8 Actionable Tips for Healthy Social Media Use

Hey you 🙂 

 

Welcome. I’m so happy you’re here, and so excited to help you discover and engage in media habits that support your sense of purpose and peace in the digital age.

 

I created today’s post with you in mind. There’s a very good chance that you ventured over to Screenspire after engaging with my content on social media. 

 

So let’s do a quick thought exercise together. Think back to the last time you used a social media platform. 

 

• What did you experience there? 

• How did you end up experiencing that? 

• How did these experiences make you feel? (I need you to really focus on the answer to this prompt)

 

Take 20 seconds. Then, bring yourself back.

 

If you’re like most people, the feelings that came up for you during this exercise were mixed. Maybe there was some joy and excitement with a tinge of anxiety and frustration. Maybe you encountered something heart-wrenching in your feed and then scrolled down to find something that made you laugh. Far too often, we spend time using social media in ways that influence our thoughts and emotions, but we fail to reflect on and recognize this impact. The undetected emotional changes that we experience during and after social media use can influence our thoughts, behaviours, motivation, social interactions, self-esteem, and so much more. 

 

Our experiences on social media can transform the rhythms of our entire day, and determine how much energy we feel we can devote to things that matter to us. 

 

This is why pursuing social media use habits that support our well-being is so important. In this post, written for all users of social media, I outline 8 research-informed strategies for using social media in ways that support our well-being. 

 

Overtime, implementing these small changes will amplify the amount of value you’re getting from social media, and reduce our experiences with social media habits that compromise our well-being.

 

 

 

Category #1: Social Media and Self-Esteem 

1. Find (and Honour) Your Own Definition of Success.

What do success, adulting, beauty, health, and happiness all have in common?

 

They’re all things that we all define and experience in completely unique ways. Our definitions of success, adulting, beauty, health, and happiness are influenced by things such as: our life experiences, our values, and the cultural beliefs we align with. Yet, they’re also things that have very rigid, specific social norms attached to them.

 

For example, our society defines success as getting a “good” degree (usually in STEM, law, or business), working in a high-status position (or at a well-known company), and amassing extreme wealth or fame. But what if your passion is art? What if you’d prefer to engage in non-profit work instead of settling down at a single company?

 

Our society defines “adulting” as (among other things) living on your own and having a car. But what if you’re from a culture in which multigenerational households are the norm? What if you’re lucky enough to not need a car, because you live in a city with excellent transit?

 

For a long time, Western beauty standards have excluded people from certain racial groups, people with disabilities, people who aren’t skinny or muscular, people with non-European facial features, and people with darker skin tones.

 

Can you see the problem here? It’s impossible to define an ideal standard of living and being when all of us have fully valid experiences and identities that diverge from the norm. 

 

Unfortunately, a quick glance on most social media platforms reveals that even today, certain identities, appearances, and experiences are uplifted as being “ideal” while others are misrepresented or completely absent. Standards and norms can impact our self-esteems and feelings of motivation when we encounter them uncritically. 

 

To ensure that you’re staying true to yourself, I encourage you to find virtual communities of people who share your experiences, interests, and identities. By being thoughtful about who you follow and what you engage with, you’ll cultivate a content feed that makes you feel proud of who you are, while learning about others’ experiences.

 

2 Surround Yourself with Encouraging Messages.

Surrounding yourself with uplifting messages before, during, and after using social media use can boost your mood. 

 

I learned this technique from one of my mentors during a chat about healthy social media use. She told me that whenever she uses social media, she places sticky notes with positive messages about herself on her computer so that she can see them.

 

My favourite approach is listening to motivational videos and podcasts when I use social media. What can you do to ground yourself in purpose and encouragement as you engage with social media? Creating an environment of empowerment for yourself as you use social media can bring us back to what matters, and separate us from the social comparison impulse that social media generates. 

 

 

Category #2: Social Media and Social Connections

3. Engage in Active Social Media Use. 

When we post status updates, share links, or comment on friends’ posts, we’re engaging in active social media use, and using more of the skills we use when we speak with people in real life. Conversely, when we scroll through feeds, or spend all of our time just looking at others’ posts without reacting, we’re engaging in passive social media use.

 

 

Research shows us that when we engage in passive social media use, we’re more likely to have lower emotional well-being overtime. Unhelpful feelings like envy and FOMO tend to thrive when we scroll without clicking, commenting, or posting (Tandon et al., 2021; Verduyn et al., 2015). 

