9. Breaking up with social media

Breaking up with social media

by Digital PlaySocial Media

In a recent Telegraph article, the claim was made that ‘many are choosing to walk away altogether’ from social media. Breaking away from social platforms being compared directly to the all-consuming nature of a relationship. 

Individuals, celebrities, sports personalities and even businesses (such as Lush) seem to be ditching social media and finding alternative ways to engage with others. Some, such as Cal Newport (associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University), has famously never set up a social media account and still achieved substantial recognition. He is a strong advocate of a less distracted lifestyle – both for home and work. You can read more about his philosophy and work here. 

Anecdotally, we know that social media can be a time-waster and can keep us for a lot longer than we originally intended. In his book ‘Hooked’, Nir Eyal takes us through how social media tech giants design apps and social media to keep us hooked, and how they make their money.

We also know that our attention and focus are being undermined through social media scrolling. We all enjoy being entertained and TikTok videos and being nosy about what others are up to is a great distraction from other, more difficult, activities. Johann Hari, in his book ‘Stolen Focus’, highlights how our attention and focus have been undermined by some technology use. 

But, what are the advantages of using Social Media? We do need to maintain a balanced perspective of these platforms while understanding the lurking ‘dangers’ they may lure us into. Like any other potentially addictive substance or activity, technology and the apps that they support are not in and of themselves bad. It’s what we do with them and how we use them that determines their overall impact on our daily lives.

Some of the advantages of social media are:

  • It helps us be connected with others who are geographically disconnected from us
  • Conversations and connections can be seamless between offline and online engagement
  • Scrolling through our own feed reminds us of the good things in our lives – friends, family, days/nights out, holidays, pets, etc – which has shown to boost our overall mood and self-esteem
  • For some, experimenting with different personal styles and outlooks can help to shape an individual identity without too much social retribution
  • For some, finding others with similar interests and hobbies can be a great way to build their skills and knowledge – especially when it is quite specialist
  • For those who aren’t able to leave their homes, it can become a connection to the outside world

Viewing social media in the same way we engage with anything else that may have potential addictive qualities may be a bit more of a helpful approach to social media use. 

For some, social media can become very addictive, for others it’s a great tool to build friendships or a business, for others it’s become a real burden.

If you are struggling with ways to unshackle yourself from social media use. There are a few things you can do:

  • Keep social media scrolling to set times each day & set an alarm to alert you to when you need to stop
  • Try switching off your phone and leaving it in a draw or bag for an evening and/or one day a week
  • You could try putting your wifi on a timer, so it switches off at a specific time each night
  • Remove social media apps entirely from your phone
  • You could always just completely delete the social media profiles that you find are either too distracting or not being used. 

Whatever you decide to do with your social media profiles, do it intentionally. Just accepting whatever the tech giants hand over to you is for their benefit, rather than yours. 

‘If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product’. 

If you are unable to access the original Telegraph article, for reference, you can view a PDF of that article here. 

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Screen vs Social Media Time

There is a difference between screen time and social media time

by Social Media

CyberPsychologists, in general, have a both-and perspective on technology use. They refer to it as the ‘Goldilocks Hypothesis‘. This hypothesis surmises that there is a balance of ‘just the right amount’ of tech use, rather than the ‘too little’ or ‘too much’ tech use debate. There is, of course, another element to consider: the individual i.e. ‘What’, ‘How’ and ‘Why’ they are using the technology, and the accompanying impact or empowerment on that individual. The what-how-why framework, developed by Dr Linda Kaye, showcases that not every minute spent using technology has the same impact on everyone.

A recent article in The Washington Post, has helped to highlight that there is a difference between ‘screen time’ (terminology parents often use) and ‘social media time’ (which is what is often measured when referring to smartphone use and teen mental wellness – a rather ‘hot topic’ for many within mass media). In general, there is a correlation between extensive social media use and teens mental health – especially amongst girls. Although this is a worthy debate to be had, the media (and potentially a lot of researchers) seem to have forgotten that spending excessive amounts of time on social media has mental health implications for adults too.

As working adults, we do need to become better at distinguishing between how much time is spent online versus how much time is spent on social media. We also need to become more conscienscious of how the time spent engaging online is taking us away from other activities (known as ‘displacement theory’) that may help to boost our mental wellness – such as time spent in productive work, spending in-person time with families, friends and others in our community, as well as time spent outside or engaging in hobbies, reading, charity work, etc.

Social media companies use the time we spend on social media to make money and they know how to keep us spending a lot of time on their channels. Someone recently said (when referring to smartphone apps) that either we pay for a product, or we are the product.

In light of that, we need to become more conscious of how we view ourselves when we do feel we’ve ‘wasted’ time on social media. We need to stop berating ourselves around ‘wasting scrolling time’. We are agents of our own time choices and can make better choices going forward. A few suggestions:

* Turn off push notifications – helping to reduce a tendancy to slip into periods of mindless scrolling.

* Set aside dedicated ‘social media time’ each day that you can rack-up to ‘guilt free’ scrolling time.

* Reach out to others in your closer network via messenger or a phone call.

* If you have children in your household, have conversations around screen-time, social media time, the boundaries, the benefits and the implications and negotiate an agreed ‘healthy’ amount of time spent on their phone/apps.

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