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Social media is hit and miss – sometimes it makes you happy from laughter, other times you experience FOMO and play the comparison game.
Have you ever considered limiting your time on social media and the potential benefits?
Keep reading to understand not only how social media is affecting our mental health, but also 4 actionable ways to limit social media to improve your mental wellbeing and happiness.
How is social media really affecting our mental health?
Are all social media apps to blame?
Before you delete every single social media app on your phone, it might not be all of them that are causing harm.
A study shows users of YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat reported more body image concerns and eating pathology than non-users.
It’s important to become aware of your habits on each app and notice which ones are doing the least disservice to you.1
Is it the way we use it?
Are you a passive or active user?
A study has shown that passive usage (reading posts) is more strongly associated with depression than active usage (making posts).
This doesn’t meant to say you should start spamming everyone about your life, but instead being conscious of where you sit on that scale.2
Is it when we use it?
How often when you are upset do you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through social media?
A study has shown that we resort to social media when we are dealing with difficult emotions, and if in a negative state we are then more susceptible to compare, feel jealously and bitterness.
How to limit your time on social media
Learning how to limit your time on social media means unwiring existing habits and rewiring newer and healthier ones. It’s not going to be easy, but if you want to rid yourself of FOMO, anger, bitterness and improve your mental wellbeing then it’s essential for you to learn.
Set app limits – In iPhones settings there is the option to look at your screen time and through that set app limits, so you only go on certain apps for x minutes a day.
When you turn this on you can choose which apps you want the limits on. When you run out of time to go on the app within that day, a pop up appears to tell you that you have no time left, it does give you the option to ignore that message but you’ll be much more mindful now with the limit on.
Measure your time – Another great iPhone feature shows you your daily activity on different apps. It might surprise you how much or how little you’re spending on them.
Decide how much time you’d like to dedicate to social sites per week and work towards that goal.
Disable notifications – Notifications have crept into our laptops as well as our phones now, it almost seems like we can’t get away from the constant alerts.
Disabling notifications can stop the distraction which comes from notifications.
Did you know, when you’re interrupted it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back on track?4
Now think about how many times you receive a notification and get distracted and the quality of work that is leading to.
Use browser extensions – Away from your phone, you might scroll through Facebook or Twitter on your laptop frequently.
There are free browser extensions to temporarily block sites so you can focus on the tasks you want. Check out Strict Workflow for Chrome.
5 benefits to reduce time on social media
- Increase in productivity and time
- Improve self-perspective
- Improve your mood
- Improve sleep
- Avoid FOMO
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Final thoughts
To summarise, be mindful of what apps you use and your mental state when you use them and implement some of these tricks to reducing your time on social media. You don’t have to go cold-turkey on them all, just become more conscious of how long you’re spending on them and if you really need to be on it.
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.22936
- https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(19)30763-3/fulltext
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563219303061
- http://blog.idonethis.com/distractions-at-work/#:~:text=It%20takes%20an%20average%20of,Multiple%20studies%20confirm%20this
There were days I found myself scrolling hours in Tik Tok. It’s frustrating when you think about it. Social media steals your time in which you be so productive and do something you love or invest in your future. Thank you for the great article 🙂
It’s so easily done! Social media is designed to keep us on the app for as long as possible, it takes so much discipline to come off. But it’s definitely worth it, as you say, there’s more time for things you love!
Social media is highly addictive. Facebook or Instagram are the worst of me, as they take too much time away from another thing I should be doing. Thank you for a great reminder. Great read. ☺️
I am working on getting better with this. I will keep your tips in mind. For me, I’d rather read so I’ll put down my phone to pick up a book!
OH Man.. so needed. I feel like I often get sucked in and wonder “where did the time go”. I need to start limiting myself with a timer for sure.
This seems to be the struggle for everyone of all ages. My excuse is that social media is part of my influence career, but I can always look for ways to tone it down, thanks for the reminder!
I mostly scroll at night when I am too tired to do anything else. It sure can be a time waster.
Love the topic that, it’s struggle for kids and adults these days, it has become more with the present situations..
Are you a passive or active user? When it comes to Pinterest I’m definitely too passive of a user. I’m taking a step back from Pinterest for a little while and I’m going to focus more on providing content to Pinterest rather than pinning other content. I read somewhere that the Pinterest algorithm penalizes you if the pins doesn’t point to your site so that’s my rationale for not contributing other’s pins to my boards. Scott | PinArtwork
That’s interesting to hear! Let’s see if this makes a difference to your Pinterest. I was a passive user but on Instagram, it’s something that I’ve been working on and I give myself 1hr a day to just scroll (I aim to bring that down more yet, but I want to keep it realistic so I don’t set my self up to fail).
i dont even care about fomo anymore
I wish I could limit my time, but since it’s my job, it’s difficult to do.
I definitely need to limit myself. I waste so much time mindlessly scrolling. I know we all do it but why? Why is it so addicting? My husband got rid of facebook and he said it’s been so good for him.
I wish there was a rationale to it! But that’s brilliant – well done to your husband!
This post is really informative, thanks for providing these awesome tips.
Since become an adult and over the years of using social media. I started unfollowed and taking breaks from social media. It’s good to have time away from it and to stop comparing your life to other persons life.
I couldn’t agree more!
I take regular social media breaks. It’s so refreshing to not be glued to my phone all the time!
My 20 something son deleted all his social media from his phone because he felt like it was keeping from doing the things he wanted to do. He still has his accounts and check them via his laptop, but he rarely does. It seems like a great choice for him.
Oh that’s brilliant to hear! Well done to him!
I really want to reduce my time with social media. Most of the time, when I get home from work, it’s the time I will switch off the wifi on my phone. Thanks for the tips!
It is so eeasy to get lost on social media. You pop on to check something and half an hour later your watching funny videos and goodness knows what else. Disabling notifications can help.
I have a 1 hour usage limit, after that i try to use it as less as i could. but it doesnt really work. thanks for your tips. will try them now!
Social media can hurt our productivity and even your mental health so thank you for these tips. We need to lessen our time on social media
I can’t believe how much time I waste on Facebook and Instagram. Its so easy to get lost of track and get distracted. Thanks for these tips
Plenty of people feel they get little value out of social media, including me and yet wecontinue to use it more than they would like. These are really some awesome tips
Very informative! I don’t spend a lot of my time on social media but I can relate to these because I try to be mindful of using social media. Thank you for sharing!
It is so easy to get lost in social media without even realising, these tips are really helpful reminders for us or our kids!
Deleting accounts would do wonders, but we need them for blogging purposes. A bit of a vicious cycle:(
This is a really Great and very informative post I will surely take note of this for my kids
These are some very belpful tips on reducing screen time, I have timed and disabled notifications, so much better
That’s great to hear – it makes such a difference!
For the last 2 years, I have limited my social media and blog time. It really helps me focus more. Less pressure too!
I’ve always been planning to do this but I really don’t know what’s with the social media that seems so irresistible lol thanks for these suggestions
This is such a helpful post! I believe that it’s so important to be conscious of how often we’re using social media and how it impacts our mental health. I recently started tracking how often I used Instagram and I was shocked at all of the time I wasted there with no real benefits.
I definitely like to detox from social media. It is good to make a point of reducing screen time, even for us adults!
Yes some time detox from social media. It can affect mental health.
I really need to work on this. I absolutely hate getting that weekly screen report. It’s so embarrassing, lol!
I really need to be better about this!
Love these tips. It’s so hard to do but creating a limit for the amount of time daily is key!
Thank you so much for the tips. I needed them a lot a lot as an extreme social media addictive