A video pops up. It tells you the most flattering way to dress according to your body type. You take a mental note and scroll.

The next video is comparing and contrasting two different diets, telling which one you need to eat. You alter your grocery list and scroll.

Ten minutes pass. You have been told you wash your hair the wrong way, parent your children the wrong way and have too basic of a music taste. Criticism is being thrown around left and right, but you take all of this “advice” because you do not want to get left behind. 

But how bad would it be to be left behind? Would you even be behind at all, or would you end up 10 steps ahead?

Taking a break from social media is difficult. We use it daily for communication, entertainment and self-expression. But how much of yourself can you express when most platforms focus around trends and how well you can stick to them? 

When the routine of being told what to do by others has been broken, a new one starts. You find out what your body likes to wear, think and feel. It starts a cycle of thinking for yourself without the help of influencers telling you what you “should” like.

I personally experienced this change after I deleted TikTok. I stopped being so worried about how other people would perceive my personality, and stopped worrying about being too over or under dressed. While these thoughts still hold a place in the back of my mind, they do not affect me as much as they did when I had the app installed.

Everyone is born as their own person with their own personality. The environment we grow up in affects our views and the way we act. But, if everyone is growing up online, listening to the same advice from the same people, we will all be similar. 

There will be less individuality, because the same kid who could have grown up to be famous for their sense of style was pressured to listen to the video about the most flattering way to dress their body type.

We need to learn to take a break from listening to other people’s opinions online. Whether that break includes temporarily logging out or deleting apps altogether, we need to relearn how to think for ourselves.