, I said it was for the right reasons and I needed to stay "woke", because I didn't trust any other sources anymore. I wanted to quit the platforms but because I felt it would prevent me from doing online activism I stayed. This feels weird to say, but I felt very ashamed for being white. Not a "healthy dose of white guilt", but full-on, deep-rooted shame about who I was as a person because I was white. For a long time I was barely living in reality and started living in a fantasy almost, and deep down was aware of it and ashamed so it took a long time for me to own up to it. I spent a lot of time rationalizing why it wasn't as bad as I thought, or admitting to myself that I was addicted but not doing anything to change it. I was using alllll the platforms too, all of them except Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr. I eventually got a very close friend that's now my best friend basically through our mutual addiction. I think we enabled each other at times, but it was so good to finally have someone to relate to. I still sometimes fall back into my addiction, but I have real friends now and a life. There are a lot of liars on the internet. And why wouldn't there be, it's so easy to lie on there. There were times when I thought someone was so honest and so genuine, and so themselves that there was no way they could be bullshitting. But once I finally started independently researching, aka researching someone's background with a neutral mind and considering the option that they might not be who they say they are, I found out those exact people were lying and just how gullible I was being. It sucks getting lied to. The biggest liar is the platform itself. It's very hard to do good on there and simultaneously managing your addiction. If you can, it's better to do good in real life, with people you can meet face to face or at least text. So many things in my life got sabotaged because I couldn't quit, mostly my grades. I had trouble paying attention to things in my surroundings, I stayed up till late at night (in my teen years, I watched youtube every night until about 3 am a lot of times), I got massive anxiety and social anxiety that I'm still dealing with, I used my phone as a crutch to avoid interacting with people, everything that had to do with real life stopped being appealing to me, it just wasn't as exciting. But you don't need any reason to quit, you don't have to stay for any creator. For me I waited deleting because I didn't wanna say goodbye to all the people I followed who I felt personally connected to, but eventually I decided to just do it, and it felt like a huge weight off my shoulders and kind of setting myself free. Everyone deserves that.

I was around eleven or twelve when I first started really delving into social media as a whole. I was a young girl still- merely an insecure and immature child who was struggling with sexuality and unsure of where I fit in or belonged, so when I learned that I could roam the internet and make friends I was all ears. I downloaded Tik Tok (everyone was doing it, why not me too?) and I had Tumblr. I always avoided other social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat because I had heard all of the stories that people had shared about things that happened to them and their mental health- and I figured it wouldn’t happen to me if I just steered clear of particular sites so I allowed myself to dive deep into exploring the internet. I REGRET IT!!!My self confidence PLUNGED. When I was younger, I used to love myself so much, love my body and my personality and I never obsessed over the little things because everyone makes mistakes sometimes. I really struggled when I looked in the mirror after joining social media- I’m too fat, or I have ugly features, or my neck is too long, or my hair doesn’t frame my face correctly. I overthought every word that I spoke, for fear of being unliked by someone. It was always something, and it still comes back every once and a while. I also have seriously struggled with depression and anxiety that I never had before social media, and I overlooked it until I started to have suicidal thoughts and considered starving myself to loose weight. I hated myself, and I hated my life. I constantly saw people who hated other people over the littlest of things. I saw anon hate, as well as blind hatred out in the open with a name attached. I experienced hate myself. I saw posts of people who would tag “gay pride” or something only to talk horribly about it for the sole purpose of people in the LGBTQ+ Community to see it; and the same thing under other tags as well. So I, young and new to the internet, was faced with a harsh reality that people are not entirely kind, and there are hateful people who hate you even though they only know one thing or sometimes nothing about you. I was confused, and I was hurt.I deleted all of my social media accounts during the Coronavirus pandemic. It was bringing me so much more anxiety than I would normally have and it was weighing me down so much. After I deleted it, I started to feel so much better. The social media impact on mental health is insane- and it’s REAL. I never realized how bad it was until I deleted everything; my confidence is beginning to rise again, and my depression is getting better, and I have started loving myself again. I can walk around feeling good and confident in myself. Social media is meant to be a wonderful place, that’s what it was designed for. But people are cruel, and for some the internet’s poses as a mask to say whatever they should wish and never face consequences for it. After deleting social media, I saw the world around me again. The beauty of nature. The smell of old books. The sunrise and sunset. This was the world I was missing when I was on social media; the real, authentic world that I can touch and see and love because the world IS a wonderful place regardless of whether or not I can do a Tik Tok dance or not. Social media is bad- but it can be changed. It takes empathy and common decency that gets lost the more time you spend on the internet to create a world where we can al stand hand in hand no matter what your race, religion, sexuality, or anything else that makes us different. Being different is a beautiful thing- you shouldn’t hate me for liking a different anime character than you, and I shouldn’t hate you for liking a book that I don’t like. It is our differences that makes this world the place that it is; a diverse, beautiful place. With time and effort, social media could become healthier than it is now. But as for right this second? I recommend deleting your social media, or using your social media to raise awareness of how toxic we are being through the internet and how it is seeping into our everyday lives. You won’t regret deleting social media. It made things so much better for me and my health, and I am confident that it will do the same for anyone reading this who is struggling with mental health or self confidence like I was.

Social Media, in my personaal opinion was just to gain attention from others when I was younger because I was the unpoular kid once. But as the years progressed, there were so much drama, so much depression coming from that. It's like this was a trap built for me to become even more sad than before.

