Scroll At Your Own Risk - Healthy Habits to Break Your Social Media Spiral

In this unhinged-but-educational episode, we stage a prison break from the endless doomscroll spiral. Your favorite therapist-duo dives into why our brains love the dopamine, how the algorithm keeps us locked up without bail, and the surprisingly doable ways to digitally detox with your sanity (mostly) intact. Expect science, sarcasm, and the soft parenting you need to finally put your phone down.

#ShrinksAndGiggles #Doomscrolling #MemePrison #DigitalDetoxish #BrainRotRecovery #SocialMediaSurvival #TherapyHumor #MentalHealthButMakeItFunny #ScrollAddictsAnonymous #BreakTheScroll

Episode Transcript

Melissa (00:00):
It's like a love language now. You send all your
friends, like, 20 TikToks in arow, when
I should have been asleep. But, yeah, it's amazing
you put the phone down at all.
It's so many. I know.
Again, with the identity crisis. Okay. Okay. We
can call me a Gen Xer. This isShrinks and Giggles, your no BS
guide to navigating the pitfallsof modern mental health.

(00:22):
From AI therapy to self diagnosis spirals, we're here to
cut through the pop psych noisefrom your feed.
I'm Melissa. And I'm Michela, your psychologist BFFs.
Let's dive in. Hey, everybody.Hi.
Welcome back to Strengths andGiggles. We're yeah. We're
talking about our social mediause and social media use on

(00:44):
mental health. But a part ofthis is related, obviously, to
our own use as well as justsocietal use right now and how
we're changing because of howwe're spending our time day to
day.
Yeah. What we learned is that on average, people are
spending two hours and twentyseven minutes a day on social
media.
Yeah. So what's your experience with how you've used

(01:07):
screens and, yeah, differentmeans of connecting with people
virtually.
Yeah. I mean, I was, like, around when, like, Myspace
AOL and instant messenger wasreally small. Right? It was just
people you knew. And, like, Iremember doing, like, a little

(01:27):
bit of coding.
Whatever mood you were in thatday, you had a different
background. Did you experiencethat?
We were talking about this yesterday, being a Gen X,
but not really. I'm not coolenough to be Gen X. Anyway, I
know. This is an identity crisison the cusper. What am I?
Yeah. And maybe social media is playing into that.
There is a whole narrative around this. Am I the
Oregon Trail generation?

(01:48):
Am I
an xennial? Am I a geriatric millennial?
Who am I? I don't know. I guess I have a lot of things
to pawn. Growing
up, my father was on the forefront of tech in that he
was providing a lot of backupsupport for tech companies. And

(02:09):
so we had a computer when nobodyelse did. We were playing geeky
computer games younger thanmany. But yeah. And then I kinda
remember the pre AOL era, whicha lot of people don't
necessarily, so this reallydates me.
But what I think is interestingabout pre AOL is that there was

(02:30):
actually some social media kindof platform ish stuff that then
kinda went by the wayside whenAOL bought it and shut it down.
Oh. Yeah. There was a company. Idon't know what the name of it,
but there was, like, TNN, andthen it was, like, INN or
something like that.
And, I mean, you could playgames online with total
strangers. And you had littleavatars, and you could, like,

(02:54):
change your moods and thingslike that and interact with
total strangers on the Internet.Amazing.
Super safe. Super safe.
And you would talk to random people, and then he had
no guidance because latchkeykid. And hackle random people
you've never met online. He did.Yes.
Well, we used to do
that thing where you would log on. Oh my god. It was

(03:15):
it was chat roulette.

Clip (03:19):
For those unfamiliar, Chatroulette is a website that
spontaneously connects you to arandom stranger via video chat.
The site works like this. Pressstart, and three seconds later,
some 12 year old Swedish girl isjudging you. It's like gambling.

(03:47):
You can never predict what youmight roll.

