Brittany Snow on why she took a step back from social media: 'I'm not sure … if we need to know what other people are thinking about us'

The Unwind is Yahoo Life’s well-being series in which experts, influencers and celebrities share their approaches to wellness and mental health, from self-care rituals to setting healthy boundaries to the mantras that keep them afloat.

Brittany Snow knows what it’s like to be vulnerable. The Someone Great actress first opened up about her mental health struggles and battle with an eating disorder in 2007, and since then, has seen how sharing her own story has been healing.

It was this idea that led Snow to create the organization September Letters, which she co-founded with her friend Jaspre Guest. September Letters was launched on the principle that sharing one’s story is not only therapeutic for those speaking their truth, but builds connections and can make others feel less alone.

The site currently features letters with topics ranging from anxiety to grief to coming out, and currently, September Letters is working with Post-it Brand on a pop up experience in New York City, where people can write and send their own holiday letters.

“Letter writing is one of the modalities we use because journaling has been proved to really help in terms of mental health,” Snow tells Yahoo Life over the phone. “We’ve found that not only letter writing, but writing in general and sharing your story, can really help.”

Snow knows that all too well. The Pitch Perfect alum says she realized how important hearing someone else speak their truth was as a teenager, when she read an article that so clearly spoke about the struggles with body image and mental health she, too, was facing. It was after her own full circle moment, when she shared her own story publicly, that she realized she could help others on a grander scale.

“I was at a coffee shop and this woman comes up to me, crying,” Snow recalls. “She had my article in her pocket. There was this really beautiful moment where I knew what someone had done for me, I had now also done for someone else.”

Now, Snow hopes that the world keeps talking about mental health. While she has previously said she initially received public criticism for speaking out about her eating disorder struggles and mental health issues, she has seen the tide shift.

“I do think we have a long way to go, but I do think we’ve come very far,” she says. “The dream would be that people can open up about their mental health struggles just as much as they open up about their physical issues. My hope for the future is that there is no stigma surrounding getting help for your mental health. It’s very acceptable to go to the doctor when you break your leg, but it’s considered weak or vain to go to the doctor because you’re obsessing about your weight. It’s only changing now because more and more people are opening up and sharing their truth, whether they are high-profile people or just people online. The more we open up about our similarities, the more we can change the narrative.”

Snow has found that the pandemic has provided her with the time to take a closer look at her mental health, and what is and isn’t working for her.

“One of the main things I learned was that worrying and obsessing was never going to solve any problems,” she says. “The fears I had surrounding COVID, and even just little things, [were] all in my mind. There is a good sense of protection you need to have — you don’t just go out into the world and start licking people during COVID. But there’s a way of talking to yourself that’s more loving than just sitting around and worrying.”

One other way she’s managed her mental health is by limiting the amount of energy she gives social media.

“I ended up deleting my Twitter because I’m not sure, as a human being, if we need to know what other people are thinking about us. I don’t think that’s necessarily healthy,” she tells Yahoo. “I want to know what my friends think about me, and if I’m a good person, but someone I’m never going to meet that has an opinion about me, my body or my work — I don’t need to know that. I use Instagram as a tool, because I want to show what I’m passionate about and create a community around what I love, but I do have boundaries when I go on there. It’s all fake, anyway. It’s all so silly, and I’m victim of it as well. I’ll go to someone’s Instagram and think, ‘Wow, they must have it all together,’ but then you read something about them and they are falling apart as well.”

Snow is well aware that social media can lead to the same body image issues that she’s spent years fighting. Her new film, September 17th, which she is slated to write and direct, explores this very topic. Though the idea came from a 2006 journal entry, upon speaking to the producer of her film, she decided to tailor the story to be about how social media can impact our body image.

“I’m really proud of our generation for trying to take a stand against the norm. We’re not in the '90s anymore, where there was one body type that people thought was beautiful or ‘perfect,’” she says. “I’m proud that we’re moving in that direction of acceptance; we’re also moving into a direction where we’re creating beauty standards that are just flat-out lies. People now filter themselves and manipulate their bodies, and no one knows the wiser, and people go on their Instagram and compare themselves. It’s really sad. With research, I’ve found how much social media is connected to depression, and mental illness and body dysmorphia. I think we still have a long way to go. I hope in the future that people won’t use [filters] or that there will be some mandate over using them.”

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