I started my freshman year of high school in 2011. By then most of my peers already Facebook accounts and I was feeling left out from all the fun they seemed to be having online. I had begged my parents to let me open an account, and after a discussion about internet safety, I was finally allowed to have one. It ruined my life in less than a month.I rarely used my account to scroll through the news feed. I didn't add many friends at first, and only added people I knew at school and some family members. I thought I was using the service responsibly. But before long I found myself replacing in-person interaction with the private messaging system. I only remember hanging out with my friends at birthday parties and after school programs. I would finish my homework and get online, staying up past 2 am every night to chat with my friends and waking up at 6 am to get to school by 7:35. I quickly lost sleep, stopped exercising (even though I've always been involved in sports), and my health (both physical and mental) suffered for it. What I didn't realize at the time was that my online interactions perpetrated a toxic relationship with the guy I had a crush on at the time. He knew about it and he manipulated me by using my feelings for him as a weapon. I was so desperate for his attention that I would have done anything for it, and using social media exclusively meant I didn't have any other, healthy friendships to compare. He opened up to me about his mental health issues so I made up my own to fit in and try to relate to him. I told him I was so depressed that I started to believe it. It was the most insidious form of cyberbullying I've ever seen. I didn't realize how much I was hurting and I thought I deserved it because I was so desperate. I withdrew from my family, from all my other friends. I started self-harming and received validation for it. I hurt myself more. I lost more sleep. I exercised less. I withdrew more.Eventually it got so bad my parents installed controls on my computer that logged me off after 10 pm. I resented them for it at the time but it was the best thing they ever did for me. It saved me. I ended the toxic friendship. I found new friends. My health came back and I grew more connected with my family. Over the years I used my Facebook account less and less, until eventually the only reason I still maintained the account was because a few of my project teams in college used the messenger service to collaborate (and exchange memes).The harm it did was real and it still hurts. I still regret the friendships I withdrew from and how it hurt my family. I'm 23 now and finally deleted my Facebook account two months ago. I don't miss it at all.

After several months of feeling uneasy with social media, I reached my turning point 3 years ago and never ever looked back. The day I graduated from college, I uploaded an Instagram post sharing the news with my network, only to realize a few hours later that I was checking how many like I got.At that moment, I said to myself "How is it possible that after 4 years of hard work and studying, I'm paying more attention to the count of likes instead of being innerly satisfied with the goal accomplished and the closure of an important stage in life?". After that, I stopped using all my social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin) and continued to see more and more downsides of the apps I used, specially in those around me. Once you quit, you really see how addicted people have become to their phones and social accounts.It's as if a cloud had been lifted from my sight. My attention came back to focus and I could reconnect with the real world, real interactions and real bonding with people. All in all, if social media doesn't make your daily life happier, what's the point in having them at all?

It was in the earliest stage of lockdown in my country, it was the month of April. I wasn’t living in the best moment of my life. I had my final exams results and I wasn’t eligible to get a scholarship. It was very frustrating to me because it’s my dream to study overseas and that was the only way without emptying my parents’ bank accounts. What happened later when I was scrolling my Instagram, there were hundreds of posts from my friends about them getting all A’s in the exam, celebrating with friends and family, received new things and I realized I was very jealous and felt really really lonely and kinda depressing with my achievements. “Why am i so stupid?” I asked myself. It’s been days and I saw myself declining into a black hole of frustration and loneliness because of all the Instagram stories and posts. Then, I listened to a podcast and that person recommended to their listeners to watch a new documentary on Netflix. The Social Dilemma. After I watched the documentary, I quickly knew that Instagram was very toxic to me at that moment. That’s why I took a break from social media, mainly twitter and Instagram. It’s like a situation where I need to disconnect to connect with myself.....again. I was so lost with the jealousy I felt and how it made me hate myself so bad. I disconnected from my social media accounts for a month and spent more time with myself, family and my close friends through messaging. Fast-forward a month, I decided that I’ll put myself back into the world where it’s just one tap away to connect with others and I did make some changes. I turned off my notifications for everything except my messages. Well I am proud to say that my life does improving A LOT after the break. I rarely use my phone now. Some days, my phone can get up to 3 days without charging because that’s how rarely i use my phone now. Social media is not everything. We must learn when to get some rest from it. We should also learn to stop sharing everything on social media, we don’t know what people will do with these information we choose to share. It’s better to share it with our inner circle and maybe share some of our general events that happens in our lives.