Melissa (03:52):
What? It was a way to explore. It was a way to
connect. It was a way to seebeyond your high school or what
have you. Use that middleschool.
I don't know. Something likethat. But yeah.
Yeah. Well, even just to be, like, silly and pranking
and, like Right. You know, like,if the Internet's version of,
like, a ding dong ditch orsomething that you're just, like

(04:12):
Right. Bothering these peopleor, like, the phone where you
pick up, you're like, is yourrefrigerator running?
Right. And now we have a lot of very hyper vigilant
parents because they were doingthat. Mhmm. And now they're
like, oh my god. What was Idoing?
You can only contact these fourpeople ever.
Right. So yeah. Because the Internet is vast.

(04:33):
Yeah. And yet, at the same time, it's being used now
in a way that is so muchpotentially more deleterious to
our mental health because thereis less connection in a lot of
ways. And yet the connectivitywe have is with our immediate
community. And I feel, yeah,with youth in particular can be
so undermining. But, I mean,adults as well.

(04:54):
And, you know, the idea of,like, you're connecting to a
community that is, you know,very near and dear to your
heart, and then, you know,they're lashing out at you. You
know? Right. Right. Yeah.
For whatever that might be.Yeah. Yeah. A lot of criticism.
Yeah. There's a lot of criticism. Yeah. There and non
bullying online.
But the caveat here, I think the kind of thing to pull

(05:16):
from this is we're talking aboutways to connect. And from a
positive mental healthstandpoint, I would say that
social media is providing thatspace. Like, it provides a space
that you go into the socialmedia space and say, I would
want to connect with thiscommunity. You have intention,
but if you have intention thatthat is different, assuming you

(05:37):
can stick to it and actuallyactively communicate. Like, when
they do studies on this, that'swhere mental health benefits are
reaped with.
And there
is still I know that maybe the younger generation is
not on Facebook, but there is alot of ways to connect with
different parts of yourcommunity. And, you know, you

(05:57):
can find your your people in areally, like, niche way. Yeah.
That sometimes feels a littlebit safer. Facebook is not gonna
be as detrimental.
The attention piece of TikTok,it's
so fast. I think it's about conscious use. I think it
can be a positive impactregardless platform if you're
consciously using it. So withTikTok, if you're consciously

(06:19):
and that one's tough withTikTok. But if you're going into
TikTok and you're intentionallyengaging in looking at videos
that are related to somethingyou want to know, then sure.
Or like how to do a craft or howto, you know, hack something,
whatever. Learning.
I will say for my own use, TikTok has the best
recipes. Oh, well, let

(06:41):
me know.
Because I've tried recipes from Pinterest and
TikTok, like, I'm always like,wow, that was delicious.
I mean, they do use some more kind of unusual
ingredients or something or,like, things you can get at the
grocery store that you wouldn'tthink to maybe use that way.
And, well, you can literally type in anything.
Hey, guys. So I finally made the Sprite or 7UP pie.
So I tried to make the viral Oreo sushi, but I don't

(07:04):
think I did it right.
Nothing says home for the holidays like Mima's famous
pizzle casserole. It's like alove language now. You send all
your friends, like, 20 TikToksin a row. When I should have
been asleep. Yeah. It's amazing you put the phone down
at all.
It's so many. I know.
Again, with the identity crisis. Okay. Okay. We
can call me a Gen Xer.

(07:26):
What are some of the negative impacts of social media
from your standpoint?
As a parent, well, my children don't use social media.
Full stop. Why? Why?
Why is that?
I think that developmentally, it's hard for

(07:48):
children to decipher withoutguidance how to use technology
in a positive way. It's designedto be addictive, and you are
reinforcing potentially a verynarrow view of the world. If
you're if you're engaging inthings like Insta or TikTok, I

(08:09):
think it can, you know, tunnelvision with an algorithm very
quickly. And you can't discernwhen things go bad. You know?
Like, we were talking aboutrecipes. And if you start
looking up recipes and put,like, healthy or things like
that, you start getting thingsin your algorithm that are about
dieting, that are about, youknow, your relationship with
food. And then the next day, youknow, if you were like, oh, I'm

