You can believe it, you can deny it, but social media has an addictive character to it, and I am only waiting until something blows up via strong regulation or a business model change.
The recent movie, The Social Dilemma, portrayed all of this. The funny thing is that Netflix, which produced the documentary, has its own history: its CEO once said that Netflix’s most important competitor was sleep.
I have personally been thinking about this for a while and have done things like deleting my Facebook profile twice, counted my daily time on social media, and also suffered from anxiety as I realized one day that whenever there was something bothering me or worrying me, I would open Facebook. Have you asked yourself that question?
The next time you become suddenly anxious about something that worries you or about something you are afraid of, watch if you open up a social media platform in that moment.
Photo Credit: Unsplash by merakist
After experimenting with different methods of reducing my addiction to and time spent on social media (and unproductive email), I have come up with five tips that will certainly help you.
Five Tips for Managing Your Social Media
1 Disable notifications: the purpose of this is to eliminate that automated necessity of responding immediately to every message you receive or reading every piece of news that comes on your watchlist.
Learn how to manage your notifications. There are times where we actually do need to know if something urgent happens or if someone sends us a message because we are expecting it. Well, that is the only time when you should enable notifications — and disable them when the emergency or urgent need to know is over.
Expected effect: you will, all of a sudden, become less anxious about your mobile device and will also start spending less time on it.
2 Unfollow: are you aware of the power of unfollowing? See, the effect of unfollowing is a reduction in new content in your feed. Since content consumption is exactly what makes you stay connected to a given social media platform, and ultimately what causes your addiction, it is key to manage it proactively.
Currently, the only power social media platforms give us to manage content is the power of UNFOLLOWING.
Use this power wisely. Think about who really adds value to your life and why. Ask yourself the following question: do I really need to know about this person’s life on a frequent basis? Unless the answer is “definitely yes,” then unfollow them.
Expected effect: you will harness the power of social media to get more news about the people you care about. You will also see how you start consuming your feed more quickly and will spend less time on each platform.
3 Uninstall: this is a hack around your will. We should all accept that it is hard to stop doing something you are used to doing all the time and even worse something that we are addicted to.
Uninstall all social media apps from your phone, and log out of each of them on your browser.
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Every time you want to log-in, force yourself to open your mobile browser and type your username and password for each of the social media platforms you enjoy — or at least for the ones not related to work. Your phone manufacturer will offer you to store all passwords for quick access; try to deny that also.
Expected effect: you will access social media platforms less frequently.
4 Increase physical separation: create a physical separation from your phone in two key portions of your day: 1) when you are in bed, and 2) while working.
This will help you fight that angst to pick up your phone and do something with it. It is so simple!
Before going to bed, leave your phone outside your room and leave it plugged for charging during the night. Bring a book to your bed, and start replacing social media and email with more productive content consumption, which will nurture you forever.
When you are working, keep your phone inside a drawer, or in another room (if you are working from home). Most apps you need for work can also be accessed from your desktop, so go ahead and install the desktop version of WhatsApp if it is a key tool for your job.
Expected effect: fewer moments of anxiety to pick up your phone, better consumption of content in your life, and likely better sleep at night.
5 Kickstart your zero-email inbox: if you have not tried this, it is time for you to do so. Zero-email inbox is the practice of keeping your email screen blank as much as you can. The rule of thumb is: do not end your day with an email in your inbox.
Do not end your day with an email in your inbox.
Here is how to do it:
Right now, go to your email, and archive all the emails you have there. This is more easily done on your desktop.
If there were key emails you wanted to respond to today, bring them back to your inbox.
Respond to those key emails and archive each of them right after responding.
Tomorrow, when you wake up and open your inbox, archive all emails that do not need a response or action today; include those newsletters you don’t really need to read right now.
If there are emails you want to follow-up next week or later than today, write those down on your general to-do list.
By the end of the day, ensure you either archived, responded and archived, or noted and archived all emails on your inbox. Now you can go to sleep :).
Repeat starting on Step 4.
This method should help you focus your time on what is important. For instance, all those newsletters you receive every day, you will now only read when you actually have time for it, and will not feel like you must read them every day. You will soon forget them after you archive them, and will go back to them when you are actually curious or actually have time to read them.
Expected effect: you will reduce the anxiety from seeing an inbox full of unanswered email. You will also reduce the time wasted and anxiety created by scrolling down that email list. Finally, you will spend less time reading things you actually don’t really need to read.
Photo Credit: Unsplash by Jeremy Thomas
Take control of your life
Technology has been revolutionizing our world for as long as we can remember. The difference today is that it has accelerated in influencing basic human activities such as the way in which we interact with each other. Furthermore, its application has incentivized business models that interact with our psychology in ways it had never done before.
As society catches up, you may want to do something about it.
At Renspire Consulting we work with top-performing clients, helping them uncover and solve their deepest business and human challenges.
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