Ashley Tisdale French is opening up about needing breaks from social media weeks after her viral essay about her “toxic” mom group.
“I love social media in a lot of ways. It can be inspiring, funny and a great way to stay connected,” French, 40, wrote in a new blog post published on Monday, February 23. “But I don’t think it’s where we’re meant to live our lives, which is why I take regular breaks.”
The High School Musical alum went on to say that she realized her social media habits had become “automatic,” which is when she knew she needed to take a step back.
“I’d take a photo and immediately think, ‘This would be such a good Instagram picture. Not ‘what a sweet moment’ or ‘I love this light,’ but straight to whether it belonged on the grid,” she wrote. “When I’m off social media, I’m more with my friends, more with my kids, more in the moment. Unsurprisingly, those moments are better when I’m not holding my phone at arm’s length trying to look casual.”
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French added that “what really wears out my brain” about social media is “the sheer volume of information” you can find while scrolling. To help quiet the noise, she started taking breaks — and encouraged her readers to do the same.
“The first time I took a social media break, I got the gift of perspective,” she explained. “Obviously social media can be fun and useful, but it doesn’t need to be the place where our lives happen. So if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to take a social media break, I highly recommend finding out.”
French’s blog post comes weeks after she published a viral essay in New York Magazine’s The Cut detailing her decision to step away from a “toxic” mom group. Internet commenters were quick to surmise that some of the unnamed famous moms in the group were Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor, though French’s rep later denied that she was referring to them.
Earlier this month, Duff, 38, addressed the situation in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, which asked her directly about French’s essay.
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“The women at school are lovely and I’m obsessed with all of them,” the Younger alum said. “I mean, this is not new for me. I’ve had this since I was maybe 15 and starting to get followed around by [photographers].”
She continued, “Everything starts getting documented and everyone knows my life and all the players in it. So the stories that get news pickup — it’s not what happens to a normal person who maybe became an actor as an adult. And now, it’s escalated by the talking heads on TikTok that need clickbait.”
French, meanwhile, has recently gotten close to Hilary’s sister, Haylie Duff.
“Ashley and Haylie have developed a really close friendship and have bonded recently,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month, adding that French leaned on Haylie, 41, after navigating the fallout from leaving her friend group.
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“Their kids have had play dates,” the source added. “They have kept a close friendship.”
Hilary, for her part, opened up about no longer being close to her sister on her new album, Luck … Or Something, which includes a track called “We Don’t Talk” about their relationship.
“[It’s] just absolutely the most lonely part of my existence is not having my sister in my life at the moment,” Hilary said in an emotional CBS Mornings interview that aired on Friday, February 20. “[I] really struggled with including that on the record.”
