However, you might find out that you spend hours scrolling through news in your feed and at the end of the day, this time loss brings you anxiety, exhaustion and displeasure.
Social media have negative impact on our mental health. What about our productivity? Do we still care about other activities, which truly make us happy?
Social media are on the rise, with ease of connection and wealth of information our brains have to process, however, negatively affecting our lives. The average person spends at least 1 hour and 40 minutes a day on social medias. It is amazing how much time a day people invest in tracking popular sites. All of these minutes could be spent completely differently. It also testifies to the current social and entrepreneurial culture.
Although our job requires us to stay online during working hours, it is a great idea to do some social detox before and after work.
“Less scrolling, more living.”
- Delete your social media apps
Don´t think about this step, just do it. Find out on your own, how does it make you feel to be independent off social media. Maybe you will find yourself fully confident not using them, you might even forget about them…hilarious. If you do not need them, why to fade free space of your memory card. If you find yourself missing your apps, if you feel desperate to check on your friends or you want to add some photo or “story” of yours, check your status comments or you caught yourself dressing nicely in the morning only to take a selfie, you are definitely doing it wrong and need to disconnect from social media and connect to yourself.
- Sparring partner detox
Find a friend who will do the detox with you. Whatever your goal is from losing weight through improving the quality of your life without social media, it goes better to do it with a friend who supports you. “My friend lives in the UK and she went crazy for a few years about some apps. I remember her saying goodbye to facebook for 5 times and with each step I helped her from distance. At first, she deleted number of “friends” whose lives actually absolutely did not interested her. The point was that she began to value her time more than time spent by watching lives of other people. Then she stopped connecting. In the end, she ended up completely deleted from social media.
- Find out which apps you use the most
Find out how much time you spend on sites needed for self-development, work and social networks.
- Talk to your friends and family
Prefer quality time with friends and family. Listen actively your friends and give them your time. Don´t check your phone during conversations, realize the true value of a conversation.
- Change the design of your phone’s lock screen
Create a lock screen which prompts you with three questions:
What for?
Why now?
What else?
These questions will remind you of the reason, you are watching media because you feel lonely or bored…The purpose is to understand one´s own habits.
- Think of your attention as a valuable resource
We need to protect our own attention and not be allowed to waste time with nonsense. It is as if we are careful about spending our money. Deposits are however, much higher.
“Our time and attention are irreplaceable.”
- Put your phone to sleep mode
Tell yourself to put your phone out of your range from certain hour (for example, from 21:00) and you will not check it. The goal should be to completely remove the phone from the room where you sleep. Creating a space for you.
- Get a real alarm clock
We should stop using our phone as an alarm clock. Since very morning, we should turn our attention to achieving our goals of the day: What do I want to achieve today?
- Set up your limit
If your productivity is severely limited by the media but you are unable to get rid of it completely yet, consider application FREEDOM. Set a maximum limit for spending time on social media.
- Create a folder
Applications are less likely to click when placed in a folder other than in the middle of your screen. Protect yourself from yourself.
I can responsibly admit that I was a social “addict” to the Instagram. I went through the painful process twice, because at first, I did not succeed.
I have been living without instagram and facebook for more than a year and believe me, it is possible 🙂
