Mental Health
Herpegram is optional. Your mental health is not.
Herpegram should never feel like an obligation.
If being here is making you feel worse, stepping away is a valid choice. You do not owe Herpegram your attention, your time, or an explanation.
If the Sewer is making you anxious, angry, preoccupied, exhausted or simply making your day worse, close it. Talk to someone you trust. Do something away from the screen. Come back tomorrow, next week, or not at all.
Decide your limit before the feed decides for you.
Herpegram can enforce a connection limit that you choose in advance. For example, you can allow yourself one hour of Herpegram per day. When that time is reached, Herpegram can force a log out and prevent another connection for the lock period you selected.
A limit is not a punishment. It is a boundary you set while you are calm, so you do not have to keep making the same decision while scrolling.
SET A CONNECTION LIMIT →Social media can affect how you feel, think and spend your attention.
There is no single way that social media affects everyone. It can provide humour, community, information and connection. It can also intensify stress, comparison, conflict, compulsive checking and exposure to upsetting material. Understanding those effects makes it easier to recognise when a platform is no longer helping you.
When scrolling stops being fun
Repeated checking can become automatic. Notice when you open a social platform without deciding to, or when stopping feels unusually difficult.
Why online arguments can feel so personal
Conflict, rejection and public criticism can trigger a real stress response. Your body does not always distinguish neatly between a social threat on a screen and one in front of you.
Doomscrolling
Uncertain or upsetting information can hold attention precisely because it feels unresolved. Continuing to read does not always make you better informed; sometimes it only keeps your nervous system activated.
Comparison is a poor measuring stick
Social platforms show selected moments, performances and fragments of other people's lives. Comparing your whole life with someone else's visible fragments can distort how you see yourself.
When notifications control your attention
Frequent alerts can train you to anticipate reactions and interruptions. Turning them off, or checking them only at chosen times, can make the platform feel less demanding.
Recommendation systems are not wellbeing systems
A recommendation system decides what may keep your attention or be relevant to you. That is not the same thing as deciding what is healthy for you. You remain free to stop, mute, block or leave.
Parasocial relationships
Repeated exposure can make distant people feel familiar or personally significant. That feeling can be real while the relationship itself remains limited or one-sided.
When online conflict follows you offline
If a post or argument is affecting your sleep, work, relationships or mood long after you close the app, that is a reasonable signal to disengage.
Notice what happens after you log in.
This is not a medical test and it does not diagnose anything. These are simply useful questions to ask yourself.
- Is Herpegram interfering with your sleep?
- Are you repeatedly checking reactions or notifications?
- Do you feel anxious, low or angry after logging off?
- Is it distracting you from work, study or relationships?
- Do you feel worse about yourself after comparing yourself with others?
- Do you feel that you have to respond to someone?
- Are you opening the platform automatically, without deciding to?
If several of these feel familiar, consider turning off notifications, setting a connection limit, logging out for a while, or speaking with someone you trust.
Your attention belongs to you.
You can set a predetermined usage window and have Herpegram force a log out when it ends.
We do not believe you should be made to feel guilty for leaving, taking a break or ignoring a notification.
You can disengage from another Variant without continuing an unwanted interaction.
What a system recommends is not a judgement about what you need to see or what is good for you.
We will never tell you that you need Herpegram. Social media is optional. If leaving makes you feel better, leave.
If someone is making you feel unsafe, you do not have to keep engaging.
Preserve any information you may need, block the Variant where appropriate, and report harassment, threats, doxxing or other abusive behaviour. If you believe you are in immediate physical danger, contact your local emergency service.
REPORT ABUSE →If you are thinking about suicide or harming yourself
You do not need to deal with this through Herpegram. Please contact a person or service that can support you directly.
Immediate danger: call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.
Free and confidential crisis support, 24/7.
OPEN OFFICIAL RESOURCE →This list is selected from the country associated with your current network connection. Herpegram does not need GPS access to choose it and this page does not need to store your precise location.