Jemma Finch, co-founder of Stories Behind Things, shares the tools you need to use social media in a way that has a more positive impact.
We all know the feeling of that red notification next to your favourite app, tempting you into spending just one more minute scrolling, checking, consuming and comparing. It’s getting pretty invasive even if we don’t consciously realise that more than half the average day is spent consuming visual data in some form. The realities can often leave viewers feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.
With the comparison culture at an all time high, social media is an ever growing source of anxiety for generations that are surrounded by visual comparison on a daily basis. The average time spent per day consuming content for the average Gen Z is ten hours, uncovering the reality of the undeniable damage this will be having on mental health (stat from Edited, 2019). This finding is across all different mediums – Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.
For me personally, modern day anxiety comes down to the volume at which we are all consuming. Consuming technology, imagery, products, influence. The act of connecting to the clothes we wear, what we eat and what energy we put out to the world daily has always been a curiosity for me. I entered into the sustainability space from a mental health perspective; co-founding Stories Behind Things was an act of self care for myself and my co-founder Ella, to simply start connecting to the material objects around us – to celebrate the stories behind what we wear and what we surround ourselves with on a daily basis. Re-building that connection and slowing down our minds to make intentional and conscious decisions was an extremely fun and playful process for us.