How To Take Care of Your Mental Health in the Age of Social Media

By Alex

As someone who is active in the community as a mental health advocate, and also works in the field of social media, a lot of folks ask me “how do you do it?”. Many of us are aware of how damaging and negative social media can be for our mental health. Carefully curated content can invite negative comparisons and compel us to buy products to confront our social media-induced insecurities. Using social media can cause overstimulation, in terms of both screen fatigue and information overload. That being said, there are a lot of positive ways social media can affect us, and there are certain ways to learn how to control social media so that it doesn’t control us. Personally, I use a lot of the tips I introduce below to regulate and curate my social media experience to prevent overstimulation and information overload. Most of my work happens on social media, and when I take a break or finish work, I often turn to social media again to relax and get caught up on news. This means I have to be very careful with social media and my mental health.

So, how can we use social media positively?

1. Set intentions.

Understand why you are on social media in the first place, then use social media for those purposes. I love social media because I made a lot of friends through the online K-pop community. I also have many friends who are studying outside of Edmonton and social media helps me keep up to date with them.

I also get to learn about things that matter to me like social justice, current events, politics, and even simple things like skin care and makeup techniques. I learned Korean when I was in junior high school and high school by watching videos of Korean TV shows on YouTube and Dailymotion.

Most importantly, social media is a way for me to do my advocacy work and also connect with other advocates. I have the pleasure of curating the social media feeds for Asian Mental Health Collective, and getting to see the impact the posts we create and curate have on others is very positive for me.

2. Curate your feed.

Go through your “Following” list and unfollow accounts with content that makes you feel sad or bad about yourself. If it’s someone that you “can’t” unfollow for any reason (maybe they are a family member, co-worker, or someone you still hang out with from time to time) — use the mute button. That way, you don’t have to see their content on your feed but you don’t have to go as far as unfollowing them.

Furthermore, if later on, their content is no longer upsetting or triggering to you, you can always unmute them. I also have post notifications turned on for certain people — artists I like, my family, and closest friends. That way I don’t have to scroll through feeds to see their posts and possibly see something that might make me feel bad. I can just immediately see the positive content as soon as it goes up and hype it up. Who doesn’t love to leave 3 fire emojis on your best friend’s latest selfie?

Something that I personally do is maintain separate social media accounts. For example, my “main” account is more professional/academic — I use it to tweet out new blog posts, life updates, share work I’ve done with other organizations, and share the work of my friends and colleagues as well. Here I follow mental health organizations, folks I’ve met in the field, plus accounts that tweet about social justice, current events, and more. But there’s a lot of tough stuff going on in the world, and it can get overwhelming.

I have a K-pop Twitter account that I use just for staying updated on my favourite groups and yelling about new releases and content with friends — it is a space meant for relaxation and entertainment only. Finally, me and some of my friends have private Twitter accounts that we follow each other on. We tweet about more personal things here — both the tough stuff and also random or funny things as well.

3. Social media “detox.”

Deleting apps for a few days, or even a few hours, can take unnecessary stress off ourselves and allow us to look at the world through our own eyes, not through filters. I used to have a friend change my Twitter password during finals season. However, if you work in social media like me, or need the messaging functions to stay in touch with important people, it might be unrealistic to suggest deleting apps from your phone — so work on limiting your social media stimulation.

If there is a certain time of day when you are relaxed, try to view Instagram then — studies suggest that you will be less susceptible to feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out), compared to viewing it at a more anxious state (e.g. in between classes).

It’s about knowing your limits and knowing what it feels like when you need a social media break.

4. Post about life, rather than living to post.

Social media is a wonderful way to express your creativity and celebrate yourself. It’s also a great way to remember happy memories like graduation day, weddings, hanging out with friends, or going on a memorable trip. Studies show that using social media to present yourself authentically is associated with well-being. I’ve found being open about my learning experiences with mental health and mental illness has been beneficial for myself and those who follow me as well.

However, when we carefully curate our social media so that it seems our life is all wonderful is when it can become harmful. When we make plans around the photos and videos we can take, rather than the things we will experience or the people we will see, it gives social media more control over our life than it deserves.

5. Use privacy settings and the block/report/mute buttons liberally.

Cyberbullying and harassment are very real, and though there is more that social media corporations can do to protect their users, there are some measures that can be taken. For example, use the block and report buttons on anyone who is harassing you online. Take screenshots in case you want to take further action in the future. Finally, you can adjust privacy settings and make private accounts to control who sees your profiles and the posts that you share. Don’t feel silly using them, they are there to protect you!

Don’t feel bad if you’ve realized you have some recalibrating to do when it comes to how you use social media. We are constantly changing, and the way we take care of ourselves online is changing too.