If you’re reading this article, you probably have some sense of how out-of-control your social media use has gotten. Maybe you opened your phone to find an unfathomable deluge of Facebook notifications. Maybe Apple’s Screen Time has informed you that you spend four hours a day on Instagram. Whatever the reason, I’m here to help you get it under control.
The first thing you need to realize about social media addiction is that it’s predicated on the Fear Of Missing Out. Social media can be rewarding to use, but FOMO is what drives the psychological bus.
In order to get your social media use under control, you have to acknowledge that you don’t need to see things instantaneously in order to not miss out.
This guide will not ask you to get rid of your social media, but it will ask you to change your settings so that you don’t see all your friends’ social media updates instantly.
This can be challenging for people. There’s a biological reason for that: if you’re used to getting push notifications for all your social media, the animal part of your brain has become dependent on them. Dependent, the same way addicts are dependent on drugs and alcoholics are dependent on alcohol. The animal part of your brain thinks you need push notifications from social media to be healthy and happy, even though they make you sick and sad…