(08:33):
looking at and it's particularinterest that maybe emphasizes
physique unintentionally. Yeah.And you mix those things
together.
Suddenly, have an algorithmthat's, you know, feeding you a
video that's like, only eat a100 calories a day. Do I want my
child watching that? Oh, hellno.
No. No. Because I frontal lobe has developed
and you can potentially back out of it. You can be like,

(08:53):
oh, I've headed into the darkzone. There's a ability to
reexpose yourself to the samething. If somebody says
something bad about you in asocial context online, it's
there. Forever.
Right. You can literallyperpetually revisit it. Anytime
you're feeling bad and you'relike, what did that person say?
You know, you can go and lookand revisit it over and over

(09:16):
again. Whereas I do think ourmemory tends to be somewhat
adaptive in trying to kind ofsoften things and allow us to
learn, but without the samecutting edge over time.
And I'm not saying that you maynot go and read something and
feel differently about it later,but at least you have that kind
of natural cushion if you aren'tusing it in that way. So it can

(09:39):
be really challenging to figureout a way to create something
that works. And I'm a hugebeliever in creating a
collaborative relationship andagreement with kids around
social media. But I think theyhave to be asking for it. Mine
hasn't.
But two, I think that when theyare, there needs to be a really

(10:02):
clear understanding of the whysand wherefores of that. And
really a relationship andboundaries put in place to
provide a healthier relationshipwith social media. Right. So
that can be limits on time, thatcan be open passwords. I know a

(10:24):
lot of teens will create otheraccounts and things like that.
So, you know, it's also havingan open conversation about that
and why you would do that andwhat are the poles there. And,
you know, what are the thingsthat you've got to explore and
do if you are getting moreunfettered access. Because,
yeah, it's quick and it's dark,and it's not just social media

(10:47):
then. It's other content thatcreates a space in how we view
the world that is not about howyou are interacting with the
world and your own personalexperience. While it's easy to
get sucked into
I mean, how many millennial feeds were the Taylor
Swift heiress tour? For how longwould did

(11:09):
she do that? A year and a half?
So like eventually I'd be like, okay. I've seen the
entire thing. And most recentlythe Bachelor boys at the Spear.
Right? Like there's all theselike just the whole entire feed
is out because you watch onething.
And so that's obviously notdetrimental necessarily to my

(11:29):
mental health. It's essentially
fueling hyperfixation and hyperfocus. But, yeah, the
same information over and overagain, which is actually
considered to be brain damagefor what it's worth. Yes. It's
the perseveration word.
Yes. So it does impact different parts of your brain
and your functioning. I mean, wehear all the time, like, oh, I

(11:53):
was scrolling for hours, andthen I finally got to take a
shower. And then I got back intothat, and I scrolled more and
more and more and more. And
Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting thing. I mean,
speaking again as an eldermillennial, but for whatever
reason this popped into my head,during 09:11, there was this
whole thing about, like, peoplewere just glued to their
televisions, and they werewatching information over and

(12:15):
over and over again. Yeah.
And, like, whatever newinformation was coming out. And,
I mean, obviously, we'veexperienced other iterations of
that, particularly with socialmedia. But, you know, concern
there was people wereretraumatizing themselves. They
were perpetually reexperiencingthe same neurological activation
and really, you know, just kindof reliving things and kind of

(12:38):
adding a little bit more andbeing a little bit more
traumatized. And Yeah.
You know, okay. I mean, if youstart kind of heading down a
path, even if it's just kind ofsubtle and then you're exposing
yourself to it over and over,I'm not gonna say that the eras
tour is going to cause you PTOstuff. No. I know you love
Taylor Swift. Your Netflix willdo it.
I mean, for people who are intotrue crime or, you know, look up

(13:01):
something, just evenanecdotally, then you're being
reexposed to it over and overagain. Even if you don't wanna
be, like, there's no real way tobe like, stop showing me that.
I'm like,
this is
not good for my mental health. And we were talking
about
how everything's listening, your search history,
and it's all interconnected.Right.
It all remembers you. Going back to some of the