When I was younger, in middle school, I made a conscious effort not to be on social media because I knew the effects it could have. Eventually though, I started to feel left behind, not only by my friends who were online, but I kept being told I needed to be on it if I wanted to get published as an author in the future. As I got older I realized this was no longer an individual choice I was allowed to make. It was how the world worked, and I would have to conform in order to get my work to a larger audience. The final straw was realizing I was already stuck in scrolling cycles, if it wasn't on social media yet it was on a news app or Buzzfeed, whatever I could find. when I finally caved I experienced the negative aspects first-hand. The cake recipes sandwiched in between crash diets and messages to love yourself were disorienting. Every time I saw a message that made me feel good I was two swipes away from one that wouldn't. I especially started to become invested in activism and politics, but social media adds a new layer of pressure. You must always be aware of the tragedies going on in the world and if you don't repost them then you clearly don't care. You can never be 'woke' enough, you're always saying something wrong, and you see the backlash from it, even from friends. I've noticed people are a lot more radical online, several of my friends have posted "If you support (insert political candidate) I will not associate with you." It's disappointing to see them not only make rash assumptions about other's beliefs in that way but to be openly propagating it. How can they ensure their assumptions are founded in reality if they aren't associating with these people? My friends don't mean this I'm sure, but that is the precise problem with the polarizing effects of social media. It would be best for me to remove social media altogether, but as I mentioned, it's necessary for networking, so I must learn to use social media more healthily. I only use Instagram and YouTube as opposed to other apps, which helps. I've written a research argumentative paper on the role of social media in polarization and radicalization, and am looking forward to working with the company LOG OFF in the future. In the paper, I argued for a governmental committee on the advancement of technology and the revision of Section 230, which is largely responsible for the way social media works today. There are, of course, fixes we can all make around screen time and who we follow, but young people will continue to get trapped in this hole we have to dig ourselves out of unless the laws start to change. The algorithms must change, otherwise, the problems we face now will only incur for the next generation.

Last night, I compared myself to different models and couples on Instagram. Then I went to look for the meaning or definition in psychology on why I need to compare myself to others?And I felt sadness, my self-esteem was at its lowest, these images are ideological, the things that are no longer fashionable, the problems of buttons, and indirectly I feel influenced by all that.And that influences my conversations with my friends. By talking about it with my close friends, I decided to uninstall my account. I decided to just uninstall without disconnecting my account to start. To keep consistency.Sometimes I feel like I can't tell the difference between the image and my life, and I remembered a comment from my big sister who told me that she had a clothing style influenced by networks.While my best friend was talking to me, I noticed that she adopted the same style that we find in some videos we see on Tik-Tok, it is so above us, we have very little latitudeI find that a lot of young people post quotes about the right way of life. And that is completely wrong, that is not at all our reality. Many famous people publish quotes and young people take examples on it, it is serious.

Social media... Where to start? There were many times I fell into that common spiral of comparing my life to that of the glitz and glamour I saw on-screen. I've lost a cousin to suicide who I would've never guessed had depression because of what he posted. I've also had to endure the harmful effects of cyberbullying, the constant validation-seeking and "needing-to-prove" mentality, and so on. While both experiences affected me greatly, they opened up my eyes to the bigger picture: What we see on the Internet is not always what's happening in reality; It's just a fraction. In order for my experiences on social media to feel more fulfilling and positive, I started working towards using it less. Eventually, I found myself only keeping up with those I maintained connections with. I deleted my Facebook account in 2018 and always went back to Twitter but finally deleted it this year after seeing a bunch of political debate that often looked like unhealthy arguments. Something that I also do often and consciously so is de-cluttering my Instagram feed every once in awhile. That meant following accounts that were good for my mental health, and unfollowing a number of other accounts. Over time, social media become more of a fun and creative outlet. It's been a more authentic, intimate experience. Having a healthier relationship with social media makes life easy, relieves social pressure, and also allows me to genuinely connect with those I care about and care about me. These days, mental health issues are on the rise and social media usage is making it hard to live life. Some platforms are so addictive that it's hard to maintain self-awareness and have control. I think it's important it is to separate digital worlds from the life that's unfolding right in front of us. True human connection is what the world needs now more than ever. I hope that the industry can becomes healthier for society's sake, and that people don't have to experience the harmful effects before they take it upon themselves to change their habits.

I felt so insecure about myself. My abilities, my looks, my roots, my potential. This because I was comparing my life with people around me and people I saw on social media. I never realized being different is my key to joy and happiness. I still struggle with social media because I think I can't miss out. It has been integrated in my being because I've been using it since I was a teenager. I'm sort of afraid that I'll miss important updates about people and the world when I would delete it. It feels like I'm not strong enough to make this decision. I often doubt about it and this doubt is eating away my believes of having a great willpower. I used to be on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter but I got rid of that attraction. Now I only feel being stuck with Instagram especially. And YouTube sometimes as well.

I joined social media relatively late (18) when I began college a couple years ago. In college I joined a dance team that used instagram as a tool for marketing workshops and audition informaiton. I started posting because my friend wanted to be a photographer and used me as a model. Once I started posting, that was it, I was completely addicted. I constantly refreshed my likes as they came in, spent hours reading and replying to comments and taking in other people's posts. I became obsessed with living what social media promotes as a worthwhile and perfect life. My anxiety this time last year was at an all time high. Anything any would say to be would feel like a punch to my self-esteem. I was breaking down everyday. My family was getting worried about me. I started to go to therapy and after watching "the social dilemma" quit all social medias. The only thing that is left that is still addicting that I cannot remove is Youtube. Sometimes I feel lonely now that I am not distracting myself with other people's lives esp during quaratine, but I finally have gained some kind of internal peace. I feel more liberated. I have taken up reading and dancing. Social media is harmful, addictive and removes the true sense of self from life. I want to be part of the movement that shows that there IS another way to use technology in a healthy way. Sending love to whoever is reading this!

