Social media was created with the best of intentions; to connect people who may not have been able to connect previously. But, that was over 10 years ago, and the technology, and intentions, have changed quite a bit.
If you are wondering if social media is negatively impacting your life, I would explore the following, and then join me in some healthy boundaries we can begin to implement;
- When looking at your daily or weekly screen-time, is the majority of your screen-time used for social media?
- Think about how many hours per day you want to be using social media; is this congruent with the hours listen on your screen-time report?
- Check your phone pickups (this can be done in settings – screen time – see all activity – scroll down to “pickups”). Is this number what you suspected, or does it seem high?
- How do you feel after using social media? Do you feel informed, fulfilled, and overall positive, or do you feel inadequate, down, and negative?
- Does social media leave you with a feeling of needing; needing to buy those clothes that blogger is wearing, needing to re-do your home like that acquaintance has, needing to buy more, be more, and do more.
If you, like me, find yourself sometimes grappling with the points above, you are not alone. So many people are consistently exploring their relationship with social media, and we are here to help. Yes, like you, I am also consistently re-working my own relationship with social media. More to come on that.
I thought about getting into the negative impacts of social media; the increase of depression, the increase of completed suicide among adolescent girls since the introduction of social media, so on and so forth. But frankly, I think many are already aware of these statistics. If you want to learn more, a quick google search will produce tons of statistics surrounding the negative impact of social media on your mental health.
So what can we do to re-work our relationship with social media? Here are a few tips that I often discuss with my clients, and also put into practice myself;
Put Yourself In Control of Your Notifications
I have to give 100% of credit for this tip to Kate Northrup from her book “Do Less”. Honestly, the book is life-changing. Go check it out!
But back to social media. She discusses the way that our phones and the technology behind social media controls our use of it. Think about it; the badge icons indicating you have 5 notifications on Facebook. The notifications pouring down your home-screen of people liking and commenting your most recent Instagram post. Every notification and badge icon that pops up lures us back into these apps. We just can’t help ourselves, we have to know what people are saying about us!
By turning off your notifications – I’m talking badge icons, drop-down notifications, sounds, vibrations, the whole shabang – we put ourselves back in control of when we check our social media. We want to be the ones to determine when we click into these seemingly harmless apps, not the other way around.
Check Your Screen-Time Daily
I know it hurts. I know it’s a very in-your-face number of how you spent your day. But it is so important to put a number to your social media usage.
Ask yourself going into this; how much time each day do I want to spend on social media? One hour, two hours, etc. Then hold yourself to this.
Map out what you will do with your time that you are not on social media. If you are currently on for 5 hours per day, think about what else you could be doing in those hours that would lead you towards bigger life goals, or even daily goals. Then, keep checking that screen time.
Pay Attention to How You Feel While Using and After Using
Do you find that after clicking through that blogger’s Instagram story, you just feel bad about yourself? Do you find that you are left with a longing need to purchase everything they just show-cased, hoping it will bring even an ounce of Serotonin to you?
I have to say, I have a deep appreciation for a particular blogger I follow who begins many of her Instagram story try-on’s with “you absolutely do not need any of this, but if you are looking for fall/winter/summer clothes, here are some that I love”. WOOF. The honesty, the transparency, I love it, and I appreciate the reminder that we do not need to over-spend to keep up with anybody (this particular blogger is @kmmlifestyle, have to give her the proper shout-out).
What about scrolling through Tik-Tok, seeing the immaculate houses and the well-lit videos? Do you immediately feel less-than?
These are not good feelings! Why are we continuing to scroll or click through things that make us feel bad?! The mind is a crazy thing sometimes.
Don’t be afraid to unfollow or mute accounts that are just not serving you for the moment. This doesn’t have to be permanent. But maybe in this season, it is just not beneficial for you.
Here’s a fun story; during the heat of COVID, while pregnant and isolated in my home, I muted almost every account on my Facebook except for groups that I used for my business. No one knew that I muted them, I could choose how long I muted them for, and my feed was filled only with business-related information, which was pertinent to me in that season of life. In that moment, I did not have the capacity to hear about everyone’s stress related to COVID. I did not have the capacity to see people’s political stances on it, the conspiracy theories, so on and so forth. For those 30 days, I needed to readjust my focus and my energy into what mattered. And I was in control of that.
Do you have other tips that you use to mend your relationship with social media? We would love to hear it!
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