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Why online influencer and model encourages us to unplug from social media and detox in her new book

  • Naomi Shimada started modelling at 13, has a large Instagram following, and social media is a big part of her daily life
  • In her new book, Mixed Feelings, she looks at the social media phenomenon and its side effects

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Social media influencer and model Naomi Shimada has published a book about the side effects of social media. Photo: Thomas Serre
Theresa Harold

If, lately, you’ve found yourself hitting the ‘unfollow’ button on social media to improve your mental health, then welcome to life in 2019.

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“Oh, we all have!” says Naomi Shimada over the phone from her home in East London. “It’s unhealthy. There comes a point when you have to recognise what is triggering you and you have to separate yourself from that.”

And while it might seem counter-intuitive for someone with 76k+ Instagram followers to advocate for a social media detox, that’s exactly what the model, host, and newly published author does. “Social media completely changed the scope of my work. It’s completely changed my industry, and it’s changed the communities that I’m a part of. It’s the thing that’s had the biggest impact on all of our lives.

“To have a smartphone and be on social media is to have mixed feelings – especially when it comes to the millennial bracket. [My book is] called Mixed Feelings because there are just as many good things as there are bad things. We have access to the whole world now, all of us, from our phones. There’s something really amazing about that, but with that comes new feelings that I was just trying to process.”

 

Co-authored with her friend, journalist Sarah Raphael, the book discusses the emotional repercussions of existing online. Through a combination of personal essays and interviews, the pair explore the impact of our digital habits on our work, on our notions of beauty, on leisure, and on fashion.

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