When I was a freshman, four students at my high school died by suicide. Numb and confused, my 15-year-old brain could not begin to grasp the depth of the tragedies. As a result, I became more sensitive to the young people around me who were also struggling. I lost sleep over my friend, Katie, whose battle with mental health heartlessly robbed her of the contagious laugh I loved so much. I cried with my little sister when she was viciously attacked by an online group full of hate. I watched anxiety envelop my cousin until she could no longer eat. And I certainly was not exempt; friendless and alone, I often felt invisible. It became clear that my generation is barely existing in a war against our own mental health. I really appreciate everything CHT is doing to promote positive uses of technology, especially since social media is often a cause for mental health issues and teen suicide, yet it is usually the first place young people seek when they are hurting. CHT and Girl Scouts inspired me to create a positive virtual community where young people can anonymously post their personal stories, struggles, and heartfelt questions without the fear of judgement or rejection. It is a safe and positive place that welcomes all. Please share asafeplace2share.org with anyone who might benefit from our uplifting community. Together, we will fight relentlessly to ensure that no one in our community becomes a casualty of this merciless war.

I was happy. I was active, ballet, soccer, volleyball musical, number one in my class, lots of friends. My life was not perfect but I learned to manage it and to be positive. Then came freshman year of high school. Did he text me? How many people liked my post? Do I like how my body looks in pictures? Unfortunately, the answer was no. I found a community in social media to "help" me but it made everything worse. 14 years old and I had already gone three days without eating, addicted to instagram to see all these girls with perfect bodies. It felt like a downward spiral I could not get out of. But I did. It was a long process that I have not recovered completely of yet but I did it. Next, COVID hit and in quarantine my use of social media escalated exponentially. I stopped talking to my family, to my friends, and doing any exercise. Average of 6 to 7 hours on TikTok, wasting my life, my time, my life at 16 meant nothing. I got to a really dark place where I thought about self harm. I was not pretty enough, skinny enough, funny enough. No one would want me. Lie. Lie. Lie. After lie. Social media is full of lies, nothing you see is real but we are convinced that their lives are perfect whilst mine is awful. No it's not. Believe me. I'mm 17 now, escaping from that rabbit, dark hole. I feel so much better now, with a purpose. Do not get me wrong, I have no idea what I am going to do with my life once I graduate, but everything seems clearer now. It all started with a long break from social media.

Soo social media started to me when I was young only around 14 years I have had my Facebook first then but later on it didn't really affect me that much cause I didn't used to care about it that much but later on days passed by now I'm 19 years old and in this 2020 year I felt that I was in addiction with my smartphone I was using my phone around more or less 5 hours a single day and 8+ hrs in some days that has been a wake-up call for me so from then I tried multiple things to quit social media and smartphone use tried removing apps but eventually I started finding other ways to use my phone again and again at this point now I am addicted to Instagram I was using it for 2+hrs in a single day for mostly messaging and memes and mindless scrolling..... Later I realized that I am also addicted to YouTube. I was watching mindless videos every day.. (My focus has drastically dropped using these technologies. I couldn't even focus on a thing for more than 5 mins & My relationships also not so good using this tech) Then I tried using a not soo smartphone recently only and very basic phone which can be used for calls, messaging, WhatsApp. only and the best thing is the battery in that phone only lasts around 1.5 hours only so I know the things that I want to focus on. (Tried Siempo launcher it's the best one.)then after a week of changing my smartphone to a basic android phone now my screentime is less than 2 hours.I don't have any regrets about changing my smartphone to an old basic android phone.The problem is with the apps and till date now I feel like checking my Instagram around 10 mins a day but didn't felt the urge that i used to and siempo doesn't let me use more than 5 mins...My small advice to people is that just try to live in this moment.. Our parents don't have this technology but they are happy and they have better relations than ours.(Instagram is not worth the time that you spent on it.)Thank you Centre for humantech for giving a wakeup call to me and the people in this movement.Special thanks to (Team Siempo.)

When I was around 16-17 I was fully addicted to social media. I would spend hours on end scrolling through instagram, tiktok, snapchat or any platform that would give me any type of dopamine rush. At that time, being 16 I would see so many perfect girls, with perfect bodies and flat stomachs and that made me feel insecure, and I did not have any one to talk to because I thought I was the only person that was going through this. Though I hated being on social media it was like I could not stop scrolling through it. When I was having lunch or dinner I was on my phone, when I was hanging out with friends I was on my phone, and I could feel my relationships slipping away from me. I vividly remember one day when I was having lunch with one friend, we ordered and immediately when our food came we both started taking photos of it and posting them on instagram or snapchat. A second after that I thought to myself "we look so stupid , instead of talking and being together we are just on our phones", so after that I decided that I would not have lunch with my phone on the table when I was with friends and I would tell them to not be using them, because I felt like I was not having any meaningful talks or time with my friends. I am 19 now, I still am addicted, but now i have decided that I am more powerful than the platforms are. I decided to delete most of my social media, realizing that it would not bring any good to my life and it would just take time that I could be using to study or go outside to nature.

Posting IG stories made me care a lot more about my online image, i legit wanted to prove to my followers that i had a life too but all that did was tear me down and make me compare myself with others even more. I'm 5 months clean from social media and not once do i regret deleting my soc meds. Best decision I've ever made.

I used to be an avid twitter user. I used it to follow various celebrities that I liked. I knew it was time for me to leave that platform when I realized that I was walking on eggshells, scared to say something wrong that would make the other strangers in the communities I was apart of angry. I had watched other users get bullied off the app when they had made a mistake or said something wrong and when I realized I was genuinely scared to say anything for fear of “being cancelled” I knew it was time to leave.

