Parenting influencer Anna Whitehouse has revealed that spending up to eight hours a day on social media made her ‘fall apart’.
The 40-year-old founded her popular Mother Pukka blog in 2015 and now boasts 310,000 followers on Instagram as well as landing a job presenting Sunday nights on Heart Radio.
Blogger Anna, who lives in London with her husband Matt and two young daughters May and Eve, said that she sought ‘connection in the underbelly of the internet’ while feeling lonely as a new mother.
Appearing on Lorraine today, she told how constant scrolling left her experiencing both hits of ‘dopamine’ and ‘crushing lows’, and that her online life became ‘all- consuming’.
Parenting influencer Anna Whitehouse, 40, says that spending up to eight hours a day on social media made her ‘fall apart’
Blogger Anna, who lives in London with her husband Matt and two young daughters May and Eve, says that she sought ‘connection in the underbelly of the internet’ while feeling lonely as a new mother
‘I feel I have a great understanding of the damage it can do to young girls, and I have been able to explain the lows that I have felt through using these apps,’ said Anna. ‘I’m 40, I thought I have myself together and I fell apart.’
She added: ‘It was not just an app, it was the dopamine, the highs and then the crushing lows. I felt so lonely, in motherhood that I was trying to find something in the underbelly of the internet’.
Anna said that her struggle with social media came after feeling ‘judgement’ from her followers after she revealed online that she had a non-elective C-section.
‘I remember feeling this weight of judgement around that,’ said Anna. ‘I remember then getting on to breast and bottle and all of those moments in motherhood, where there seems to be a clash or there’s an argument about what you should be doing.
Appearing on Lorraine today, she told how constant scrolling left her experiencing both hits of ‘dopamine’ and ‘crushing lows’, and that her online life became ‘all consuming’
‘If you throw social media on to that, it becomes something else, a potentially a dark, explosive experience.’
Anna said it’s ‘quite scary’ that users are ‘driven by an algorithm’ and recalled one moment where her daughter said she didn’t feel Anna ‘liked her very much when she was on her phone’.
‘It was such a moment of recognition,’ she recalled. ‘This wasn’t just an app, a bit of light relief, it’s all-consuming.’
The mother said that social media was a form of connecting to people while she was a new mother, but that the selective content people share online can be harmful to users.
‘You have a baby on one boob and an iPhone in the other hand and you’re kind of going between feeding baby, can’t get out, can’t connect to anyone and there’s this app that connects you to everyone. Whether you have one follower or a million followed you’re being influenced.
Anna told host Christine Lampard it’s ‘quite scary’ that users are ‘driven by an algorithm’ and recalled one moment where her daughter said she didn’t feel Anna ‘liked her very much when she was on her phone”
The mum, who has penned a novel inspired by her experiences titled Underbelly, added: ‘It started from that weight of judgment I felt and it was magnified by social media’
‘You’re not seeing the hissing by the dishwasher by someone and their partner, those arguments at three in the morning where you’re both turning away from each other at night – because you can’t talk about that necessarily in the context of your life.’
The mum, who has penned a novel inspired by her experiences titled Underbelly, added: ‘It started from that weight of judgment I felt and it was magnified by social media. Especially if you are a mother, it can become quite uncontrollable.’
Despite her challenges online, Anna feels she is well equipped to deal with the difficulties that come with social media when her two children are old enough to use it.
‘One thing, I’m incredibly privileged on many levels, but I have experienced the extreme highs and lows of social media so don’t have a head in the sand approach to this’, she said.