A company is offering netizens GBP 2,000 to ‘go cold turkey’ and give up social media for two months.

Uptime, whose app offers thousands of life lessons and five-minute ‘knowledge hacks’, is hoping to find out how social media is affecting users’ wellbeing and productivity.

On its website, the company says: “At Uptime we want to discover the impact social media and ‘doomscrolling’ has on a person’s productivity, wellbeing and self-growth, so over the next couple of months we will be carrying out a study to discover just this.

“To help launch our investigation we’re looking to pay a self-confessed social media lover to quit using the platforms for two months.”

The company said: “Like most things in life, social media has its downfalls, but it can also be great for many people, from providing work to offering people a platform to express themselves and their hobbies – as well of course helping people to connect.

“We’re not against social media at all but we do see the problems with ‘doomscrolling’, where people just consume negative news and opinions.

“At Uptime we want to discover the impact social media and ‘doomscrolling’ has on a person’s productivity, wellbeing and self-growth, so over the next couple of months we will be carrying out a study to discover just this.

“The successful applicant will be paid GBP 2,000 to stop using all social media for the eight-week period. We will also find out how they use their newfound downtime, as well as ask them to record their happiness levels, behaviour and productivity whilst not spending their free time on the platforms they use like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube.”

Uptime said: “We will ask the successful ‘social media quitter’ to answer a frequent questionnaire and will be asked to keep both a written and video journal to record their experience.

“Experts have warned that ‘doomscrolling’ can be harmful to mental health and that social media can be a behavioural addiction. Studies have proven that social media can increase dopamine levels in the same part of the brain that drugs and alcohol can, meaning when a person gets a notification or ‘like’ they can experience the same highs other addictive substances similarly cause.

“In addition to the ‘quitters fee’ of GBP 2,000 for two months, we will also cover expenses of up to GBP 50 per month for online resources that our case study can use to improve their self-growth and wellbeing.

“No previous qualifications or experience are required for the role; however, we do ask that any hopeful applicants are over the age of 18 and be a self-confessed social media lover with at least four profiles on either Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube.”