Reducing your Social Media Use – Quick Tips – part of Paul Carter’s Quick Tips series, we look at a variety of areas and consider things that you can do to implement change straight away. Today we are looking at reducing your Social Media use.
Our phones are now an extension of ourselves, and much of our lives are lived on and through social media. It can be a wonderful place where we can connect with people from all over the world, where we can find a community who is like us, where we can feel less alone. It can be a place of learning and creativity, a place where we can tell our stories. We can earn money through our phones and social media, it is a powerful tool that can brighten and enlighten our lives.
It is also a place where we can feel overwhelmed and anxious, where people can be cruel and horrible. We can feel enslaved to our phone, reacting to every alert, feeling pulled to check has someone messaged us, has someone reacted to what we have posted. We can also feel pulled to respond to every message or invitation instantly. Our boundaries with our phones can get very unhealthy and we can end up feeling anxious and stressed by something that should make our lives easier.
Below are a list of ideas that you can try to help you to manage and reduce your social media and phone use. Everyone is different, and so they might not all work for you, but it might be interesting to try them out and see which ones do work for you.
- Review the apps on your phone and get rid of the ones you rarely use or don’t use often.
- Clear your home screen of all but essential apps – you may put them on a different page or just allow them to sit with in all the apps, but make sure that if there are apps you find problematic they are not in easy reach, or they are not on your phone at all.
- Turn off notifications to all apps except essential ones.
- Are your work emails on your personal phone. If so can you take them off, or make sure you sign out when you are not working.
- If you are going to keep your social media – review your accounts unfollow or unfriend anyone you don’t know or that you find difficult or don’t enjoy.
- Look at your contacts are there people there that you would benefit from deleting their contact information or blocking them.
- Take a sabbatical from your phone. Make a commitment to yourself to stay off social media for a period of time, or for parts of the day. Limit yourself to a certain amount of time at a certain time of day.
- Consider using airplane mode more or do not disturb to take mini breaks from your phone, from people contacting you or from notifications.
- Consider keeping your phone in a certain place when you are at home. Plugged in, for instance in the kitchen (even if its not charging). Treat it like a landline when you are at home.
- Use a phone that isn’t a smart phone. It might be that you are not able to put in boundaries around your phone and that you have to take more drastic action. One possibility would be to get a cheap phone that doesn’t connect to the internet. Put your smart phone away for a while and just use a phone that can text or call.
- Make a commitment to and practice doing things or activities without your phone. For instance.
- Traveling on the bus
- Standing in a queue
- Waiting for an appointment
- Having a cup of coffee in a café
- Walking down the street
- Watching tv
- Waiting for a friend in a restaurant
- Being a passenger in a car
I have recently taken Instagram off my phone after feeling increasingly anxious and stressed and realising that I was losing a lot of time to swiping and scrolling. Once I had stopped using Instagram I felt a great sense of relief and felt less anxious and less overwhelmed. I did notice though, that at the times that I would have used Instagram the most (in the evening) I felt more agitated and anxious. Instagram had a purpose for me and helped me regulate my emotions. I have had to work on managing this anxiety in a different way. There is nothing wrong with using social media as a way to support us and regulate how we feel, it becomes problematic, as does anything when it feels like it is taking over and we do it constantly, becasue we feel like we can’t cope without it.
If you feel that you would like to speak to someone about difficulties you are having, you might find speaking to a therapist helpful. Paul offers Psychotherapy and counselling, EMDR and Clinical Supervision. If you are struggling with any issue and would like to make an appointment with Paul please call Paul on 07843 813 537 or fill in the form on the Contact Page, if he doesn’t answer he is probably in a session, please leave him a message and he will call you back as soon as he can. For more information about Paul please take a look at the About Paul Page, Frequently Asked Questions Page and The Counselling Services Page.
Online Resources
7 Proven Ways to Break Your Cell Phone Habit
Signs and Syptoms of Cell Phone Addiction
