How to Use Social Media Less
And enjoy it more
Inherently, social media isn’t terrible. It’s an excellent tool for staying connected with friends and family. Along the way, you can also explore some interests and discover new things. But if you find it easy to go overboard, spending too much time on there, you’re not alone.
Here’s a list of ways you can use these platforms less and enjoy them more.
Unfollow anyone you can’t root for. Why give attention to people and accounts you don’t care about or even like? Imagine how your social media experience will improve if you only follow those people and topics you’re interested in. By unfollowing everything else, you’ll instantly reduce the amount of unwanted content in your feed.
Mute content you don’t want to see. Certainly, you can cheer for your buddy, but if you’re tired of his dog photos, don’t feel bad about muting his account. You can either ask him what’s going on in his life next time you catch up or visit his page when you feel like it. He won’t know.
Ignore suggestions and ads. If they annoy you, you can hide them and let the site know they’re irrelevant, otherwise, just keep scrolling. The odd time these can be interesting, and you discover a new account, but if you think about these are meant to keep you on the site longer. So, keep that in mind and avoid getting sucked in — especially with platforms that autoplay videos in a queue.
Go in with intent. There are many reasons we open our social media apps. To post something, reply to something, check out our friends’ latest posts, and so on. So, before you go in, ask yourself what your reason is for doing so and stick with it. Once you finish, get out.
Turn off push notifications. Whether it’s muting the sound and keeping banners or doing away with them altogether if you can’t resist the temptation to check in right away, make some changes to your settings.
Use your phone less. If you find you’re really bad for just picking up your phone and checking it, treat it like a landline. Leave calls and important notifications on, keep it out of reach, and only pick it up if you know why you’re doing so.
And get your news elsewhere.