(13:25):
statistics that
we were looking at.
So if you're spending two hours a day on social media,
maybe a little bit more, maybecloser to two and a half
depending on the stats you'relooking at. And then maybe ten
hours of your day that you weredoing something that isn't
related to a screen and thepeople around you, you know, are
experiencing that and your homelife is experiencing that. When

(13:48):
you're diving so deep into amatter that you care about, and
I feel
like even with clients, we talk about different aspects
of how do you help? How do youhelp the world? It's tough then.
So we feel like one littleperson. Why so many people don't
vote and things like that.
You're like, you're just like,I'm one little tiny person. It
doesn't matter. And so you startto dive into, like, how can I
help help the world? And he getsso you could simply do this and

(14:12):
could do this and that and thatand then. And then the list goes
on and on.
And, you know, I was starting tofeel terror. Get really bad
obsessing about it, being reallyout bliss until I was like, I
have to take a break. And I knowmany people are taking you know,

(14:32):
whether it's long term or orprominent breaks from certain
social media platforms, weshould not be absorbing this
much content.
Right. Yeah. Well and it is kind of emulating what you
might do in a trauma state andthat you get stuck in this
thought loop, and you're reexposing yourself to it over and
over and over again. And soyou're doing that except it's on

(14:54):
social media. And some of it isgonna feel entirely innocuous.
I get that. You know, cat videosdo not feel threatening
typically. Right. Unless youreally don't like cats.
You know? But then
yeah. I mean
If you watch cat videos, then you're probably
gonna see Taylor Swift.
But do you know that she has at least a cat? She has
three.

Clip (15:14):
I named Meredith after Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy.
Yeah. And then I named Oliviaafter detective Olivia Benson on

Melissa (15:21):
Law and Order.

Clip (15:21):
And his name is Benjamin? Benjamin Button. That's right.
Because it's an incrediblemovie. Yes, it is.
It's an incredible film. Okay.

Melissa (15:30):
Yeah. Great. Yeah. I mean, thinking about mindful
use, so setting timers, that's away. Right?
Yeah. That's of steam entirely.No. Creating limits to the kind
of content you'll allow yourselfto absorb. We have a clinician
in the practice who likes tothink of it as you're going into

(15:51):
a seedy neighborhood, but youreally need to get something
there.
So you
go in as quickly and get the thing and
you get out. You're knowing that you're going in
with the intention ofdoomscrolling, okay, fine. Maybe
you're having a really crap dayand that's potentially
reasonable. It's not going tomake you feel better and you
know that.
If you're spending four hours on TikTok every night, try

(16:14):
to do three and a half. Doesn'thave to be this, like, major
jump down, you know, and try tobe more mindful around what
you're looking at. Just take abreak. Go outside and touch some
grass.
I say
I'm not cool enough to understand. If right now there's
an obsession over the summer Iturned pretty, it's all these

(16:35):
women in their thirties watchinga show about, like, teenagers
or, like, early adults fallingin love, but it's more about,
you know, whatever. It's a goodshow. And so they're like, I had
to go outside and touch somegrass, you know, I'm stop
obsessing.
There was this whole thing on dopamine fasting a

(16:55):
while back, and part of it wasunplugging from tech. One
research study that I waslooking at was saying that when
people abstained from theinternet on their phones for two
weeks, that ninety one percentof them reported increased mood.
Yeah. So, you know, there issomething to be said for this is
this is impacting us. And it ishard to use social media with

(17:20):
intention.
I think it can be done. I thinkyou can create accountability
for yourself and even saying ifyou're going to log in, go in
with intent. Say you're gonnafind 20 videos for a TikTok
friend, and check that off yourto do list when you're done. Be
like, all right, I found 20videos I liked to send to so and

(17:42):
so, peace out, I'm done for theday.
It's not all or nothing. It's going to be in our
lives forever. I mean, it's, youknow, it's gonna continue to
grow and expand and do what it'sgonna do. So
Protect yourself. If you doomscroll or stock in, you

