Why I stand by Abbie Chatfield’s bold call on social media | Karlie Rutherford
Social media is their brand and business but even influencers, like Abbie Chatfield and Brittney Saunders, are worried about the mental health of young people and kids who use it.
Opinion
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Popular podcaster and content creator Abbie Chatfield often finds herself making headlines for her opinions. But it was her latest declaration that is, perhaps, her most shocking.
The 30-year-old might have first found fame on The Bachelor, but it’s the online world where she’s become a powerhouse.
She’s got over half a million followers on Instagram. And her TikTok videos have been liked more than 39 million times.
As she declares, social media is her “work.” It’s how she makes money. She uses the platforms to promote her top rated podcast and her successful one-woman shows.
Yet this week, on her podcast It’s A Lot, she called on her followers to delete social media.
After a month off the apps to mark her 30th birthday, Chatfield told her listeners (and, of course, in a post on social media) that taking time off social media was “the best thing for my mental health.”
She declared TikTok “the spawn of satan” saying, “If you have TikTok and you don’t have to for your work… go into your apps and delete that little c*nt right now.”
“You know that hum of anxiety that everyone has…I’m telling you, it’s because of social media…it’s the poker machine in your pocket.”
She isn’t the only one who has this view. Newcastle-based Brittney Saunders is often described as the Original Influencer. She was 14 when she started making vlogs on YouTube before transferring to Instagram and TikTok. The 31-year-old has leveraged her following to launch a successful fashion label. She says she owes her entire career to the internet and social media.
Yet, when I got the chance to interview her for High Steaks, she admitted life would be nicer without social media. “I’m brain rot,” she admitted. [No surprise, but brain rot was the 2024 Oxford Dictionary word of the year.] Then we both almost gushed in awe when our photographer revealed he hasn’t had social media for six years. And, unsurprisingly, he didn’t miss it at all.
TikTok might have recently been boasting to people on billboards and bus shelters that the app has encouraged teens to explore the great outdoors because of fishing content or get into reading because of the BookTok trend. Yet, we all know that’s not really what it’s done. It’s made us more polarised, angrier and anxious.
There is so much science to prove it. Researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center found social media may be associated with increased severity of mental health symptoms among young people.
In his 2024 bestseller Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues children’s increased use of social media has “rewired” their childhood and impacts their social and neurological development.
Heck, the Australian Government has even introduced a law from December 2025 to make social media platforms take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from having accounts. “Social media is doing social harm to our kids. We’ve called time on it,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. France and Norway are looking to follow suit.
Intellectually we know the dangers. We’ve physically seen and felt the impact in our own lives. Yet we still scroll.
Yes, it’s because it is an addiction. But what if the way we can break the cycle is when those who are perennial online start moving off it.
Chatfield and Saunders both have bigger online followings than Albanese and Haidt. Young people particularly listen to what they, and others like them, have to say. Whether that’s the type of music to listen to or the right top to wear.
So wouldn’t it be beautifully poetic if perhaps the biggest influence these powerful online influencers could have is to get us all offline.
Chatfield said, “Put down your f*cking phone.” Let’s be influenced by her and do it.
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