Bella Mackie quits Twitter because of coronavirus panic
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- Aiden Wynn
- Published
Bella Mackie announced last night that she is taking some time away from Twitter for her mental health.
Mental health influencer, journalist and best-selling author of Jog On: How Running Saved My Life and The Jog On Journal, Bella Mackie has taken an important step towards safeguarding her mental health during these particularly crazy times.
In a tweet she posted on Thursday, Bella wrote that she was “deleting Twitter for the first time in a decade”, after noting the impact the site was having on her mental health.
Bella began speaking about her lifelong battle with mental illness on her social media a couple of years ago, and has since used Twitter and Instagram as platforms to talk about her issues with anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She now has more than 50k followers on Twitter, and 142k on Instagram.
But while these sites have for a while acted as a positive space for Bella to share her story, recent events have made being online somewhat overwhelming. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid seeing constant coronavirus news, updates and hot takes, especially in the fast-paced world of Twitter. This can contribute to an overwhelming feeling that everything is doom and gloom, and tends to keep us in a state of negativity and fear.
Bella ended the tweet by saying “News once a day will have to be enough!” This is an approach we could all benefit from taking, particularly as fake news surrounding coronavirus has been doing the rounds. Stepping away from social media every once in a while and focusing on the facts could help us all to keep a level head.
Before signing off for good though, she retweeted a post from doctor and broadcaster Radha Modgil, with tips on how to remain positive and manage the current coronavirus crisis in a compassionate way. The ten tips include everything from taking “responsible action as an individual to reduce the risk to others”, to making sure you let “facts not fear inform your actions and feelings” and taking “a break from the news if it gets overwhelming”.
These are pearls of wisdom we could all do with taking on board, since it looks as though we’ll be dealing with coronavirus panic for the foreseeable future.
Bella isn’t the only celebrity to have quit Twitter in the wake of overwhelming negativity. In January, pop sensation Lizzo quit the platform because of the sheer number of trolls interacting with her tweets. Her account has been run by her management ever since.
Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown also stepped back, actually deleting her account – and not just the app – after a targeted campaign of harassment got too much.
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