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Make time, not lose it on social media
Have you gone through days when you ask yourself where have all the hours gone? Well, these days, it’s likely that social media has eaten it all up! The worst bit is that sometimes you end up spending more time being upset with yourself because of this but remember, it’s not always your fault. The obsession with social media is no different other forms of addiction.
You also need to remind yourself that we live in a post digital world, which means that the digital realm is intrinsically embedded into our daily lives, #noescape. So, the trick is to find a way to make sure it’s not all-consuming, instead of trying to shut it down completely. Find ways to take a break. See if some of these tips work for you.
Time After Time
It’s a bit ironic that you need to schedule some time to earn back more time but that’s 21st-century life. Why not consider booking in social media detox periods – this way, you have a start and stop time that is practical and realistic. Weekends are good for this, so that you don’t have to avoid your devices during work days when you actually need them. Find an app that can help you with that.
Never Gonna Give You Up
This is not a rick roll, but did you know that you can remove social media apps from your phone temporarily? Different devices have different settings but some, like the iPhone, allow you to hide apps instead of deleting them completely. But hey, even if you have to delete the apps, you can always reinstall them when your detox ends. After all, going through the effort might make you more aware of your social media use in general.
Screen*!
Most phones these days can show you your screen time, so perhaps it’s time you did some monitoring yourself! (Get it? Monitor = Screen?) Set yourself a realistic daily screen time and then track it throughout the day. It’ll take a while to adjust but once you get used to it, it’ll be much less effort.
* to the tune of Scream!
How Do You Sleep?
Singer Sam Smith probably didn’t intend for their song to have this meaning, but how do you sleep? Charge your phone overnight far away from your bed! This has multiple benefits – it gives you better sleep with less screen time before you hit the sack, it means that you don’t wake up and check your social media immediately, and if you use your phone as an alarm, you have to get out of bed to press the snooze button. #winning
Watch Out
It’s not enough to just say that you want to have a more balanced life, you need to track your progress. Why not keep a daily journal about how your detox is going? Best thing is, you can just get a small notebook for this – that’s one less app on your phone and it gets you used to doing things offline too. Keeping track of your behaviour gives you data to watch out for so that you improve your life and yourself!
