Social media can be great. It’s a place to meet like-minded people, connect, learn, and receive encouragement and inspiration. But it can also be rubbish... It’s addictive and can be really bad for your mental health. I am one of those people who wakes up in the morning and sometimes scrolls through social media before I can bring myself to get out of bed, even though I know that it’s bad for me. 91% of 16-24 year olds use social media, on average about 136 minutes a day. Sometimes I find myself using social media to fill the time out of habit rather than enjoyment.
I was inspired by this video I saw to write my own list of things to do instead. It’s organised into the 5 ways to wellbeing; connect, be active, learn a new skill, give and take notice.
So, here are some suggestions of what you can do when you feel like social media is not it:
Connect
- Call your friend, or organise a time later in the week to have a catch up
- Message someone you miss but don’t talk to as much as you want
- Reply to those messages you’ve been putting off
- Sign up for volunteering - Doit.life has a list of community groups and volunteer opportunities you can join
- Look up events happening around your local area, this could be things like festivals, galleries and music events
- Plan something to look forward to with your people you care about
- Go to a museum or art gallery - Whitworth Gallery, Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery are all good and free
- If you’ve got plants, give them a water
- Spend time with a pet
- Join an app where you can make money from walking other peoples dogs
- Take a virtual trip to Yellowstone National Park
- Take a virtual museum tour, for example to Boston Children’s museum
Be Active
- Go on a walk
- Go to the library and borrow a book
- Light a candle
- Do a puzzle
- Order some food from your favourite restaurant
- Play an instrument
- Make a cup of tea
- Rearrange your room, or make a poster to put up on your wall
- Go to an arcade
- Water your plants
- Brush your teeth
- Try cooking a homely recipe
- Be creative. Creativity has been proven to increase mental wellbeing, so pick up a pen and see what comes out
- Exercise - I recommend Yoga with Adrienne, her videos are my fave
- Do some baking
- Write a to do list - you can organise this in order of priority to make it seem less daunting
- Do your skincare routine
- Set your bills up as a direct debit - I know its boring but once its done, you won’t have to worry about remembering to manually transfer money again
- Journal - add something new to your journal
- Explore your area or a new part of Manchester
- Do some gardening
- Create some new goals for yourself
- Ask to walk with your friends dog
Learn Something New
- Learn a new language: Duo Lingo is a free platform to do this
- Watch a documentary - BBC iPlayer always have great options, so does watchdocumentaries.com
- Futurelearn has courses from universities around the world. Many of the courses are free and some of them are only take a couple of hours
- Make a playlist of new albums that have just been released or old ones that you’ve always wanted to listen to
- Sort out your Spotify playlists
- Organise your files on your laptop
- Make sure all your important documents and photos are backed up
- Learn a new recipe
- Start a tv series, or rewatch a comfort show
- Watch an interview your favourite celebrity
- Research opportunities in your area
- Play Geogussr - a game which improves your geographical knowledge by taking you to a random place in the world and you guess where it is
Give
- Sort through the clutter, have a clear out and donate to friends/charity shops
- Create something to give to your friend - maybe a little drawing
- Try a cooking something to share with friends/colleagues
- Send a funny meme to a friend
- Sign up to donate blood (if able to)
- Join a peer support group where you can connect with like minded people - Manchester Mind has a good one
- Write a list of the birthday’s of people you care about and think about what you might give them
- Sign up to do some volunteering
- Send a nice text to someone thanking them or reminding them of a good memory you shared
Take Notice
- Organise your desk, your draw, your room, your kitchen, anything which you feel might need a lil spruce up
- Try some free writing, where you put pen to paper and just write anything and everything that comes to mind
- Write a letter to your future self, or your past self. FutureMe will email you your letter at a date of your choice
- Watch a movie (without going on your phone!)
- Watch some YouTube. Some accounts I’d recommend are:
• Micheal Reeves who makes mad robots
• So does William Osman
• Leena Norms who talks about books, fashion, environmentalism and politics
• ModernGurlz who do fashion predictions and breakdowns of fashion in movies
• Mark Rober is a NASA scientist who trained his garden squirrels during lockdown
• Jordan Theresa who does political and social commentary videos
• Tiffany Ferg who does media criticism and commentary
• Anna Akana does funny short videos about psychology
• The School of Life do short videos on everything from psychology to philosophy - Write down your goals
- Do a manifestation practice
- Create a moodboard - you can do it online
- Take yourself out on a date. Florence Given, author of Women Don’t Owe You Pretty encourages people to take themselves out and have fun
- Draw out a good memory
- Go through (and perhaps delete) old photos off your camera roll or old texts and notice any emotions they may bring up, positive or negative
By Georgie B
