Practicing Social Self-Care 101
Social media is an amazing and terrifying thing. For many of us, it is so deeply integrated into our lives that we cannot live without it. We experience symptoms of withdrawal without access to our favourite social platforms. Social media platforms are places where we put our best self forward. While not all of us do this, most people post for likes and comments. People seek reassurance from the likes they receive from not only their friends, but also strangers. Sometimes, this is a good thing. If you’re having a bad day and you post a selfie and get tons of likes, it can make you feel better. But if you post a photo or a tweet and it doesn’t get as many likes as you’re looking for this can be detrimental. The effects of what other people’s best selves look like online can harm our self-esteem as well. We can find ourselves comparing us with others.
So, how can we stop our social platforms from harming our self-esteem? What can we do to practice self-care online?
For me, there are a few things that I like to make sure that I’m not affect by what is going on online. I, like many of you, check my Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook fairly frequently over the course of a day (I don’t use Twitter so much anymore, it’s mostly just a dormant app on my phone that I use if I’ve really exhausted the rest of the platforms). With my frequent use, what other people are doing and posting must bother me, but really they don’t. Of course I get a little bit of “wow, I wish I looked like that girl. Did you SEE those abs!?!?!” but realistically, I am not that girl. This leads to my first step:
You are you, not her or him or anyone else. Realize that you are a unique individual and you don’t need to be like anyone else.
While this is definitely easier said than done, this is a HUGELY important thing. I used to suffer from FOMO so badly. I used to look at pictures and internally (and sometimes externally) cry because this girls so much more fit than I could ever even dream of being. I realized that this was so unhealthy, to compare myself to somebody else. About 2 years ago I realized that it doesn’t matter. I am a beautiful human- we are all beautiful creatures and we need to rejoice that.
Post what you WANT to post.
You don’t need the perfect aesthetic. Your aesthetic is yours, whatever you post. Sure, it’s nice to have a super minimalistic monochromatic page, but seriously? If that’s not your style, you don’t have to do it. People often get shit on for posting a lot of sky pictures, but you know what? The sky is crazy beautiful so I’ll post 15 pictures in a row if I want to because it’s what I like.
Don’t just post because you feel you need to. Nobody will judge you if you miss a day, or a week, or however long.
This ties in with the previous step. Even if you’ve got loads of followers, these people are following you because they like you. People are understanding. Everyone feels the pressures of social media, most people understand. If they don’t, you don’t need them in your circle anyways. If you need some time away, take it. You are what is most important, don’t let the opinions of others affect you. Sometimes I won’t post for weeks at a time. People follow lots of people, just because I don’t post doesn’t mean their feed is missing out on anything.
Subscribe to things that make YOU feel good.
This one is quite obvious. If you love videos of food and they make you happy, if workout videos make you happy, photos with beautiful landscapes make you happy- keep those on your feeds. Rid your feeds of anything that makes you feel unhappy.
Now, I completely understand that these are very obvious steps you can take for self-care online but sometimes it is better when someone has written it out for you. These are what I do, and what I do may not work for you. What matters most is if you’re experiencing any kind of symptoms from the dark side of social media, you must figure out what works for you. YOU come first. YOU are great. Take care of yourself. Be happy! :)
