The Poisonous Side of the Content We Consume

The content we consume can have a positive or negative effect on our mental health, it is up to us to decide if the information we take in is helpful or harmful to our wellbeing.

Ever heard the saying "you are what you eat"? It's intention is to provoke us into making healthier food choices so, let's add "you are what is on your social media feed" so that maybe we can be more conscious of the information we are absorbing.

I had a pivotal, eye-opening moment this past week regarding the types of content I consume and its negative effect on my mental health. Of course we have always known the effects, it was just so blatant for me this past week.

We had an election at the beginning of the week and the results of that election created a level of chaos amongst the people I follow that I haven’t witnessed in local politics before. Although I didn’t vote for the party that won, I had very personal reasons to celebrate the loss for the other party. I mean, I was elated and quite possibly did a happy dance or two.

I learned really quickly though that I was pretty much alone in that opinion, which is ok by me, but the ensuing doom and gloom posts that filled up my social media feeds and private chats very quickly brought me down off that cloud nine. Not because I was being convinced to “see the light” per say, but just the overwhelming negative tone of it all.

Here is the eye-opening moment; within 36 hours the content I was seeing took me from full on joyous to full of anxiety and a state of depression. I’m not joking. Imagine if a grown woman can be affected so much and so quickly, what is it doing to our children’s mental health?

The biggest realization this past week for me though was that many of these folks wanted to stay in that state! I saw places where humor being injected was ignored, flopped, or even criticized because of the gravity of the loss with “how dare you make jokes at a time like this”, or all of the above.

But this is just one example. With the power of having information from anywhere in the world at our fingertips within seconds, we are constantly bombarded every minute of the day, most of it negative. Why? Because catastrophe and negativity sell and creates engagement for monetized accounts. That comment you made on a page’s post you disagreed with? They love it! It’s money in their bank account.

How can we protect ourselves?

The good news though is that I see it now. So, in a way, the events of last week were an important thing for me because I had to do some serious self-reflection about the direction I will take going forward and while I don’t have all the details worked out, here are a few of the realizations I had in this past week.

I have been in fight or flight mode for so many years and I’m exhausted. I simply don’t believe that my soul came to this earth to be mad and sad all the time.

I will never achieve the big things I want by letting all these distractions keep me small.

We create our reality so, I can either choose a reality that is full of love, joy and happiness or I can choose a reality that is nothing but doom-and-gloom and anger.

Sometimes when the world seems particularly chaotic, I will shut down all media for days to give my mind a break. This includes social media, news, internet scrolling and radio. If I consume anything during this time it will be music from a playlist or maybe even a tv series I have watched before, in other words, I am controlling what I am being exposed to.

Yes, it is important to keep informed about the world around us but there is a difference between being informed about events and consumed by them, the latter being detrimental to our mental health.

Distracting ourselves when our minds are racing can be healthy in small bursts, we just need to be mindful and intentional with it. Problems arise when we let the distractions take over, unchecked. I personally have fallen down the Facebook reel or YouTube shorts rabbit holes many times and the next thing I know, an hour (or more) has gone by. Again, this is not helping me reach my goals so now I combat this with literally setting a timer on my phone and when the alarm goes off, I sign off.

I have turned off most notifications on my phone and have become intentional with when I check my messages which is two or three times each day. A few weeks ago, I started putting my phone on do-not-disturb while working. These were hard steps to take because they weirdly gave me feelings of guilt, but ultimately, I gave myself permission to not be accessible every second of the day, you know, like before smart phones were a thing.

Roughly a year ago I began using most of my commute time listening to podcasts, whether I’m going to work, lunch or running errands. That’s over five hundred hours each year that I am learning new things.

I do consume a lot of self-improvement type content, but I also realize that if I don’t put any of that information into action, it’s just a waste of my time too.

The content we consume matters.

This past week was difficult but ultimately worth it and I hope sharing my experience is helpful for anyone reading this too. The content we consume matters, and it shapes us.

We have to ask ourselves who we want to be and if the media content we are consuming on a regular basis doesn’t align with that identity it’s time to make some changes.