I was surprised when my friend told me recently she planned to delete her social media apps for a month. Not long before, she’d done something she wanted to do for years: launch a public account on Instagram to share fitness tips, healthy recipes and spiritual motivation. I knew how much work she put into it, and it was paying off. She counted new followers every day.

Still, she said, it was time to take a break. She wanted to make sure her head and heart were in the right place before continuing that, or any social media.

That’s the kind of self-discipline the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) is trying to encourage in the UK. On Friday the BBC reported the service’s new initiative, Scroll Free September.