I've always been taught that phone is bad, distractive, addictive etc. etc. My perspective has always been that: people who haven't been born in the era we are , will never fully understand where we come from, why are we so dependent on it and why can't we find will to give up. "well you were addicted to different activities , like reading . You can't stop the world from evolving." -this has been my argument for several year, but in the back of my mind I always knew that something was very wrong with what was going on. I had phases where I would decide to give up social media fully. It would last 2-3 weeks, then something would happen and I immediately ran to it. This past year has been tough for me in terms of corona. Being left alone with so much time to yourself, you really start seing things you've been avoiding for very long time. I'm starting to see how dependent I am, not only on social media but on my phone in general. I put it in different room while studying to eliminate distractions but all I can think of in that period of time is when am I going to be able to have my phone back. It brings us so much comfort that we don't want to understand it's harms. I can't name last time I was trully alone. As soon as I feel uncomfortable, anxtious, etc. my phone is my escape. Is that normal? absolutely not. Do I understand that? 100%. But at the same time , am I still addicted? unfortunatly. Few months ago I came across your center and I finally felt that I wasn't alone. There were actually people who not only realized the problem but started a movement. Since then I've been taking small steps towards improvement. I can proudly say, I deleted my instagram and tiktok accounts. Sadly I can't really delete my facebook or gmail because I need it for my univercity but I'm willing to participate to make even the smallest change. Thank you for bringing attention to topic that must bring freat fear to everyone!

There was a time in 2017 when I began to notice the effects of social media algorithms on my community. I had just set off for University in Montreal, Canada as a psychology student. I was excited to make new friends and engage with communities away from where my hometown in Northern California. But unfortunately it was during this time that I feel the power of the algorithms started to take off and have a palpable effect on the people around me. My peers began shifting from jovial university freshman to bitter introverts. The common tropes fuelling the simmering resentments among my friend groups ranged from the common and occasionally entertaining rants by young women about how they "hated men" to more shocking and confusing ideas such as "killing the bourgeoisie." Statements such as the latter were more common than I was comfortable with and I continually found myself blown away these ideas could be casually raised while hanging out at bars on Friday nights. People I had known for years becoming bitter enemies over politics was an all too common occurrence. But for me the most painful part of this sudden onset of social media tribalism was the subtle ever-present underlying sense of being policed by the people around you, sometimes the people closest to you. The feeling that I had to be "clean" and free from the blemishes of political or social nuance. Blending in with the binary "rights" and "wrongs" of ideology. I should mention that generally I'm a very agreeable and politically correct person. However, as my community became more hostile I became more and more convinced that I had extreme positions that should not be spoken. Soon after feeling the weight of all of this I began to investigate my own Facebook and Instagram feeds and got a sense of the source of the issue. 2018 was the year that I could not shut up about algorithms, as I was genuinely afraid of what was happening. I learned what I could primarily through the writings and lectures of Jaron Lanier, as he is the only figure I found who I felt treated the problem with the appropriate degree of seriousness. Our society cannot bare the weight of continued polarization. I was so delighted with the release of the Social Dilemma. With the film as our foundation I feel we have the tools to genuinely address this issue.

Me and my peers in 7th grade have been addicted to technology for a while and we weren't aware of our situation until our class study of technology's risks. And it wasn't until now that we realized how exposed to addiction we are. We all think this is a real issue that we need to be aware of. Most of the issues that we have had in our class have been about technology and most of our conversations have been about technology. Then we saw "The Social Dilemma" and most of our conversations about technology have stopped. Some of our classmates have not recognized their dependence on technology and social media and it has an affect on our whole class culture. Our hopes for our future are to try to get away from technology and to stop our addictions on technology.-Kenneth, Josan, Mario, Ashley (7th graders , St. Rose Of Lima Catholic Academy , Denver, Colorado )

When I was in 7th grade, someone who I thought was my best friend was emotionally abusive for over a year on Snapchat. He sent me videos of him self harming, would tell me he would commit suicide then not respond for hours to scare me, make me spend hours and hours of my energy to talk him off the ledge, and make me feel like I was never good enough to save him. Seeing a notification from him made my heart drop, since it was usually something terrifying, but I could never turn away. If I left him on open or on delivered, I was scared he would die. If I didn't spend all of my energy on typing pages and pages of chats trying to help him, I was scared he would die. The whole time I thought I was just being a good friend. This unmonitored exchange of Snapchats completely traumatized me and robbed me of my innocence, happiness, and trust in future friends. Since he lived far away, I thought Snapchat was the only way I could possibly keep this emotionally draining friendship, and since I was on Snapchat 24/7, I could never get away from him. I ended up ending our friendship because he threatened to kill my friend and her entire family lol, but I was left emotionally scarred, and this single friendship over Snapchat caused me myself to fall down a rabbit hole of depression, anxiety, OCD, suicidal ideation, and self harm. While the real person to blame was the friend, Snapchat's addictive layout and system of highs and lows set the emotional harm over the edge.

