Knowing When It’s Okay To Take A Break
If you’re at all familiar with K-Pop Twitter, especially over the last few weeks, it may be super overwhelming to be online right now. This topic has been touched upon in previous Fan Advice articles, but it’s super important to know and recognize when enough is enough and taking a break from the drama is more important.
Drama aside, being online can be super draining to begin with. Being online all the time can affect a person’s mental health drastically, so once you recognize how much it’s taking a toll on you, then it’s time to log off. K-Pop Twitter especially can be particularly draining. The aforementioned fan wars and bullying can be absolutely exhausting to deal with, and when you feel like you’re being directly affected by it, it can hurt, even if it’s coming from a person behind a screen rather than to your face. Twitter fights and fan wars can sometimes be hard to avoid, especially if it’s in a fandom you’re a part of.
Of course, if your fandom is one of the ones involved in any of the fights, it can be a natural instinct to want to jump in and defend the group and/or other fans. As tempting as that can be, it’s sometimes just best to avoid doing it and let it simmer down and end rather than add fuel to the fire. The more fans that continue feeding into the fighting, the longer it will drag and it’s never fun.
There’s also a very high chance the idols themselves can see these things too. Idols know a lot more than we think and see a lot of things that happen on Twitter and other social media. They are definitely aware of things that occur online, so it’s really worth taking a step back and thinking to yourself if you’d want your favorite group to see the negativity.
If you find yourself feeling mentally or emotionally affected by the negativity online, there’s a few ways to step back and avoid it, even for a little while.
Set time limits or certain settings to spend a limited amount of time on those apps. The screen time and do not disturb settings on your phone can help you with limiting how much time you spend online and can help you with staying away for a bit. Even simply messing around with your notification settings can help. If you don’t get notifications, you won’t be as tempted.
When you’re offline, focus on other things that will keep you from jumping back online. Reading, going for a walk, spending time with friends, or other small activities can serve as enough of a distraction from the Twitterverse. At the end of the day, Twitter and social media will still be there when you’re ready to go back to it, whether you stay offline for a day or a month. The time you need to take care of yourself is more important than the constant need to be online. You’ll feel much better by the time you’re ready to log back in, and you’ll be glad you took the break to begin with.