Should you limit your social media use? Social media has taken over all of our lives. Is it good? Is it bad? Should we be on social media or should we run the other way, deleting all apps forever? That’s what we’re diving into with this post!
Should You Limit Social Media Usage?
I used to spend hours a day scrolling on Facebook. It had really come to a point where I couldn’t even sit quietly in my mind without reaching for my phone and opening the Facebook app.
And I’m not alone.
Next time you’re at a stoplight or at a restaurant or waiting for your grocery pickup at Walmart, just look around. I guarantee you 90% of the people around you will be looking at their phone.
I think we all know deep inside that this is not good for us, but it can be so hard to quit – almost like an addiction.
So the big question is, should you be on social media? If you feel in your spirit that the answer is no, then I’m here to help you out.
This post will give you a step-by-step plan to help you limit your social media use or even quit it altogether.
Some Alarming Social Media Stats
The first step when we start thinking about getting off or reducing social media use is to look at the statistics of social media. We all know social media is not good for us, but seeing this in numbers can be shocking!
From 2009 to 2017 depression grew by 63% in adults ages 18 to 25 who use social media. More than one in three adults (38%) see social media use as harmful. Only 5% think it’s positive. (Source) Only 5% think it’s a good thing! And yet here we are spending hours and hours every day on these platforms that most people know are not good.
So why can’t we stop the addiction of social media?
Naturally, we are a selfish people. We have to work at not being selfish. If you’re carrying on a conversation, this article states that we talk about ourselves 30 to 40% of the time in an in-person conversation. On social media people talk about themselves 80% of the time.
So on social media, we talk about ourselves over double the amount of time. Then we receive a notification that someone has liked this post that we talked about ourselves or they commented on this post that’s all about us.
Because of that comment or that like we get a dopamine hit.
Dopamine is the part of your brain that gives you the feelings of pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. So it’s those feel-good emotions.
But what happens when you put your phone down and the dopamine lowers in your brain? You pick up your phone and get back on social media for that next hit.
Source: Lemonade
The problem with basing your happiness on likes and comments is that those things are completely out of your control.
What happens when people don’t like your posts or your pictures? Or when someone says something negative about it?
It’s time to get your control back!
But how? It can seem impossible when you’re stuck in that dopamine cycle.
No worries friends! Here are some steps you can take to reduce or completely eliminate social media from your life.
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Step 1: Do an audit
The first step that I want you to do before you do any kind of restrictions is to do an audit on your accounts. I want you to unfollow people and accounts that do not bring you joy.
You’re probably already thinking of a few right now aren’t you? 😉
There are ways to unfollow people without them knowing that you unfollowed them (if that would cause a problem). And if it’s accounts you don’t know personally, just go ahead and completely unfriend those people.
But I want to give you permission to unfollow these people. Remove all the negativity from your feed. Remove all the drama. Remove all the people that you compare your life to. Remove all the accounts that steal your gratitude and your thankfulness for what you do have.
Okay, so now that you’ve removed all the accounts that steal your joy, I want you to follow accounts that ADD joy to your life.
You can search hashtags on Instagram or keywords on Facebook and start finding accounts that uplift you and encourage you. Accounts that truly bring joy and meaning to your life.
Make a feed that when you’re on it, it brings you up and not down. Now the algorithm is going to try and suggest accounts and posts to you in your feed. If there’s one that comes up that really brings you down, you to have them not show this account in your feed.
Okay so we’ve…
1) Audited our social media accounts
2) Unfollowed the people that are not good for us
3) Followed accounts that bring us joy and happiness and uplift us
Now we need to work on the amount of time you spend on those apps.
The typical user spends about 2 and half hours a day on social media. Over the course of the year that adds up to a little over a month that the average person spends on social media.
I’m just going to stop right there and let that sink in.
If you spend 2 and a half hours on social media a day, an entire MONTH of your year is wasted on those apps.
Think of what else you could be doing with an entire month of your time. What kind of intentional living could you be doing? What memories could you be making with your family and your friends?
Friends, I think it’s time to at least REDUCE the amount of time we’re spending on these apps, if not even REMOVING it completely from our lives.
But like any addiction, it’s not going to be easy. We have to put some boundaries in place. And that’s what these next steps are going to go over with you.