Since I was born in the late 90s, like many others we had a time in our childhood where there wasn't any phones or social media. With that said, I was a teenager when iphones came out and I observed social media and the act of being online grow and grow. I realized early on that I didn't feel good when I used social media, I must've been around 17 (2013). I deleted all my social media. It made me feel overstimulated, like i had wasted hours of my time for nothing, and when i rejected social media (but kept facebook) I got criticism from my friends and family. At that point I saw how much social media was manipulating even the opinions of people around me. I really felt like this addiction to social media, which was so casually and socially accepted, was growing so much that there has to be a breaking point! And I'm so happy people are waking up and seeing how much it's hurting ourselves and the people we love and care about. I believe in the next 10 years things will look VERY different and it will be more humane!!!!! <3

Last year I experienced feelings of depression and even gained an eating disorder because of apps such as Tiktok and Instagram. I would see people online who were older than me posting about the best/most unique parts of their life and theirselves. By seeing these I was convinced I was not good enough. Tiktok had started recommending weight loss videos and “what I eat in a day” videos to my “For You” page. These videos promoted the comparing going on in my mind by only filling me with thoughts about how I could alter myself to be “better.” I ended up isolating myself and was on the verge of going to the hospital. To this day I still have a bad relationship with food but I have now realized the horrible impact social media had on me. When I now try to have conversations with my friends they want to go on their phones. This has caused a great problem in which my friends no longer know how to converse “IRL”. Hopefully by speaking up about these problems there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. For now I appreciate all the work everyone is doing to change the negative side to social media.

It was 2018 when I was in my first year of under graduation and I signed up on instagram...... After using it for 2 months I started feeling mentally disturbed as I felt self doubt, jealousy and anxious looking at various post of my friends on insta.....i used to compare myself to others for looks and followers and began hating myself.... I cried too sometimes about it.... So I started to unfollow people whose post induced negative feelings in my heart and also muted off the notifications of instagram ..... This Went for like 2 years and it was very hard for me to resist to not open the app....I even tried to disable my account but couldn't resist the urge to recover my account.... I asked myself why was I using insta.... It was taking toll on me as I felt like I m in prison so I deleted my insta account after lot of thought and hesitation ..... After deletion of my insta account , I felt so happy and started loving myself without comparing myself to others.... I started taking care of myself and my heart felt so free..... I stared focussing on my hobbies and work instead of worrying about my number of followers and feeling jealous about number of likes and comments on other ppl posts ........This has been one of the best decisions of my life .....Take care

My name is Isaac, I'm 16 and id like to share the impact social media has had on my entire existence. I was raised in an abusive household full of drugs and manipulation. My parents divorced when I was 7 and I had gotten a phone from my mother at the young age of 7 to contact my father because he was no longer in our household. Having been surrounded by the internet since such a young age I have a pretty decent understanding of media and it's effects on society today, I've witnessed people dying, pornography and animal abuse and more all by the age of 12 due to the unregulated internet and my young curious mind. Fast forward to high school I've experienced cyber bullying and lies created about me on social media which has been one of the causes me to get into fights and abuse multiple substances(Marijuana, LSD, MDMA, Adderall, etc.) This January I got kicked out of school due to those reasons coming back to bite me. Now, December 2020, I've graduated with an online program at the age of 16 and just recently I decided to delete social media. To delete the worry of what other people who I don't even talk to think about me, to delete the horrid things and false information that has been spread into my brain and into my peers brains. I'm finding the right direction no thanks to social media and I hope with my whole heart that future generations don't have to go through such scarring things. I am so glad I no longer waste away my days staring at a screen hiding internal conflict and I can contribute to society and move the world into a positive direction. I would love to help the social truth and help create ideas to end the societal sufferings my country and my planet are experiencing.

I deleted my favorite app TikTok last month. I spent hours upon hours everyday on the app. As a young Democrat, I only saw liberal messages and content creators on my FYP. I stopped seeing a conservation. Instead, it was an echo chamber of the same ideas. You stop viewing the other side with humanity if you never see or hear from them. I realized I was becoming more hateful and less open minded. After watching the Social Dilemma, I realized why. The algorithm only showed me content it thought I would like, ie liberal content. A light bulb flicked on in my head, and I immediately deleted all of my social media. I haven’t looked back, and I don’t miss it nearly as much as I thought I would.

I literally grew up with social media. Some of my earliest vivid memories are trying to figure out how I could get make a Multiply account despite being way underage. I spent many pre-teen summers playing pet society and farmville, or on youtube watching random videos. As the internet developed, so did I. I never really realized how detrimental it was to me or my mental health. Looking back, it was probably because my generation's parents were learning how to use technology at the same time. At that point, no one really understood how much it could actually do. Every kid was on social media then because it wasn't a huge deal, it was just like getting a new toy. While I do love that I grew up on social media so I get to look back at so many wonderful memories, that also means that I watched firsthand as it grew to be such a vile place. What used to be wholesome photos, statuses, and games became a cause for outrageous fighting between creators, and divisive moral, political, and religious rhetoric. I became more conscious of my social media use as I entered college, but it never really bothered me until I started looking at my screen time. Even now during the pandemic, I'd feel so ashamed about how much time I'd be on my devices if you combined my laptop, ipad and, phone. The social dilemma and discovering CHT's work, made me feel seen but also incredibly frustrated. I felt trapped because social media was hardwired into my brain as it developed when I was a kid. I didn't sign up for it, and yet here I am 12-ish years later trying to undo things that are inevitably fundamental to who I am. I started with little things like deleting some apps on my phone and ipad, as well as turning off notifications and trying to follow downtime more responsibly. The pandemic has made it really difficult to become responsible social media user, especially as a college senior with tons of extracurriculars. How can you lessen screen time when your entire window to the world is through your screen? Despite all that, I'm pretty hopeful that I'll eventually be able to have ownership of my social media use. Until then, the discomfort of not having notifications or youtube recommendations will have to do.