(18:04):
know, la la land and, you know,are just perpetually engaging
and scrolling aimlessly,absorbing passively information
that's being fed to you. You'relosing touch with yourself.
You're losing touch withtrusting yourself, with feeling
like you can do things andaccomplish things. And a lot of

(18:24):
what drives us as humans and alot of what fuels our mental
health is intentionality andmeaning and purpose.
And you aren't going to deriveany meaning and purpose from
social media unless you go intoit with intent. And so, yeah,
checking something off your todo list is gonna make you feel
better. If you're like, I'mgoing in and I'm looking for

(18:44):
information about, you know,fill in the blank here, Clary.
For me, lots of parenting stuff,lots of psychology stuff. Sure.
Then I'm like, okay. Great. Yes.I might have passively absorbed
some things that I didn't intendto, but at least I accomplished
what I set out to do. And youfeel better saying I'm done than
trying to make yourself stopsomething when you don't know

(19:05):
why
you started it to begin with. Right. And you're gonna
continue to have negative selftalk and out about yourself and
your own productivity. Right.And I get that.
I love the favorite things idea too. Go do your
favorite thing literally. Or ifyou're gonna go on social media,
fine. Tell yourself what are myfavorite Oh, I'm gonna go look
at those favorite things, andthen I'm gonna get out. You're

(19:28):
reminding me of, I mean, intherapy, one of the things that
I will talk to people a fairamount about is the idea of
different domains of life.
I'm referencing Stephen Hayes'swork here, just to give credit
where credit is due. Butregardless, he talks about
within the domains of life thatthere's parenting, there's other
family, there's citizenship,there's spirituality, there's

(19:53):
health, There's leisure. Right.There's professional growth. I'm
missing one or two.
There are nine. And I sometimesargue there are more because I
will argue things like, okay,pet ownership, I might not put
under parenting. Sometimes I dojust to be kind to those who are
passionate about their pets. Irecognize as both a pet owner
and a parent, they are not thesame thing. My point here is

(20:15):
social media pulls us frommeaningfully engaging in those
domains of life.
Yeah. Unless we are activelysaying, am filling this cup
going into this and, you know,doing something with this
domain. So if you, you know, aredoing something for your
community, then maybe it'sfilling your, you know,
citizenship cup. If you're like,yeah, I'm doing some political

(20:35):
activism or even just connectingwith your local community using
like the social media appNextdoor or something like that.
Okay, great.
You know, yes, if you'remindlessly using, it's robbing
you of the opportunity to createstability. I usually do the
table. I'll say, you can't havea table with fewer than three

(20:58):
legs. There will be nostability. No.
And even a three legged table,as we all know, falls If you're
using it intentionally, thenyour mental health will be
resilient. And you can go onwith your day, and you can go
lie on some grass Yeah. PourTouch the grass. Drink some

(21:19):
coffee, or just stare at a walland breathe and slow down your
mind and your body to what,honestly, we were designed to
do. What would it mean to you asa more obvious native to social
media?
What would it mean to you to bemore intentional with use, for

(21:40):
people to be more intentionalwith use. I think sometimes,
particularly with the ones that where you scroll, it
can feel like you're losing timeand the phone controls you to
some extent. And, you know, itimpacts all the things that

(22:00):
we've been talking about withyour productivity and if you
were honest with yourself. It'snot relaxing. And I think that
the, maybe the overall message Iwould like to leave is just
check-in with yourself. If youfeel no better, then okay, fine.
But if you, if you do make us aslight change, maybe you will

(22:23):
notice that like, oh, okay.Maybe when I go to reach for the
phone, I can instead just go laydown on the bed for a second. I
mean, moms, you might fallasleep.
To be continued, How to have your husbands take care of
your children and take a nap. Imean, can't unwrap this forever,
you know, in all likelihood. But we'd love to

(22:45):
hear from you guys, you know,comment on, our socials. Plus
social media impacts you andyours your difficulties with it.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.