Limit your use of social media
Commit to not checking social media during meals with family and friends, and when playing with children or talking with a partner.
Make sure social media doesn’t interfere with work, distracting you from demanding projects and conversations with colleagues. In particular, don’t keep your phone or computer in the bedroom–it disrupts your sleep.
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Pruning some “friends” and adding a few motivational or funny sites is likely to decrease the negative effects of social media.
- Information about the lives of Facebook friends affects people more negatively than other content on Facebook.
- People whose social media included inspirational stories experienced gratitude, vitality, and awe.
When used thoughtfully and deliberately, social media can be a useful addition to your social life, but only a flesh-and-blood person sitting across from you can fulfill the basic human need for connection and belonging.
Using Facebook to keep abreast of your cousin’s life as a new mother is fine, as long as you don’t neglect to visit as months pass by.
Do you notice that you get a craving to look at Instagram whenever you’re confronted with a difficult task at work?
Be brave and brutally honest with yourself. Each time you reach for your phone (or computer) to check social media, answer the hard question: Why am I doing this now?
Experiment with using your favorite online platforms at different times of day and for varying lengths of time, to see how you feel during and after each session.
You may find that a few short spurts help you feel better than spending 45 minutes exhaustively scrolling through a site’s feed.
Even a five-day or weeklong break from Facebook can lead to lower stress and higher life satisfaction.
Publicly declare you are on a break. And delete the apps for your favorite social media services.
You can also cut back without going cold turkey: limit your use of social media to 10 minutes a day for three weeks and you'll see improvements in your mental health.
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Using social media can interrupt and interfere with in-person communications.
- Commit to not checking social media during meals and when playing with children or talking with a partner.
- Make sure social media doesn’t interfere with work
- Don’t keep your phone or computer in the bedroom – it disrupts your sleep.
In recent years there has been a significant increase in social media use.
Because social media use is still relatively new, there are no long-term studies documenting the effects of social media, but several recent studies indicate that social media impacts mental health in a number of ways.
Consequently, the increasing reliance on and use of social media puts a large number of people around the world at an increased risk for feeling anxious, depressed, lonely, envious, and even ill over social media use.
Since it’s a relatively new technology, there’s little research to establish the long-term consequences, good or bad, of social media use. However, multiple studies have found a strong link between heavy social media and an increased risk for depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm , and even suicidal thoughts .
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