I got on social media around high school, and I saw people become more distant because of it. There used to be such freedom in the way that we behaved as kids, and now people were obsessing over likes and hearts and everything. For me using social media like Facebook made me feel terrible and self-conscious, and I'd compare myself constantly to the lives of friends. Asking myself, why isn't my life as cool as theirs? Why are they so much more popular than me? It was really bad for my mental health. Along with that I used Instagram and Twitter, and over time my attention span got completely decimated - I was so used to short posts I'd look at for 2-3 seconds, that I couldn't even focus on anything for a long period of time anymore. Twitter was good at first but around 2016 onwards it just became a cesspool of hate, criticism, and negativity. I couldn't believe it when I saw people wishing death upon others even when the topic was like, video games or something. There was a time I went on holiday with a friend from primary school, we were basically best friends. She didn't get off her phone the whole time! It was like the relationship had been replaced by a digital device, and I notice it with even couples who are dating who literally don't even look at each other, they look at their phones. The one thing that really sickens me is I have always been a creative person, obsessed with music and drawing and writing. I went from reading 30 books a day as a kid to not being able to read the first few paragraphs. My brain felt like it'd been hijacked. I've deactivated my insta, facebook and twitter and I still use reddit and youtube - I got rid of the recommendations though.Ever since 2012 I felt like the world was going insane and I couldn't figure out why. People seemed more stressed, more anxious, self-conscious. Things felt like they were going bad all at once, and the 24/7 cycle makes the world's problems seem right outside our bedroom door. I used to love OG facebook and youtube. They were so cool. But lately I've been wondering about the price we had to pay.

I’ve learned in my experiences of social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat that the way in which we define certain words matter. When I say that we “define words”, I don’t mean defining words by researching the Oxford definition. I mean that we, as a society, collectively agree to certain societal norms and standards that are directly reflected in our social media feeds. These definitions seep into our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of what society expects from us. As an example, when I was in high school, I had a sense of being different from others because I was forced to grow up fast. Facing food instability and homelessness, there were seemingly “small” images, videos, and advertisements in social media that I would see that would remind me over and over that I was different. I would see people going to proms, football games, and parties, while I was working late hours to support myself financially. I would see these images repeatedly to the point that I began to mentally differentiate myself from others based on their social media presence, rather than who they were as people. Rather than speaking with my peers about who they are and where they came from, I closed myself off from the conversation, assuming I knew them because everyone tells the truth on social media, right? The presence of social media while I was in high school very much heightened my sense of being an “outcast”. I truly believe that if these platforms were written with humanity in mind, social media could have been a beautiful place for me to get the social support that I needed. I needed to be reminded that I was loved, looked out for, and seen, rather than different, invisible, and alone. Now that I am out of high school, I do set clear boundaries with social media because I know how it impacts me. I delete the apps during the holidays, because it provides a false sense of everyone living out of a Christmas movie. I use the screen time feature that Apple provides and limit myself. Now that I set clear boundaries with my relationship with social media, I can define what a “home” means. I can define what my sense of “normalcy” is. Removing myself from the societal expectations and standards that social media suffocates me with allows for me to see the world for what it is: a beautiful place filled with people who have their own experiences that I can learn from, rather than a place where everyone is “living their best life” without struggle. Normalize adversity and authenticity in social media, rather than forcing us to pretend that our struggles do not exist. Thank you for listening.

Freshman year I got grounded and had my phone taken away for a majority of the year. When i finally got it back i forgot how to even turn it on and vaguely remembered my password. In the beginning it was hard because it thought that I was gonna die without my phone and social media. In the middle i would ask my mom if i could have it back like every few weeks and then in the end i didn't even notice it was gone. I feel like losing the privilege I've had a majority of my life was daunting in its own way. I feel like it was a great learning experience and that I could take in my surroundings better. I learned that life was beautiful without a phone screen in my face all the time. Now as a junior in high school I have my cellular turned off so I can enjoy the car rides I take with my family and so I can take in my surroundings.

