I have a really complicated relationship with social media. I’d venture to guess you might, too. In fact, I know very few people who have a healthy relationship with it. I used to beat myself up over it. I hated how easy it was to get lost in the endless scroll–minutes then hours getting sucked from my day. It bothered me that I seemed to lack any self-control. Without fail, I’d find myself reaching for my phone, thumb poised over any one of the social networks (Instagram is my main drug of choice). Before I knew it, I’d be knee deep in the weird part of the explore page where I could hardly remember my own name or what day it was.

WHY I WANTED TO CHANGE MY RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

Before we get into the different ways to develop and maintain a healthier relationship with the various social networks, I want to share the negative impact social media was having on me. You’re probably already at least vaguely aware of them if not experiencing some of them yourself. But for the sake of comprehensiveness, let’s do a brief overview.

• It was feeding my unwarranted desire for “more” and “better” when I have everything I need.
• Awareness of what others in my field were doing would paralyze me into inaction.
• Comparing made me really start to doubt (and dislike) myself.
• My head felt constantly full of nothing.
• I was unintentionally devoting precious time to it that I could have used to write, create or relax.
• It would fool me into thinking I was actually “connecting” with people but would ultimately leave me feeling very lonely.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIAL MEDIA

PARTICIPATE IN A SOCIAL DETOX

The first thing I would recommend is taking a break from social media entirely. I’ve done this at two different times for two different durations. I learned so much about myself and the role social media played in my life. These breaks offered me an opportunity to see what else I could use to fill my time. They also reminded me of what it feels like to let my mind to wander and what comes from being bored. At the end of each detox, I felt free, clear-headed and focused. Along with all of that, these detoxes showed me:

• I don’t really get anything out of social media
• The “urge” I would feel to check the platforms was never partnered with “desire.”
• While it can be fun, it is more often totally overwhelming

Keep track of how you feel during your detox. Listen to what your body, brain, and heart are telling you. Keep an inventory of your thoughts. What you learn from your detox will help you decide how to alter your social media usage to establish a relationship that best suits you. For the sake of this post, I’ll be sharing what changes I’ve made. A couple things to keep in mind:

1. Social media is vital to my business
2. While I (personally) don’t really get anything out of social media, I do enjoy it to some degree.

UTILIZE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Like I mentioned above, maintaining a healthy presence on social media is vital to my business. And in this day in age, I’d bet it’s safe to say the same is probably true for you, too. I struggled hard with this. For some reason, establishing some degree of separation and balance was incredibly difficult for me to sort out. I’d log into Instagram to post something and before I knew it, 25 minutes of story watching would pass and I’d click out and forget to post what I set out to.

When it comes to my business, I rely on social media scheduling and management tools. I have personal experience with Hootsuite, Buffer and Planoly and would recommend any/all of them.

SCHEDULE SOCIAL MEDIA BLOCKS AND SET A TIME LIMIT

If you’re new here, I live and breathe by calendar blocking. I find it to be incredibly beneficial to my peace of mind and productivity. So when I started toying with the idea of changing my relationship with social media, it finally hit me like a duh-huh moment to schedule in blocks of time.

So, texting wasn’t really a thing when I was in high school (at best, you could send a “text” message from a computer to a cell phone number). But for the sake of this example, let’s assume it was. It would be inappropriate to sneak your phone out and check for a text in the middle of Biology class. But the second the bell rings, releasing you to change blocks, it was fair game. You would have 5 minutes to get your stuff together, haul ass across campus to English, and quickly check your phone. Once the bell rang to signal the start of English class, you knew to put your phone back in your backpack.

Create your own blocks of time in which it would be appropriate to check your phone. And the most vital part: set and enforce a time limit. I mean that literally here. Actually set a timer. If you’ve blocked out 10 minutes to check in and engage with your socials, set a timer for 10 minutes. When that timer buzzes, game over.

STAY IN CONTROL

When Facebook first came out, you would log in and scroll your “feed” until you hit the end. Yes, that’s right, your feed would have an end. But over time, social network developers discovered that if you introduced a never-ending scroll, users would spend more time logged in. Developers have spent countless hours researching user behavior to develop techniques that subconsciously encourage you to spend as much time as possible on their platform. They know what they’re doing. And they’re good at their jobs.

Ever feel like a mindless drone after a few minutes of scrolling? That’s a clear indicator that you’ve fallen prey to these techniques. We all have. So how can you stay in control? Here are a couple techniques I use:

♡ MUTE ALL STORIES ON INSTAGRAM ♡ This might seem aggressive, but hear me out. We are triggered by that little pink ring. Additionally, at the end of one user’s story, you’re rolled right into the next. When you mute all of them, you start to get a little pickier about whose content you consume. I scroll through my “muted” feed at the top and cherry pick which ones I’d like to watch. I’m not triggered by that pink ring. Best of all, when your entire IG Stories Feed is muted, stories don’t automatically roll into the next. So if you choose to watch @IGUSER1’s story, that’s it. When it’s over it’s over. You can then decide if you want to watch @IGUSER2’s story or @IGUSER3, 4, 5, so on and so on. You get the point. I can’t tell you how many times I realized I’d wasted over 25 minutes just tapping through all the available stories just to clear all the pink rings. Not anymore!

♡ FILTER & CURATE YOUR FEEDS ♡ We all know the story of that dreaded “obligation” connection. We’re also probably overly familiar with that one family member who rants and raves daily. Take control of what you’re seeing day to day by employing the “unfollow” feature on Facebook and the “mute” feature on Instagram. Both of these features allow you to remain “connected” to the individual, but their content will no longer show up in your feed. Additionally, you can mute various users and words on Twitter. Make these features your new best friends!

To be totally transparent, even with these tactics in place, I still struggle not to fall into bad habits. And sometimes I do. Instinctively, I’ll feel that random urge to grab my phone and click into Instagram when my brain needs a moment of reprise from whatever I’m doing. I will say this, the more you pay attention to your usage, the more you practice control, the easier it gets.

Tell me, what do you do to maintain a healthy relationship with social media? 👇🏻