‘Less Media Monday’ Helps Students Disconnect from their Phones, Reconnect with Nature

Story posted April 22, 2022 in CommRadio, News by Kennedy White

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Do you ever feel like you need time away from your phone or that your phone usage takes up too much time of your day?

Penn State’s Health Promotion and Wellness team has created an initiative to help students disconnect from their phones and revive their mental health. The program, “Less Media Monday”, has multiple approaches to these concerns.

For a few Mondays of this semester, the Health and Wellness Promotion team has set up in the Pollock Cultural Lounge with new activities to try. From nature walks to making friendship bracelets to advice on how to improve your mental health, there is so much to learn.

Taylor Jones, an intern for Health Promotion and Wellness, has experience with developing content for the workshops.

“We hold workshops surrounding topics, such as self-esteem, phone notifications, ditching the distractions, strategies to increase focus while you're studying and just really spending time in nature as a way to decrease your social media usage.”

“The goal of it is to not push the narrative of completely getting rid of your devices at all. It is just taking small steps such as 30 minutes or less on your phone. It’s just to improve your digital wellness, because we do spend a lot of time on our devices,” Jones said.

This initiative was inspired by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, where many people increased the time they spent on their phones or computers each day.

Being on social media has impacted numerous lives and the mental health of many.

Tali Lipton (first-year—psychology) knows the pressure that social media creates.

“Social media makes you compare yourself to other people, and comparison can really damage your mental health. You are constantly thinking ‘do I look good enough?’ or ‘am I doing this well enough?’. It can just make you depressed or anxious,” Lipton said. “When you are scrolling through social media for so long you are kind of wasting your day away.”

Through the “Less Media Monday” event, students will be able to find alternative ways to improve their digital wellness and reconnect with themselves. The event will take place from 4- 4:30 p.m.

Kennedy White is a second-year majoring in public relations. To contact her, email klw5974@psu.edu.

About the Contributors

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Kennedy White

Sophomore / Public Relations

Kennedy White is a second-year from Hershey, Pennsylvania majoring in public relations at Penn State. She is an anchor and news writer for the CommRadio news department. She is also involed in Advertsing/ Public Relations club and involved with volunteer work for the Project:Paws club. If you would like to get in contact with her email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)