The magic of switching off
Young magician and Tiktok star Joel M on why even he needs to limit his screen time
JOEL M (23), who fronted his own TV show Life Is Magic on the BBC last year, says taking time out from social media is a must. “I’m a big advocate of reducing social media and screen time, which I know is hilarious given that I’m a social media influencer,” he says.
“But I’ve experimented with a whole bunch of things, and it’s worked out the absolute best for me just not to use my phone in the mornings. Some people do no phone one day a week, but that didn’t work for me because it didn’t really change any habits, so when I wake up I don’t use it until maybe 11am or midday.
“It means I’m able to get a good chunk of every day where I’m not on my phone. I’ve found it’s a really important thing for me, to take time out of the day to connect to reality around you.
“Of course, that won’t work for someone who needs to be on their phone super-early, but you’ve got that information thrown at you all day long from this little device and it’s important to take that time out to think for yourself and not allow those external forces to just wreck your head.
“I’m a human being so sometimes I mess up, but this is something I’ve done since the first lockdown when I saw how much time I was spending on the phone when I wasn’t out for live shows or out meeting friends. It probably affects your mental health more than you realise.
“A lot of it’s for work because of what I do, so it’s tricky for me, but I remember looking at the notification about it one day a couple of years ago and seeing ‘13 hours’ and I thought, oh my goodness. So I’ve been on a mission to get it down.”
Now, says Joel, who has teamed up with mental health charity AWARE for its new children’s campaign, he does his best to stick to just one hour a day on his phone.
“It doesn’t have to be that extreme,” says the star, who grew up in Bangor. “And the thing I have I suppose is that I’m self-employed, so I’m able to experiment and mess around to see what works with timings and when I can leave my phone down. I think as long as we’re conscious of it, that’s a good thing.”
He adds: “The best thing I ever did was turning off notifications on every app apart from phone calls and Whatsapp for most people, but at the start I found that even when the notifications were off, you’d still look and that really reveals how you’re still locked in.
“Now I’ve done all this for a while, though, you start to realise that most of the time you could be away for a week and nothing important would happen. If your family and friends need you, or someone to do with work, they’ll get you.
“When you first started using it less you think things would start falling apart — but honestly, if you just move away from certain platforms then nobody notices if you’re away.
“I’ve deleted the apps for Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter from my phone, and the big one for me was Youtube. I’ll be honest and say that was the most painful, and maybe it’s the case for self-employed people because you could just while away the hours being ‘fake busy’ watching a video that would somehow relate to work and then you’d be there for ages.
“Don’t get me wrong, all of these things have a time and a place and they’re definitely not bad, but one notification can completely throw you off.
“For now, I have Instagram and Tiktok, because I use them for work. At this stage, when it comes to the end of the day, more time on social feels like work, so I tend to switch off.”
Now joining up with AWARE for its Express Yourself campaign, a poetry competition for children in their last two years at primary school, the star whose full name is Joel Mawhinney is a big supporter of putting mental health and wellbeing first.
“I think it’s such an important thing, especially now. Everything going on at the minute, well it’s such an unusual thing to go through, even as an adult,” he says.
“I can’t even imagine what it’s like as a kid. Finding a way to express how you’re feeling is such a good outlet and if this competition can start the conversation about mental health a bit younger, then I’m happy with that.”
Thanks to digital analytics, Joel has been able to work out that a big chunk of his audience is made up of young people.
“I’d say the biggest demographic for me is under 18,” he says. “With Tiktok it only shows as young as 13, because there’s an age limit, but from reading some of the comments I’d say some of the kids are younger than that.
“I take that responsibility seriously, 100%. It would be silly not to. But I suppose in one sense I’m 23, so I barely know anything in the grand scheme of things, but if I can help in any way then I will.”
With such huge numbers of people signed up to see his hit magic videos — not only the millions on Tiktok but another 166,000 on Instagram — Joel says that aspect of his work can sometimes be a lot to take in.
“Sometimes the numbers feel absolutely mad,” says the magician. “You can’t even begin to comprehend that number of people so you shouldn’t really get caught up in it because numbers can get a bit scary.
“I try not to get too influenced by that because these are real people engaging at the other end, wanting to enjoy the videos. They’re mostly lovely, too, and I try to engage with them as much as I can. I usually set aside
‘I can’t even imagine what the pandemic is like for a kid’
about 30 minutes or an hour to reply to people if I can because when I was a kid, if someone I followed replied to a comment that I’d left, I would have freaked out. It would have made my year.
“To be in a position now to do that, to kind of brighten someone’s day if I can, well that’s great.”
Joel’s path to success has been phenomenal after leaving school at 18.
“The last year has been pretty mad,” he says. “Obviously everything has happened with the pandemic so it’s made everything work-wise quite strange. I suppose in many ways I still haven’t been able to see the results of it in full.
“It’s been a dream come true, though. I spent years working towards it and the momentum just really built up. I had a big following online and then the TV show was amazing. It was brilliant to have that backing of people saying, yes, let’s do this big project together. It showed me there was this belief in what I was doing.”
Now living in Belfast with girlfriend Lucy Blaney, Joel, who attended Bangor Grammar, says he makes a point of taking a step back to clear his mind.
“I’m not really outdoorsy, but during the first lockdown that one hour of exercise a day saved my head,” he says.
“A walk can fix anything. I’ve done meditation now for three years too, which I try to do every day. I got into it using an app and now I do it by myself, and it doesn’t have to be super-complicated. You can just do 10 or 15 minutes a day if you’re stuck for time, but it really helps.
“It doesn’t have to be sitting still with your eyes closed either. For me active meditation, a walk where you’re just intentionally taking that time to clear your thoughts, is great.
“I make sure to do a gratitude practice every day as well, where I write down one to three things I’m super-grateful for, where you think about what you have and not just what you want.
“I’m saying all this, but I think what’s most important is that people find something they can do and stick to it.
“There are a million different ways to keep yourself right, whether that’s sea swimming or cold showers, mindfulness, painting or playing music, but taking time out for yourself and clearing your mind is the important thing, however you manage to do it.”
With AWARE’S Express Yourself poetry competition launching on Monday, February 1 for P6 and P7 children here, Joel is excited to get started.
He says: “It’s a brilliant campaign and I really hope that through a creative process like this we can start to normalise the conversation around mental health with children in Northern Ireland.”
The competition will run throughout February, and Joel will pick the winning poems.
The lucky winners will be invited to appear on his social channels while he teaches them some magic tricks, and the star will give a performance at the winning schools.
AWARE has also promised to deliver a six-week mindfulness course to the top two winning classes.
‘The last yearhas been mad for me... but it is adream come true’