As I write this, I am going through something. Ever been in a situation where you are not sure about how or what you feel? That’s the space I am in.
This is the best time for me to take out some time to just be in my feels, understand what I am feeling and sometimes social media gets in the way of that. Most of the times it is what causes these mood shifts.Â
No one offered us any form of training on the use and misuse of social media and so most of us find ourselves taking in so much and being exposed to things we are not capable of fully processing. We have had to learn and unlearn a whole lot so as to help us cope with these fast-paced technological advancements that happen almost on a daily basis.
WHY UNPLUG
I did not always know better. I used social media as a way to pass time on most days and my use extended to times when I really did not need to be on my phone. Looking back, I should’ve got into the content creation business.Â
I found that I was spending a lot of time on social sites. I would spend the last hour of my day scrolling through Instagram and end up losing out on sleep. I would end up spending up to 15 minutes after I woke up to check my notifications. I would somehow find myself on twitter after checking my mail and WhatsApp notifications. On days like these, I would find myself very irritable and I could simply not attribute it to how I spent the first 15 minutes of my day. While I do not interact with violence, I live in a society where every day an injustice is perpetrated and while I must stay aware of these evils in society, I have to be intentional with when I need to read the news articles. The first 15 minutes of my day is clearly not it.
Constantly being on social media made me want to buy everything. Those promoted posts were overwhelming. Capitalism is real guys! The number of screenshots I used to take of nice shoes and dresses I saw being advertised so that I could save up for them was insane. Looking back, I did not need half the things that were being advertised on social media.Â
Social media made me want to live in other people’s lives. I would spend hours going through vacation posts and wonder when I would be stable enough to take a trip anywhere. I would see people post their achievements on social media and feel that I was in some way inadequate because at that point I was feeling low.
I realized I did not like the person I was turning into and something needed to change before I lost myself completely. Fortunately, my love for podcasts helped me gain awareness of anxiety caused by using social media in the wrong way. Some of the tips I got are so important and I feel it would be helpful to you reading this today.
1. LEARN MORE ABOUT YOURSELF
This seems obvious, right?Â
Learning about yourself is a process that does not end. Learning about yourself lets you connect with your mind so that you can detect whether the information you are processing is good for you at the time. Once you know yourself, you are less likely to overindulge because you have things offline that need to be handled. You will also learn that other people making strides in their academics, professional spaces or otherwise is proof that it is possible for you.
Most of the times, those who are successful, spend most of their time on their craft which may involve them so much that they are rarely online and only use their online space to share their success story and experiences.
Learning about yourself will help you map out your own path which will help you see how irrelevant comparing your journey to that of others is. Â
2. MODERATION
Everything requires moderation and this includes social media. One life hack I got that helps me moderate is turning my notifications off for all my apps. It has helped me a great deal to avoid the temptation to check my phone whenever it buzzes. The tone that notifications bring is a huge distraction and even if you do not check it out at the moment, it may cause you to be a bit anxious as to what the notification may be about. Furthermore, I don’t think I am wrong when I say that after watching that one YouTube video chances are YouTube will recommend more videos for you to watch and before you know it, you have watched 5 videos and totally forgot about that deadline you had.
Have some time out of your day to check out what is happening but try as much a possible not to let it be during the hours then you are most productive. I am a mid-morning person. So from 9 to Noon, I am very aware of myself and my mind is capable of processing a lot. This is the time when I make sure my phone is away from me so that I can properly utilize my time.
Moderation could look like taking time off social media completely. You may want to start with one app. What I do (this may seem a bit extreme) is I uninstall applications when I feel that I am spending more time than I should on them. It takes days before I get back on them and in that way, I am able to prove to myself that I do not miss much without them on my phone.
3. FIND AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER
This will be effective if you live around people who are also cautious and intentional about the time they spend on social media. Such an accountability partner will help you focus on things you can do offline. This goes a long way in finding an alternative to social media over the weekends.
4. CLEAR YOUR SPACE
Most of us do not value the space we are in. That is why we let ourselves interact with trolls and cyberbullies. These applications have options to block out certain people from your feed. These are tools you have to use intentionally. While there is not much you can do to sieve what you encounter in the social space, you can, however, choose what you do not want to see which clears your space of any toxic energy that other users may be spreading.
Clearing your space also means knowing who you should not respond to. Not everything requires or demands your attention. Some people will drain you trying to compare a fact to their opinion. It is not up to you to respond to everything that triggers you. Save that energy and use it somewhere more productive.
HOW TO KNOW WHEN IT IS TIME TO UNPLUG
1. When you withdraw from your friends and family. You know, the people who are most likely to offer actual help to you and know you better. This is a good sign that you need to start on the tips earlier mentioned. While there exists a generational gap between us and the generation before us, we need to learn how to balance the time we spend with them with that which we spend with our peers. It is easier to find peers who enjoy doing things that you love and in that way, you can take time off your phone and be engaged and present.
2. When you neglect yourself, work or school. This is rather extreme and if this is you, you need to take a radical move and uninstall these applications before it gets worse. The anxiety caused by social media will make you forgo meals, overeat, fail to meet work or school deadlines.
3. Feeling stressed or anxious about not being able to access your social media. I am yet to meet someone who does this but at this point, you know that you need to apply the tips mentioned above because unless you were waiting on a job offer from the social media site or results for a serious test you took on a site, you should not feel anxious that you are unable to access Instagram. We do not even know how long these apps will be here so why are we having such deep attachments to them? Unless you are getting paid to post, these apps should not be taken too seriously.
4. Comparing yourself to what you see on social media. Comparing yourself is not a bad thing if you take it positively. You could use comparison to see how many steps you need to take to get to a certain level in life. However, do not let it get to a place where you want to live someone else’s life because you are probably comparing yourself to curated pics and just the success bit of their lives. When it gets to a point where you are not positively taking notes to improve on yourself, then that is your cue to take a break from social media.
5. The overwhelming need to share everything that happens on social media.
We live in a generation where we want the world to know what we are doing. While no one stops us from doing so (except some restaurants and malls), we need to examine why we feel the need to share everything. Is it for validation, is it to create memories?. While I am no expert, I believe a balance must be sought between what we share online and what we choose to experience by ourselves and with our loved ones. We have to keep in mind that our siblings and children are watching us and even if we try to police them and do the exact opposite, they will definitely follow what they saw being done.
As young people in society, we need to train ourselves on how best to use this huge forum. We need to learn that Westernization included giving young people various distractions so that we are blinded from reality. We need to make sure that we do not get too caught up by vain things and instead focus on how we can use capitalism to our advantage and not end up victims.
To learning and unlearning.
Love,
Sabali.