I’m getting my Master’s Degree in Mass Communications and Social Media (yes, social media), and will be graduating in December. I’ve absolutely loved the program thus far, and have learned more about the communications field and social media than I ever could have imagined. There have been many moments during the past year where I’ve felt so excited and hopeful about the field and the opportunities it brings. There have also been moments where I’ve felt uncertain about the field, even considering my own personal journey and realizations with social media. Beyond the intended benefits of connection and accessibility, I was seeing a toxicity from social media in my own life and the lives of the people around me. I began to fight this ethical battle in my head around the idea of someday contributing to the growth of toxicity in the field, or even just having to submerge myself in it for an income. In my Emerging Technologies class, we specifically learned different ways to keep users “hooked” to products and platforms by means of psychology. It was interesting from a creative and technical lens, but incredibly terrifying from the view of the consumer. I was suddenly realizing all of the methods and techniques that I was falling prey to, in a negative way. Later that semester, my professor assigned a reflection paper, and one of the questions was “are you excited about the emergence of technology and social media?”. To put simply, I wrote, “no, I’m not. In fact, I’m terrified. I see the benefits of connection and accessibility from both mediums, but I cannot ignore the impending negative impacts. When will it stop feeding us tailored information? When will it stop using our data for monetization? When will it stop affecting our mental health? I don’t know that it ever will”. I was expecting to get points taken off for my rant, but instead was met with an overwhelmingly agreeable response. I wasn’t the only one feeling this way about social media. I wasn’t the only one considering deleting every single app off my phone despite paying thousands of dollars for a master’s degree in the field. I wasn’t the only one seeing the problems that needed fixing in the industry. But that didn’t make me feel any better. There wasn’t some weight that lifted off my shoulders in learning I wasn’t alone. If anything, it added more pounds onto whatever weight I was carrying in the first place. Then I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix. I obviously wasn’t met with any ease or calmness regarding my concerns with social media. However, seeing the former CEOs and Presidents of various social media platforms explaining their own frustrations with some of the systems they even helped to create gave me some much needed perspective. We are allowed, in fact encouraged, to be critical of the things we’re involved in or passionate about. Tristan Harris didn’t quit the field knowing what he knows; instead he remains in the field with hopes of fixing it. Fixing it starts with our own habits, and how we choose to be affected by the industry as consumers and contributors. Let’s limit our screen time. Let’s turn off our phones at night. Let’s turn off notifications for “who posted” or “who liked” and everything else that doesn’t matter. Let’s be intentional in our interactions beyond the phone screen. Let’s work to stop rewarding companies who use us as products with our time. Let’s acknowledge that we do not have to “cancel” social media to make it less toxic; instead we can work to make strides to steer the industry towards the way of positive growth for everyone. As I approach my (virtual) graduation and continue applying for jobs, I am keeping my ethics and desire to change this fragile and increasingly toxic industry at the forefront. While I see the obvious benefits of my industry and the many opportunities it provides for accessibility, growth, and connectivity, I also see the benefits of change and renovation as it pertains to ethics, health, and safety.

I joined social media since I was eleven. Mostly Instagram, a little Snapchat and Tumblr too. Luckily I stayed away from Musically and TikTok. I identified with the fandoms I found, since I felt alienated at school and wanted to belong somewhere. Things spiralled out of my control fast, although I didn't realize it was because of the social media until later. I was exposed to a lot of inappropriate content. I became addicted to self harm- it took years to get over. When I went to high school, I knew no one, felt helpless, and constantly seeing other kids' social lives made it feel unbearable. I'm nearly eighteen now, and only in the past year or so have I started to cut ties with it all. I stopped participating in fandoms a long ago, but I still struggle with the endless scroll of the Instagram explore page. Feeling lonely over quarantine has made me more vulnerable. Now, I only use Instagram to share my artwork with family and friends. I feel like I understand technology better, and have regained some control. I want to work in interface design when I'm older, to help move things in a more humane direction. I'm doing my best to educate myself and people around me... it's hard, though, to see the detrimental effects of the internet on people I love. I know so many kids addicted to YouTube. I've watched my dad's addiction to Huffington Post and YouTube grow over the last four years. It's exhausting to talk to him because he's always outraged about something. My mom watches too much Netflix and she's gaining weight. I can tell they feel guilty about it, but I can't get them to change, or realize willpower isn't enough. It's tough...

I used to be on Instagram a lot, but at the age of about 15 or 16, I realized what it was doing to me. I realized it was making me feel bad about myself and having major fomo. It made kinda depressed so I decided to take the first step and not cave into the network effect where I feel like I have to have it to stay connected with people. I found that if people are meaningful enough they would connect with me in whichever way is comfortable. Instagram was making me hate myself and made me want to be someone I wasn't. I'm glad I realized its impact on me at an early age and stay away from social media for months. I did go back eventually, but this time I stopped posting because I didn't want to make others feel bad. Then just recently after social dilemma, I decided to unfollow everyone who wasn't close to me and now my feed mainly composes of funny videos which is why I mainly use it. When looking at social media from the outside in, you can see the deliberate steps that companies have taken to ensure you stay on their platform and pay attention to it. I truly believe that social media is not good for society, at least the way it is currently being represented. I think after social dilemma, the next documentary should be about dating apps, because they are pretty great at making some people feel really bad about themselves and making others feel great. Also the way they are marketed, it almost makes you feel like that is the only way to actually meet someone. Linked in also makes you feel bad about your career but I still use it just for the profile for recruiters. Wish that didn't feel like the only way either.

There's been real tension in my household lately, and social media has been my sort of coping mechanism. When I felt alone and hopeless, I could just scroll through instagram and not feel like crying anymore. I've never been allowed to go out much, so when I felt disconnected with my friends, I just spread my face across snapchat so I could talk to new people. I got addicted, always checking my phone, obsessed with keeping my streaks, worrying that someone needed my attention 24/7. I thought that was great to be needed, interested in, and meeting interesting people, until some of those people started asking things of me that I'm not comfortable with. Disconnected once again, I deleted snap and went back to my default scroll. Then I watched the social dilemma and really got to see that I wasn't the only one having these types of problems. I started to limit my screen time, schedule my days according to online school, pick up other hobbies I haven't done in a while like drawing, being part of the church choir, ect. I still don't have the best social life, but at least I'm spending my time alone productively.