 

 

4, Remember your Purpose.

Some research shows that when we have a larger sense of purpose in our lives (for example, a set of goals we’d like to achieve or a strong sense of our values), our self-worth isn’t as easily impacted by the number of “likes” or comments we get on a post (Burrow and Rainone, 2017).

 

This happens because when we have a larger sense of purpose, we can remember our larger goals when using social media, and remind ourselves that our worth is not reflected in the number of “likes” or comments we get.

 

When using social media, keep your goals and values close to you. You can do this by:

 

• Having your goals written down and keeping them in front of you as you use social media.
• Keeping photos or drawings that reflect your values, dreams, goals, and other things that are important to you nearby.

Keeping your values and dreams at the top of your mind will remind you that your greatest rewards are found in the personal growth you achieve and the impact you make; not in the number of people who engage with your content.  

 

5. Check on Individual Friends Instead of Viewing Your General Feed.

When you log on to Instagram, Snapchat, or Linkedin, do you immediately start scrolling through your feed, or do you look up a specific friend or brand page? 

 

Social media companies determine the types of content to show in a user’s feed based on their likes, browsing habits, and previous accounts they’ve engaged with. While this is great for ensuring that we get relevant content, it also means that if we’ve spent a long time viewing posts that aren’t energizing us, they may appear in our feed.

 

If you want to stay up-to-date on what your friends and favourite brands are doing without encountering content that drains you, try switching up your social media routine: instead of entering a general site (or entering a social media site through the app), try looking for a specific friend or brand profile through a general internet search, and begin using the site from there. Save the profiles and pages you enjoy engaging with on each social media site to your ‘Favourites’ list so that you can easily access them.

 

By doing this, you’ll avoid seeing things that could potentially sap your energy or serve as triggers for you. 

 

Category #3: Social Media and Emotional Wellness

6. Follow Energizing Accounts.

The messages we see online shape our thoughts, beliefs, preferences, and actions. These messages include photos, ads, captions, videos, and so much more. 

 

Think about your social media use: what are the messages and images you tend to get from the sites you visit everyday? 

 

Are they lifting you up, or bogging you down?

 

Are you seeing people who challenge you to be your best, laugh, and enjoy life? Or, are you seeing people who (perhaps unintentionally) zap your joy away? 

 

I believe that each and every one of us has the ability to make a profound impact on the world through our dreams and hard work. However, the difference between crystalizing a dream into a plan that you’ll act on and having a dream that dies out, is having a consistent supply of supportive messages and narratives that push you forward. People and stories that amplify your self-belief can motivate you to do some amazing things. 

 

 

I encourage you to find accounts with positive quotes and uplifting people who energize you to run towards your dreams. They can be your safe energy charging stations as you navigate the online world.

 

7. Know Your Triggers.

According to the APA (American Psychological Association), a trigger is something that causes a reaction. In the case of social media, a trigger could be a certain kind of post that brings up bad memories, or a photo that causes you to have self-doubt. 

 

I believe that engaging in healthy social media use requires us to become familiar about our online triggers. If you’re feeling up to it, take a moment to do this exercise  with me and reflect on  some of your triggers:

• What kinds of content make you upset?
•  What kinds of content make you feel lonely?
• What kinds of content make you feel as though you’re “not enough” (e.g., behind in life, unlovable)?

Breathe. We all have triggers like these. 

 

• Now think: are you following any accounts or people who constantly bring these triggers up? 

If the answer is yes, consider unfollowing or muting these accounts or people.

(Note: if you’re not familiar with the concept of muting: muting someone on social media is a way of removing their posts and Stories from your feed, while allowing you to stay connected to them. When you mute someone, they aren’t alerted about it, and they can still see your posts).

 

Category #4: Fitting Social Media into Real Life

 

8. Spend Time Away from Social Media

 

When we spend hours upon hours on social media, getting information about friends, news stories, local events, new products, and everything else under the sun, we’re at a greater risk of experiencing information overload. According to research, this overload can lead to social media burnout, which can make us less motivated, more likely to have negative attitudes about ourselves and others, and less effective in tasks requiring effort (Liu and Ma, 2020). 

 

Taking time to live life offline can give us the space we need to truly relax, spend time with others, and experience the world at our own pace. 

 

There are so many ways to show up online these days. By implementing the strategies I’ve shared with you, you can ensure that no matter how you show up, you’re doing so in a way that supports your well-being in a holistic sense.