Step 2: Move the app to a different part of your phone
The first thing you can do to help you limit the amount of time you spend on social media is to move the app to a different part of your phone.
If you’re anything like me,I had my Facebook and my Instagram on the home page of my phone. And I knew exactly where each app was. I would just hit it and scroll, hit it and scroll.
Opening that app was a habit, and I realized it was a habit when I moved the apps. After I moved Facebook and Instagram and they weren’t in that same spot on my home screen, I would open my phone to go to the app and go to click on the spot it was in and it wasn’t there.
And then I was like, WHOA, I didn’t even realize I was doing that.
I didn’t even realize I opened my phone and went to click on the app. That’s how much of a habit it was.
That was so eye opening to me!
And moving your app will give you enough of a pause to realize… Wait. Do I actually want to open this app up and scroll? It gives your brain enough time to actually think if this is really something you want to be spending your time doing.
Okay so what’s the next step after you move the apps?
Step 3: Delete the app on the weekends
If after moving the apps on your phone, you’re finding that it’s still a struggle for you, then I want you to actually delete the apps from your phone for the weekend.
Why the weekend?
The weekends are family time. Those are the days you’re not working and have the time to focus on your kids and make memories.
We don’t need to be distracted by our phones and by social media! Don’t let social media steal your memories away!
So let’s get it off our phones and then on Monday you can just download it back. Will that be a pain? Yes it will, but that’s the point!
We don’t want it to be easy. We’re trying to break this habit, break this addiction.
Now Monday through Friday you need to have a plan so you don’t waste hours on those apps.
Step 4: Set a timer
During the week or whenever it is that you’ve decided to get on social media, I want you to set a timer.
Yes I’m serious!
Nothing is as much of a time suck as social media. How many times have you been scrolling and looked up and HOURS have gone by?
No more my friends!
No longer are we wasting a MONTH of our lives on social media.
Figure out the max amount of time that you want to be on those apps and start a timer on your phone before you open the app.
If you’re not sure where to start, according to this article, reducing your social media use to even 30 minutes a day resulted in significantly lower levels of depression and anxiety. So that’s where I would start – 30 minutes a day.
Start that timer and when it goes off, you better close that app!
Step 5: Stop scrolling
So what’s the point of doing all this? What’s the point of moving your app and setting a timer? It’s to make sure that getting on social media is a choice, not a habit, and it’s an intentional choice!
We’re not just getting on and scrolling because we’re bored. We’re not just getting on and scrolling because we’re at a stoplight and we can’t wait 2 minutes for the stoplight to turn green.
We’re breaking the addiction and taking control of our phone!
The final step in this whole process is what to do once you’re on your app.
We need to be intentional with our time in the social media apps. Because we’ve done our audit and filled our feed with accounts that bring us joy, you could scroll the app for 30 minutes.
Or you could do what I do and go into these apps specifically looking for someone or a specific group.
If there’s someone in your life that you love to catch up with using social media, then just type their name in the search bar and go look at their page. This way you’re only seeing what you choose to see.
If you’re like me, then you probably have Facebook groups that you’re a part of that you want to pull up. If that’s the case, then when you open up your Facebook app go directly to these groups and see what new posts have been posted since the last time you were in there.
This is actually how I spend the majority of my time on Facebook, which isn’t a lot of time. I have a handful of groups that I’m a part of and I go into these groups and engage with the members of the groups, and then I get off.
Anytime that I start to scroll my Facebook feed, I can feel the heaviness start setting in on my mind and I never make it more than three or four posts down.
You really can feel the difference once you get off of the regular scrolling and then you start scrolling again.
So open up these apps with a plan knowing that you are in control of your phone and not the other way around!
More Ideas for Living Life Intentionally
How are you feeling? I know it’s hard changing something in our life, especially if it’s a habit or even an addiction.
But I promise you when you break that habit, when you break that addiction to your phone, to social media, the freedom that comes in your mind is amazing!
So if this is something that’s been on your heart for a while, I want you to take this as a sign that it’s time. Even if you just go in saying that you’ll try it for a month and see if you can feel a difference.
And here’s the thing – you can always download the apps back. You can always just start scrolling again.
But my guess, if you really make the effort of breaking the habit and stopping the scroll, I’m going to bet you won’t even miss it. And more than that, you’ll have a freedom that the majority of people today will never experience.
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