Social media has changed the way we live in very significant ways. There are so many benefits of social media such as being connected to each other is so much easier, getting awareness at such a quick speed, and creating content with less effort. But there are also so many negative effects of social media that could potentially make our life miserable. To avoid that, we need to use social media responsibly, and here’s how to do it.
Turn Off Notifications
One of the biggest things that makes social media hard to put down is the constant notifications. This is how they are trying to make you be on your phone as long as possible. They would show you every little thing that happens such as when you receive a like on your post, comments, messages, and even when your favorite celebrities are posting something.
It’s great for some people who have what they call FOMO or Fear of Missing Out since the notifications always put them in the loop. But the other side of the coin is, they’re being sucked down into these social media apps that keep distracting them from work, family interactions, hobbies, and other things.
If you feel like this and want to change, there’s a very simple step to do which is turn off the constant notifications from your social media apps. Of course you don’t have to turn all of them, you can still make the notification feature on for messages since it could be important and personal. But for comments, like, and other more trivial stuff, turn them off and see the change unfolding before your eyes.
Likes Do Not Mean Self Worth
We live in an era where likes in social media posts are highly exaggerated. A lot of people would post something not for the sake of sharing or connecting with others, but having a lot of likes as the main purpose. And when they don’t have as many likes as they would like, they would feel down and feel that they’re not good enough which is very damaging to self-worth.
If you feel like this sometimes, it’s time to detach yourself from the outcomes of your social media posts. The crave for likes and attention would slowly make you think that the amount of likes is as important as validation, which is wrong. The next time you post something, make sure that it’s just because you want to share, because it’s fun and don’t care too much about the outcomes.
Try to Stop Mindless Scrolling
Have you ever found yourself scrolling through social media apps for hours? You open Instagram, scroll there, get bored and move to Twitter, do the same thing, get bored and then move to Facebook or other social media app you have. If you have, then you are one of the many victims of mindless scrolling and if you do this regularly, you need to put a stop to it.
You might think that this wouldn’t happen since you already have your feeds set up based on your interests. But social media apps would always put something there that could attract your attention, even though you’re not following those accounts. Instead, go directly to accounts you want to see and learn, and get rid of any accounts that you don’t recognize.
Organize Your Following
If you’re reading this article that means you want to take steps on taking control of social media instead of letting it control you which is a great decision. The next step in doing this is to make sure you follow people or accounts with a purpose. Try to look at your following and then see each account you’re following while asking yourself why you are following it and do you need to keep doing it?
If you can’t find a good reason on why you’re following an account, then it’s time to unfollow it. Another thing to do is to make sure you unfollow people or accounts that only bring rage, hatred or any negative things. You need to follow people or accounts that promote creativity, joy, inspiration and positivity to your feed and the world.
So there you go, those are some of the very simple and easy steps you could do to take advantage of social media instead of letting it take advantage of you. Social media could be really beneficial, if you know how to use it properly.
